10 Things from 2010 that May Shape Your 2011

A compendium of random stats I’ve found interesting from 2010

It’s that time of year again, where people are in full swing of 2011 planning so I thought what better time to share a few of the takeaways from 2010 news and views that may well rock your 2011 world.

I normally write a more typical search business column, but this time around as I’ve been in 2010 review and 2011 planning mode recently, I thought I’d pull together a quick and random compendium of industry-level tid bits that give those trend munchers and stat lovers their daily fix.

So for instance, did you know that Internet World Stats states that of the 82.5% internet penetration in the UK – almost a 3% increase in a year?!   Bigger than that for ecommerce though is that a touch over 67% of the UK population is now thought to be persistent buying goods online.  Anyway, with such a great deal of this growth being driven by social, let’s kick things off there shall we…

Social Consumption

The consumption of social media is on the rise, we all know that, but did you know it now dominates 25% of time spent online according to Nielsen?

Interestingly, Hitwise suggests 13% growth in retailer’s traffic from social media year on year highlighting the importance of word-of-mouth and the optimisation of search and social media assets with such purpose.

Increasing monetisation of social media such as Twitter is also an area to keep an eye on, knowing the interest of clients in this area.

Businesses need to be aware of how forms of social media communication are informing business communications too…

The Bingoo Search Alliance

The Yabinghoo search alliance will deliver an aggregated 154 searchers in the USA alone!  The UK will not see anywhere near this sort of scale of searching with less than 6.5% market share of search volume being seen consistently across 2010 – even with Bing’s above-the-line presence…

Beyond Bing powering Yahoo’s search results and Site Explorer changes, there is little more that can affect SEOs in the UK but it’s more apparent changes are likely to be seen across PPC.  Regardless, it’s certainly one to watch – maybe two search minds will be better than one…?

Real-time, social Google and personalisation

It’s not too clear how Google is going to be pulling more real time functionality in to its search result, but it’s very likely.  Eric Schmidt has already admitted to adding more social media layers to its search results as opposed to all out social media platform creation and promotion – focussing mostly on search quality through social personalisation.  An example of Bing doing something similar can be seen in the strategic partnership with Facebook.

Mobile Search

The increasing impact and growth of smart phones is naturally hugely important for those online marketers that work with mobile search, and a 96% growth in smartphone purchases isn’t to be smirked at.  And with Google absolutely kicking competitor’s proverbial behinds at mobile search (with an incredible 98%) it gives us good cause to watch that little bit of digital space flourish over the coming months and years. The UK is leading the adoption of mobile search with 70% growth.

Growth of mobile search is at such a rate, than retailers are believed to be struggling to keep up!

Interestingly too, the mobile app economy, is in part, being driven in part by word-of-mouth – at almost 40% – reminding us of the importance of conversation driving so much demand online.

Online Video

More increase is seen across video too, with ComScore reporting a 37% increase year on year.  And with YouTube holding a dominant share in visibility can we safely say that we’ll see this continue into 2011?

And with UKOM/Nielsen reporting that of the 17.4m users in May, the average time spent on the site over month was 53 minutes, or 1 hour in the USA – far short of the 7 hours on Facebook:

Increasing Infiltration of The Google

With the ever growing reach of Google through the Google OS and Google TV are we going to see Google extend its advertising reach beyond more traditional forms of search?  Google quite clearly is working towards dominating those channels that influence such a large part of our media consumption.

Advertising

It’s great to see the online advertising sector performing so well as transparent return on investment and increasing time being spent on online properties.

The growth in display year-on-year is in part recovery but also due to an increasing sophistication, now seeing 34% growth since 2009 forQ3 – with Facebook drawing the most impressions of course.

Content paywalls

You could quite easily regard the decision of The Times and The Sunday Times to put up a paywall around their content as a flop, but maybe they are the trail blazers in attributing value to content.  For me it’s not a business model that is working well for them in the short-term but who knows what the world wide web’s trends and New International have in store to make or break this idea.

Maturing SEO Tools

Highlighting a few tools isn’t a logical step in this post but I just wanted to do it in order to give a nod to those companies where there have been such impressive steps in their maturity.  Increasing investment in tools that act as a window to indicative / sample data should be encouraged, so here’s a hat tip to Majestic SEO, Linkscape, Eight Fold Logic, SEM Rush and Dart Natural Search.

