Keeping Focused: Marketing Your Site During a Tough Tourist Economy
In the current competitive climate, tourism-dependant businesses in Coastal Maine are looking for every possible edge to set themselves above their competition. The internet has quickly become the ubiquitous marketing venue for tourism and travel, and our local businesses have jumped into this venue with both feet forward. For several years, search engine marketing firms have sold pay-per-click, link farms, and meta-tags as the must-do's for increasing web visibility. Tactics such as tag-stuffing, hiding keyword instances, or creating unintelligible site content in order to trigger higher pageranking have served to increase traffic for some, but have severely decreased the quality of search results for the consumer. Over time, vanguards in the industry have come to understand that it is the searcher whose needs should be the focus, not the business that wants desperately to be found. The increasingly jaded public, through such daily delights as spam and pop-up ads, has learned quickly to dismiss businesses that force themselves on them. I know from my own search experience that I tend to ignore both sponsored ads and even the highest ranked search results if the description looks or smells anything like either a paid placement or a keyword-jammed "information portal". Now don't get me wrong, all of these sights get tons of traffic, but that's not my point. My point is that consumers are becoming more hip to the game, and the trust that is necessary to produce a financial transaction with them can be severely inhibited through seemingly disingenuous marketing techniques. Companies like Google have pivoted left and right to shake the rigging of search results. Their mission has re-focused lately , and they are developing brilliant techniques to make sure their users are delivered PERTINENT search results. They still generate revenue from paid advertisers, thats true, but look where they put the ads. They are clearly seperated from the search results, and are clearly labeled 'sponsored links'. As a matter of fact, the majority of these links are placed in the right column of the page, a veritable no-man's land for browsers, according to eye-tracking studies. Anyhow the important thing to keep in mind is that, rather than trying to 'beat the system", businesses
would be better served if they moved toward creating the pertinent site search engines are trying to return to their users. Instead of jamming tags and buying links, businesses should be making sure their sites are chock full of good, pertinent content. If you own a gas station, your website should strive to be the end-all, be-all location for gas related information in your area. Not only will the mass of content help the search engines find you and rank you higher, but visitors will be happier, more satisfied, and consider you the expert in your field. Others will link to you as an expert, and this is probably the most effective single way to increase traffic to your site. Lance Dutson runs Maine Coast Design, an internet design and marketing firm catering to tourist-oriented businesses on the coast of Maine. http://www.mainecoastdesign.com
|
|
 |
 |
Poker For Free, Internet's Number One in Free Poker, Launches a Free Poker Leader Board
Poker For Free officially announces the launch of their poker leader board, one of the innovative ideas worked out specially for their loyal Poker Club members.
Aspen Achievement Academy Introduces Live Online Parenting Classes
Outdoor program aims to further assist parents and families.
New Website Creates Community, Opportunity for Small Business: The free online site Briz.com provides exposure and networking
opportunities. It al
Small businesses now have a new powerful ally on the Internet with the launch of Briz.com, the first Web site that creates local communities and opportunities for small business owners. And it's free.
Drexel Online Offers Tuition Reduction to Military Members, Spouses and Immediate Family
Drexel University Online, winner of the 2006 21st Century Best Practice Award for Distance Learning from the U.S. Distance Learning Association, will offer a 10 to 30 percent tuition reduction on online graduate, undergraduate and certificate programs to all U.S. military members, their spouses and immediate family.
Finding Profitable Products For Your Online Business
Emerging entrepreneurs from around the globe would like to try their hand on online marketing. Where to start and what to sell are the first stumbling blocks for these aspiring entrepreneurs.
All Ballots - a Political Networking Site Connecting Politicians and Voters
All Ballots is an exciting new website which allows voters to communicate directly with their representatives. Additionally, the site strives to inform voters while giving them their own platform to discuss views and issues.
Professional SEO Specialist: A Key to Your Internet Success
The World Wide Web has made a huge impact on our lives and it can make a vast difference to the performance of any business. Whatever the industry, the Internet provides tremendous opportunities for any business.
Webjam Launches One-Click Website Creation, an Innovative Feature Aimed at Local Communities, Fan Clubs and Non-Profits
European Internet start-up Webjam (http://www.webjam.com) lets users start an online community in one click, enabling communities such as fan clubs, residents associations or hobby groups to quickly get a relevant online presence. By entering a single keyword, a user can aggregate the best of the web in one click and immediately start building a community around it.
NewBandTV.com Announces World Wide Launch of Online Music Channel
NewBandTV.com announces world wide launch of new online music channel. Streaming high quality music videos and related exclusive content 24 hours a day from bands like Atreyu, The Streets, Placebo, Bright Eyes, Bloc Party, Circa Survive and many more.
How Point of sale software will automate your online business
Modern day businesses need modern day solutions especially when selecting pos software. A pos system nowadays is possibly the most important IT requirement of todays retail businesses and will be for the foreseeable future. The immediate receipt of money, electronic or otherwise as well as the tracking of inventory and the immediate updating of inventory is a must for any business in todays world. Having a pos system against not having one will form a large part in making the difference between profit and lost, success or failure.
AdMonsters and Vio Launch Online Creative Portal to Speed Internet Ad Operations
AdMonsters and Vio Worldwide Limited today announced the Online Creative Portal (OCP), a service for digital agencies and online publishers. OCP will allow publishers to post their advertising specifications in a global database so that ad agencies can perform real time creative planning, testing, and submission. This service aims to reduce the cost of planning and delivering Internet advertising campaigns.
Using Your Online Presence to Drive Offline Sales from Your Customer Base and Beyond, Part 2
In the last article in this series, I talked about a few basic ways to drive in-store sales by using your online presence. In this, the last installment of the series on this topic, Im going to cover some more in-depth strategies to boost sales at your brick-and-mortar location.
Responsible pet breeding website not puppy mill profits.
Breeding is not a profitable venture for the ?get rich quick? crowd - a great deal of expense is incurred weeks before any money comes in from the sale of animals.
|
 |
|