Economic Buoyancy

We’re in turbulent economic times, so keeping an eye on economic news might help you to feel more at easemacro level and search industry level are shaping up. with how things at a

Online as a research tool – the finance sector is often used as a benchmark for economic activity and with an estimated 10 million UK consumers seeking financial services / products online, with 15 minutes on average being spent on each site – a huge feat!

The Wrap Up

I think this just about does it.   In all honesty this list is kind of endless, but hopefully it reminds you of a couple of developments in the industry and how things are shaping up for 2011.

I’d be interested to hear what’s high on your agenda from 2010 moving in to 2011, so please feel free to share…!

Timing is EVERYTHING in Online Marketing

There are three main factors dealing with time and online marketing and each one is critical to successful online marketing campaigns:

Time Management

When I ask most people why they are not using social media more, most answer that they do not have the time.   On the other hand, many complain about how much time is wasted online using these channels. Most poorly performing online marketing campaigns; whether social media, online marketing or PPC advertising; seem to be failing because the manager has either put very little time into planning the campaign, or has spent a lot of time setting up a campaign and getting it started but has then left it to ‘flounder’.

Establish a schedule of when you (or those in your company working on your online marketing campaigns) will work on online marketing activities on a day to day basis and for the longer term: week to week, month to month and for the future.   Making a commitment to such a schedule will:

• ensure that your campaigns are well planned out, with all of your online (and offline) marketing activities working together and inline with the other activities of your business – and, more importantly, inline with the activities/needs of your prospects;
  
• make it more likely that you keep your campaigns up to date;
• bring better results from consistent efforts over the long term rather than sporadic activities here and there;
• reduce the amount of time wasted on poorly timed activities.

Example of a 12 Month Plan for long term planning:

Click to download a blank form for your planning your 2011 campaign (pdf)

Be in the Right Place at the Right Time

One of the main issues Twitter users have is getting people to follow links posted and getting those posts retweeted.  Often posts on social media channels go unnoticed because they are badly timed, whether posted at a time when your key connections are offline or when there is such heavy activity on the channel that your posts are pretty much lost.  I first started looking into timing when working on improving open rates of email marketing campaigns. Like your social media efforts, an email newsletter delivered at the wrong time is more likely to end up lost amongst a number of spam messages.

Identify the best time for your online marketing activities. In my post “Get Focused for a More Effective Online Marketing Campaign” I discuss the importance of thoroughly identifying your target market, which includes determining when they are likely to be online so that you can ensure that you are active at those times.

• When are your key followers on Twitter, Facebook, etc.? Post your updates during these times. Use a social media app where you can schedule posts, like Hootsuite so that you can post at the right time, even if it is inconvenient for you to be online at that time. Make it a point to be online during some of this time so that you can properly interact with your connections at the best times.

• When are those on your email marketing list most likely to be checking their Inboxes? Schedule your email marketing campaigns to be delivered at these times.  If you aren’t sure what time is best for your market, divide the list and send at different times and see which have the best result.
  
• When is your audience most likely to be using search engines? Schedule your PPC ads to be shown at these times to improve your ROI.

Time is Money – so treat it that way

As it is free to participate in most social media networks, and it’s become easier and easier to manage your own email marketing and PPC campaigns, many business owners forget the real cost – the cost of your own time to manage your campaign. It’s important to carefully monitor the amount of time that you are spending in all of your social media marketing activities and compare to the results you are achieving by looking at your analytics.

If you are not getting a sufficient return on the time spent, then you need to review all of the activities and see where you can improve. A few common concerns:

• Are there certain social media channels that are bringing no return and may be best to leave out of your campaign?
• Are you spending too much time interacting with ‘friends’ on social media channels, but not getting to speak to decision makers?
• Do you need to spend more time writing articles for the site, because once a month is not enough?
• Would you get a better ROI to hire a professional to manage your PPC campaign?

At time is such a valuable commodity, use it wisely – plan, observe, review – and see the great return you get from your online marketing activities.

Local Business Listing Wars

Have you noticed the number of commercials being run by high-profile tier one companies and websites that are in the local listing industry?

For example you may have seen TV commercials for Angie’s List, SuperMedia, Yellow Book, and of course AT&T.  If you add Internet advertising that includes but not limited to Google, Yahoo, Bing, Merchant Circle, Yelp and Citysearch many others, you have to start wondering how all these websites can attract a finite number of businesses and visitors to use their website.  The other more significant question is how a business will manage their local business listing at all the local listing websites?


History of Local Business Listings


As a business, if you have not kept up with the evolution of local business listings you will need a quick primer to know where things started and where things are today.

The origins go back to the early 1990s when search engines had directories listing businesses by categories in addition to their basic search results.  These basic business listings gave way to business directories giving the business the opportunity to add more information to their business.  Of course, while this evolution was taking place so did having the yellow pages on the web.  Business directories then gave way to the idea of rating a business with companies like Angie’s List, Merchant Circle and Yelp in social communities.  In 2007 business listings began showing up in search engines and consumer reviews were already showing up in these local business listings.

So, in summary, a local business listing is a combination of yellow pages information, business description, business marketing information, consumer ratings and consumer reviews.

Local Business Listings as Interactive Yellow Pages

Calling these listings a business directory does not do them justice considering all the content that is available.  Not only is this about getting your business marketing information into these listings, but they also become mini-websites for your business and more importantly allow consumers to quantitatively rate and subjectively provide commentary about their experience with the business, products and services.

Local business listing websites that are social communities allow customers and consumers to collaborate.  We are distinguishing between customers being B2B and consumers being B2C.  We will discuss B2B customer comments in a future article.

Live social communities that provide location based services like Four Square, Twitter and Facebook create instantaneous feedback to friends, family and followers alike. This collaboration not only allows for ratings and comments, but the information is posted permanently.  This will require a business to ask satisfied customers to post commentary and manage those postings that are negative…..at multiple local listing websites.

Manage Your Local Business Listings Everywhere!

Unlike the traditional yellow pages where business information was located in a single source, the Internet lets business information be found everywhere. With so many sources, it becomes imperative for a business to stay on top of its information, description, marketing materials and consumer reviews at various local listing websites.

If you wonder why, the answer is simple.  Your business information shows up in search engine results, mobile search results and is available to mobile application developers for mobile apps.  Since you don’t know what source your local customers or mobile application developers are using, you need a way to manage many sources simultaneously.

Select a Company to Help

Whether we are talking about website local optimization, local business listings, mobile marketing or geo-social marketing, a business needs proper support to succeed in this new era of local business marketing.  You need a partner with experience and expertise in multiple digital marketing fields and can adapt to the progression of new technologies that will become available over the next few years.
Some key elements for a company to provide local business listing marketing services include:

• Claim your local listing at multiple local listing websites
• Providing both data and marketing services
• Update your basic business data information monthly
• Update and manage your business marketing information that include photos, videos, coupons, offers, discounts, and events monthly
• Consumer review monitoring and management monthly
• Analytics review of local business listings analytics and the appropriate changes to your local business listings monthly
• Expertise in Mapping Technologies and GPS
  

How a Fortune 1,000 Company Got 88,000 Facebook Fans in 4 Weeks, and Only Paid For Half of Them

My major focus the last three months has been Facebook advertising. I’ve been trying to figure out how to get awesome results with Facebook ads. It’s been a personal challenge, because I have more or less mastered Google AdWords and SEO, so I thought: I should be able to figure this out!

It’s been very challenging. Facebook ads are significantly different from AdWords. It’s not just search keywords vs. interests. And it’s not just about applying lessons from display advertising. The entire process is different. What works is completely different.
I’ve been fortunate to be able to get experience with about 10 different clients, from unknowns to affiliate offers to Fortune 500 brands. My results have improved by a factor of five. I’ve chatted and compared notes with a handful of the best in the Facebook advertising business.
But there is a guy who keeps getting dramatically better results than anyone I’ve heard of… Jeremy Koch of Pertnear down in Hilton Head, South Carolina. He regularly tortures me with screenshots of CPC’s below $0.10. So I thought I’d ask him a few questions about some of Pertnear’s Facebook marketing successes and see what we might be able to learn.

=> Case Study One: A Fortune 1,000 Company
This is a publicly traded specialty retailer.

BBC: You got 88,000 fans for them in four weeks?
Jeremy Koch: Yep, and we’ve done more than that for other clients.

BBC: Are you paying for all of these fans? What’s the friend-recommending component?
Jeremy Koch: About 50% of them have been viral. This is fairly typical, this number will grow with time.

BBC: So you’re only paying for half of these fans- whatever you get from ads, you get that much more for free.
Jeremy Koch: That’s right. It’s fun.

BBC: What is the key to getting such a high viral %?
Jeremy Koch: The key is identifying the people that truly are Fans of the brand or the good/service the brand provides.  If they truly love the brand they are very likely to interact on the page, which draws in their friends.

The Virtuous Cycle of Facebook Fan Growth

BBC: So what are you doing on the the fan page itself?
Jeremy Koch: People go to the fan page and they see all these awesome posts from people who love the niche as much as they do. We’ve turned it into a “Bragging Board”.

BBC: What does the client think about all this?
Jeremy Koch: If we can reach our goal of 500k within 3 months, I think they will be OK with that.
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Commentary:

• These ideas seem no-brainer, but successful Facebook Marketing always looks no-brainer in hindsight. If you get the right things to line up with simple compelling incentives, it works and it makes sense. It looks so simple that you realize the real art is fighting your way through complication to the most direct, easiest path for the prospect.
• On the flipside, it’s too easy to operate with no process, no plan and no principles and end up with mediocre results.
• Some of this is just good marketing practice, like “find people who are really qualified prospects”. Creative advertising has been choosing TV shows and magazines to target the right prospects for decades. But Facebook gives us direct quantifiable feedback about how qualified those prospects really were. If you get bacon-lovers to fan a fast food joint’s page, do they engage as much as the people who love hamburgers? The combination of creative and affinities in highly quantifiable direct marketing is new, and interesting. AdWords has been this way for search keywords and search intent, but attaching this process to interest-based marketing is new.
• I’ve seen Facebook ad campaigns without good page management strategy get 5% or less viral friending. To see 50% from Jeremy’s techniques just shows how your page management strategies can make a 100% difference in your results.

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How a Regional Vacation Rental Company Tripled Their Sales with Facebook Advertising
=> Case Study Two: Brindley Beach Vacations
Brindley Beach Vacations offers vacation rentals in the Outer Banks, a 200-mile long string of narrow barrier islands off the coast of North Carolina, beginning in the southeastern corner of Virginia Beach on the east coast of the United States.

BBC: How many fans did you get them?
Jeremy Koch: We started with 348 people on their page, we are now at over 12,000. They want to be at 20,000 by November 1st.  They already have more Fans than anyone we have been able to find in their industry.

BBC: How much business has this gotten them?
Jeremy Koch: Their reservations for June (the month we started) were triple their expectations. By July they told us to stop promoting summer reservations and work on the Fall.  They’ve had many days when their reservation staff reported almost everyone they talked to mentioned the Facebook page.

BBC: How are they doing compared to their competitors?
Jeremy Koch: That is an interesting question… Not only have they been doing well, but because they have been creating so much new business, it appears it has even spilled over into their competitors.  I think we have helped create a demand that may be surpassing the supply, at least for the peak seasons.

BBC: Is this helping them in their off season?
Jeremy Koch: They are seeing an increase in bookings for the shoulder seasons.  Facebook is a great avenue to subtly recommend coming in the shoulder seasons. We see people even planning additional trips.

BBC: How is Brindley feeling about the results?
Jeremy Koch: The owner of the company has given us permission to give his personal cell phone number out to prospective clients.

Discussion and Take Aways

BBC: Ok, well let’s talk about the HOW. What, that you’re willing to reveal, are you doing to get such remarkable results?
Jeremy Koch: We like the people we work with, we take the success of each client personally.  When we take on a new client we want to exceed their expectations… under promise and over deliver.  I know that is not what you were looking for… The real key to what we do is identifying the people and/or the target audience that already wants what our client is offering.  It becomes very expensive if you are trying to convert people who are unaware of your product or service.  Find the people that want what you have, then get them to make the introduction to their friends, even if they don’t realize they are making the introduction.

source from:searchenginejournal.com

All About Google Instant – Summary

Google launched ‘Google Instant’ last week with a much hyped press conference with live streaming video of the event on YouTube. Since then the social media buzz and the blogosphere have been invaded with tweets and posts about Google Instant.


Google claims that Google Instant makes the search experience more fast, fluid and fun.


The main components of Google Instant are :

• Predictions
• Instant Results
• Scroll To Search

Google suggests or predicts what the user might be searching depending on each character the user types in the search query box. The user can select what he is searching for by using the arrow keys and as the user makes the selection the search results keep on changing accordingly. The user does not need to hit the ‘Enter ‘ key.


What is important to note is the speed with which it all takes place. Its fast and really fast. Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search. Google claimed at the launch event that in just an hour that Google Instant has been up it has already saved 36,542 hours of our time. Well if time is money then it surely has added that much productivity potential also to every industry as search is a vital aspect for research and knowledge for each and every industry and this shall surely reduce a lot of disguised employment.


Marissa Mayer of Google who presented this concept stated that Google Instant isn’t search as you type, it’s search before you type. She even mentioned in an interview that Google Instant is to search what power steering is to a car and it surely helps people with slow typing speeds.


Google Instant has started rolling out to users on Google domains in the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Russia who use the following browsers: Chrome v5/6, Firefox v3, Safari v5 for Mac and Internet Explorer v8. Please note, users on domains other than Google.com can only access Google Instant if they are signed in to a Google Account. Google will continue to add new domains and languages over the next several months. Google Instant is not yet available on mobile, but Google plans to release it soon.


Google Instant is being referred as search at the speed of thought. But what has to be considered is the impact of this on the users, the search experience as a whole and the future trends in t he search and SEO industry as a result of this speed incorporated in the display of search suggestions and search results .
No doubt search is faster but due to the fact that the users are just using the arrow keys to select the predictions made the user starts focusing on the first few results and the inclination of scrolling down may decrease over a period of time as user starts searching for more queries rather than more searches per query. In a way it has a direct effect on the patience levels of the user.


Moreover, if the user is focusing on the first few results then Google needs to list more relevant results instead of results from Wikipedia or other verticals as when people search they want to know about companies offering the product or service they are searching for – locally or globally.


This should force Google to display quality results but, if this initial display slot gets occupied by PPC and especially the companies with high search marketing budgets then it shall affect the benefit derived by the SMEs due to organic search. As I mentioned that over a period of time the tendency to search for more by scrolling down the page and searching other pages may diminish.


But on the other hand considering the technological advancements in hardware also, it seems that this problem maybe soon be solved. As in the near future there is expected to be a huge shift to the mobile devices and if more and more people start using smart phones, IPads and other mobile devices for searching and surfing then the touch screen devices shall make the scrolling and searching for more easier and faster.
As regards the SEO industry Google instant has not affected the rankings. The basics of the search are the same. So for whatever terms your site has been ranking it continues to rank for them on those SERPs.
So the SEO scene is very much unaffected but Google Instant might just cause a temporary disturbance for the SEOs when all the clients start demanding to be in the first 3 positions. But, Understanding the changes in the search behavior, due to the introduction of Google Instant will need actual data that can be collected over a period of time. Hence we have to wait and watch to find out the actual impact.

source from:searchenginejournal.com

Sign-up for a Free 10 Week Internet Marketing Course from StayOnSearch

So Google rolls out Instant Search and there are screams and cries that SEO is Dead, but hello did anybody think about the impact on commercial side of search? The sponsored results or Google AdWords?
Being that paid results are taking up more and more of the space on Google’s results page, you need to start to think about how this might be changing people’s search behaviours, traffic patterns and potentially opening up new opportunities for your business via AdWords.


Plural Preferences?


There also seems to be an early preference for the use of plural version as the top suggested result but it doesn’t seem to be related to search volume as Google advises the Instant algorithm is built around. Compare the two keywords Hotels vs Hotel and you will see that even when the plural version has significantly less search volume.

Also looking at how the higher likely traffic impacts on Google Instant results show that the new algorithm gives preference to showing Hotels as the first suggested result. So if you are buying AdWords traffic on the exact phrase “Hotel” you might now be missing out on being showed as the users will likely pick the “Hotels” phrase as it is shown first.

SEO vs AdWords on Instant

It is likely that search optimisation projects will have to be having to spend a reasonable amount of time examining their existing projects and revising current link building plans as it can make or break the companies organic strategy depending on how they approach the idea of targeting the plural versus the singular version of their primary keyword.

You can see the impact of such a decision below to chose target Job rather than Jobs means that NY Job Source was showing #6 for the search term “Jobs” near the bottom of the page out of sight, looking for jobs just got easier for consumers but harder for business at least in organic results.

(Click to enlarge)

For AdWords campaign it might require just a few tweaks to split off a new campaign that seeks to target just the singular version or maybe start experimenting with broad match terms, no need to tweak or adjust backlink profile, so at a basic level AdWords will gain back its importance to a number of businesses now left out in the cold because of poor or little keyword research.

Google Instant Censorship?

There are early issues around self-censorship of Instant search terms that violate Google’s autocomplete policies where it shows a blank screen which requires the searchers to hit enter or click search to see the results. No big change from what they used to do, but it may change user’s behaviour to think they are getting no results so much be doing something wrong and should stop that train of thought.
I lost my focus during writing this post as a lot of people on Twitter & Facebook started calling the new platform a potential tool for censorship of particular industries not liked by Google. I wanted to see how this might affect well known darker verticals, so if you or your clients are into any industries like porn you don’t have to worry about optimising your organic or paid results for Google Instant results because you get the blank censored screen. But interesting if you operate in the following areas you need to rethink your strategies as Google Instant works for you with the suggestions in (brackets)

• Generic (Viagra, Yaz)
• Blackhat (seo, atm)
• Bit Torrent (for music, for movies, for books)
• People Smuggling (in mexico, into Australia)
• Anything illegal (illegal immigration, illegal drugs)
• Hacking Anything (hacking games, hacking Facebook, hacking Netflix)
• Selling Organs (for money, on the black market, on ebay)
• Payday loans (online, direct lender)
• Free (movies online, ringtones, credit report)
  
  

It seems that while Google has enabled Instant Search for a number of these verticals the difference between AdWords showing or not is based on how searches phrase the query by using or not using spacing. But if you are currently getting traffic around based around one or two key prases via AdWords you need to start to test what possible primary terms you should consider bidding on.


Google Instantly kills long tail traffic?


It seems that a number of sites that has typically benefited from either buying cheap long tail traffic or mistyped search queries via AdWords have the most to lose with the recent update. So example one of my sites based on information about medical problems that I had planned to focus around building quality content around long tail keywords now may likely struggle as Google refines how it suggests or filters out long tail keywords.

What happened to those Sponsored Links in suggestions?

Hopefully Google Instant will not see a return of Sponsored Links in the suggested results as this would be too much for anyone but the biggest advertisers to optimise and target effectively. It would likely also overwhelm the users who are already seeing too many ads in the search results. I’m glad to see that they have vanished from Google Instant but since the new platform is AJAX based they could be easily added back in the future.

Since Instant Search has less page views does that mean fewer ads shown?
I started this post by comparing AdWords campaign data from the 7th September vs. the 8th September for a US campaign. It seems that already there has been a noticeable impact on the AdWords campaign since the launch of Google Instant. We all know that one day is not enough data to start the filling the pantry with canned goods and bottled water but it does highlight that you need to be closely watching your AdWords campaigns and even organic traffic.

Instant Campaign Clicks


It seems that initially there is an impact on the clicks compared to the previous day (without Instant) with phrase match volume dropping to 62% and exact match volume dropping to 72%. It’s very interesting to see that broad match volume didn’t change with the Instant Search update which reinforces the benefits of using broad match terms. But overall there was a 16% drop in AdWords clicks since Instant Search was launched.

Instant Campaign Impressions

It seems that initially we see both positive and negative impacts on the impressions compared to the previous day (without Instant). There has been a drop in impressions for exact match terms down to 85% of the previous day’s volume which shows the new Instant Search feature is likely already changing people’s search behaviour.


An interesting side effect seems that impressions for phrase match & broad match keywords has actually risen by around 15% since Google Instant was launched which might be due to the progressive results or people doing more searches?

 source from:searchenginejournal.com

Competing in the Global Market for Online Travel

International SEO Case Study: Hotels.com

While the online travel market has become highly competitive in the United States, there are numerous excellent, untapped opportunities for companies looking to expand internationally. The internet is global and with over 1.5 billion people now connected. Many of these people are in countries with a rapidly developing middle class who are spending more on travel.

Hotels.com is one of the most prominent online travel companies. People use the site to find deals on hotels for both business and vacation travel. But with the US travel market exhibiting slower growth due to recessionary pressures and increased competition, international markets will be increasingly important for the Company’s future.

This mini-case study looks at how Hotels.com is using search marketing to expand internationally including its strengths and opportunities for improvement.

Buying Market Share

So what is Hotels.com doing to capture a piece of the more lucrative global travel market?  The Company’s primary tactic is to drive traffic to country-specific websites using paid search marketing. For each targeted country, Hotels.com has implemented a local language site with prices displayed in local currency. For example, someone searching for hôtel on Google France can click on Hotels.com’s sponsored ad and be directed to the French site located on the subdomain fr.hotels.com.

Driving international visitors to your site through paid search is fine if you don’t mind handing over suitcase loads of cash to Google. Most companies would probably prefer a joint strategy of driving traffic through organic (or non-paid) results as well as sponsored results.  A properly implemented international search engine optimization strategy can reduce dependency on paid search and drastically lower average cost per click.

Hotels.com has optimized its country-specific sites. But how well do they fare?

International SEO Strengths

Domain Name: A keyword-based domain name is a major factor in attaining high search engine rankings. Hotels.com ranks number 1 in the US search results for the term “hotels” thanks in part to the keyword term being equal to their domain name. Hotels.com also ranks number 1 on google.co.uk for the term “hotels” and their German language subdomain ranks number 6 for the same search term on Google’s German search engine, google.de.

Hotels.com has also made the strategic decision to buy the Spanish and Portuguese equivalents of their domain name – hoteles.com and hoteis.com. This strategy has helped them rank number 1 on Google in the United States and number 2 in Mexico for the term “hoteles” and number 2 in Brazil for “hoteis”.

Site Structure: Hotels.com has implemented country-specific sites and regional sites targeted at international visitors. The majority of these sites have been set up as subdomains on the main hotels.com site, for example de.hotels.com. For the Spanish-speaking Latin American market, the Company has established a separate website, hotels.com and for Brazil, hoteis.com in Portuguese.

On Page Optimization:  Page titles, meta tags and headers have been optimized in local language.

Link Building: Each of the country-specific sites is linked to the others. This most likely helps the separate domains (hotels.com and hoteis.com) most of all as the links between sites implemented as subdomains are more likely to be discounted by Google.

Opportunities for Improvement

Local Domains: Hoteles.com ranks a lowly tenth on Google Spain for “hoteles” and Hoteis.com is a mere 36 in Portugal for “hoteis” despite owning the .com domains for these highly popular keyword terms.  The number 1 ranking site in each of these cases was one with a local country domain – hoteles.es in Spain and hoteis.pt in Portugal.

While Hotels.com has done an excellent job in optimizing their sites for Latin America, they have failed with these sites in Europe. Google apparently doesn’t believe these sites are relevant to a European audience. What Hotels.com should do for these markets is implement subdomains – one targeted for Spain and another for Portugal. Better yet, if the price is right, they could negotiate a buy-out of hoteles.es and hoteis.pt.

A key lesson for companies with keyword-based domain names, and plans to expand internationally, is to buy the country-specific domains as well before a local competitor tries to steal your market.

Local Link Building: For sites that target audiences in specific countries, it’s important to acquire links from sites within that country. The majority of links to Hotels.com’s sites are from other sites they own. For their country-specific subdomains, this is particularly true and most likely the reason why Hotels.com does not perform as well in Europe. If their German site, de.hotels.com, had more links from German language websites, it would probably rank better than it does.

A “Mixed Bag” Strategy

Hotels.com’s international search marketing strategy comprises country-specific sites implemented on subdomains for countries in Europe and Asia, and separate sites for Spanish and Portuguese speakers. While this strategy appears to working reasonably well for the Company, it could be improved by implementing local sites on local domains while also including lingual translations on the main .com domain.  However, this approach may prove costly as it requires negotiating the purchase of country-level domains that have already been acquired by aspiring local entrepreneurs.

The Shift From The Traditional Media Of Marketing To The Internet Media Of Marketing

It is quite possible that the shift from the traditional media of marketing to the fast catching up online or internet marketing may cause some confusions, clutter and teething problems till you settle down with the new mode of thinking and way of interacting with the potential customers and deal with after sales queries and issues online.


Before you start calculating the ROI from this online media of marketing and jump to conclusions analyze the current scenario of the marketing aura of your company. Why I am referring this as an aura is because the new way of marketing the products and services of the company not only affects your marketing and PR team decisions and mind set but this new thought process also gets passed on to the other teams like the sales, operations and even accounts and of course just cannot forget to mention the CEOs , VCs and the presidents of the companies especially if they are not so net savvy.


As everyone in the office will start talking about social media and SEO according to what they have heard and what impressions they have gathered from the water cooler conversations or meetings. Everyone has an opinion but to make everyone come to a right consensus in accepting this new communication, PR, marketing and branding tool will surely take time but it is the onus of the team who is managing this task to see that the minimum possible time is taken for the adjustment as social media is growing at an alarming rate and you cannot afford to miss the bus when the company buzz can have a global market outreach at such a high level and especially at such an alarming speed.


For that we have to go into a little analysis of the situations and requirements.


Firstly, it is important to know who is managing the online marketing campaign. The possibilities could be as follows:

• It is outsourced to a professional SEO and Internet marketing company.
• It is managed In-house by the appointed people
• Or, if it is a SMB may be, a DIY (Do It Yourself) model is being followed.

Situation 1:

The Online Marketing Campaign is outsourced to a professional SEO and Internet marketing company.


If it is outsourced then of course the responsibility is also on that internet marketing company and your team can concentrate on the main line of business. But, in this case the marketing budget allocated for online media has to be high and the success of the campaign will depend upon the professionalism and approach of that company.


The communication is the most critical factor as regards to this situation as the success and the goals will be achieved only if the marketing company has understood what you are targeting at with this media. Again the communication is only the main factor when this internet company conveys the results to you or trains your team regarding the internet brand image of your company.

As in certain situations especially the after sales discussions with a dissatisfied customer will probably be handled by the sales or PR team member with valid inputs from the technical team. So it is very crucial how the flow of information will take place as it should not result into Chinese whispers which may harm the image of the company rather than healing it.


The reporting factor is very important when this task is outsourced to check whether the dollars spent are going down the drain or developing the deserved niche on the online scene for your brand.

Situation 2:

The Internet Marketing Campaign is managed In-house by the appointed people.


Dealing with such a situation the selection and training of the team for this task is very important but since it is in-house and assuming that the people involved in this have the knowledge of the company products, history and situations and the communication in-house flows faster, the results achieved can be monitored closely and more frequently and the control of the media accounts and website in case of SEO also remain in-house with less possibility of manipulation in-case of any disputes.


The communication again is very crucial here also as any marketing campaign as mentioned earlier affects each and every team of the organization. In this case the size of the team and the internal communication flow will be the main deciding factor for the success of the campaign.

Situation 3:

When the company concerned is a SMB and a DIY (Do It Yourself) model for the Internet Marketing Campaign is being followed.


This is the most challenging of all and if the entrepreneur himself or some trusted person is handling this task as in these kind of organizations one person wears many hats and here allocation of time becomes the most crucial factor. As it is quite possible that this person manages other important tasks as well and we know that social media is kind of addictive and one can just at times get lost in the flow of conversations and the opening up of a whole new world of possibilities out there.


Hence, balancing all the tasks and allocating the time and budgets will be the challenge in such a case. But, the results achieved will surely be fast and will be monitored well as the person concerned has the decision making authority and is emotionally attached to the brand.


Eventually, whatever the situation it has to be borne in mind that marketing is nothing new what is new is the shift to the online media so the focus should be on understanding what is different in using this media as a marketing, PR and communication tool put together and what would be the best way keeping your teams strengths and weaknesses in mind.


If the leads generated from the traditional form of marketing are high, the best way would be to swap budgets to internet marketing, phase wise and stage wise, gradually weaning away from the outdated platforms which are losing their visibility, influence and reach. This will vary from company to company and also if the market is local or global . Sometimes the local markets responds to a certain form of marketing which may not be possibly achieved via the internet.

source from:searchenginejournal.com