Event: HITEC 2013

Session: Re-assessing the impact of social media on your online visibility and search strategy

Date & Time: June 25 at 11:15 AM

Location: 
Minneapolis Convention Center
250 Marquette Avenue South
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55401

Session Description:
50% of direct bookings were reported to have been generated originally by social media in 2012. But accurate attribution remains a very dark art and search engine algorithms continue to morph and grow ever more complex. This session will cover topics including:

• De-mystify the social search enigma and understand how search engine algorithms are utilizing more social data and user content to produce more intelligent and semantic results
• Learn the latest white-hat techniques and best-practices to maximize your search exposure and ranking
• Get fully up-to-speed on the latest developments with Google + and penguin and understand how this can impact your brand other than for SEO

Speaker: Anil Aggarwal, CEO, Milestone Internet Marketing

For more event info and to register, go to: http://www.hftp.org/Pages/Events/HITEC/Attendees/HITECOnlineReg.aspx

Session Information:

Search engine marketing continues to change and evolve.  Learn how to grow revenues using different internet marketing strategies – search, local, mobile, social media and more.  Google+ and the new Facebook graph search are just two of the topics that will be covered in this session.  You will walk away with different strategies to grow revenues  and practical tips and ideas you can apply at your hotel to stay ahead of the curve!

Northern California Session

• Date & Time: May 21st at 9:45 AM
• Location:
  South San Francisco Conference Center
  225 South Airport Road
  South San Francisco, California 94080
• Click here for more Northern California event information and to register.

Southern California Session

• Date & Time: May 23rd at 9:45 AM
• Location:
  Pacific Palms Hotel & Conference Center
  One Industry Hills Parkway
  City of Industry, California 91744
• Click here for more Southern California event information and to register.

Speaker:

Tammie Carlisle, Director of Business Development, Milestone Internet Marketing

What: Webinar – 2013 Resolutions to Keep for Vacation Rental Website SEO
When: Wednesday, June 5th, 2013 – 12:00 PM Mountain Standard Time (MTS)
Price: Free

Click here to register

In this session, Milestone will focus on the following topics.

• Focus on creating engaging, relevant, high quality content website;
• Start a conversation with the search engines by marking up site with SCHEMAs;
• Create a robust mobile plan that has as much thought as my website strategy;
• focus on robust cross channel optimization
• make linkbuilding an act focused on quality, not quantity;
• Take time to question  site’s usability – it will lead to conversions;
• Build a thoughtful social content marketing strategy across all channels;
• Leverage social media in digital marketing; it is a must-have element of SEO;
• Leverage remarketing and retargeting to capture pre-qualified audiences.

Speakers:
Bob Kippola, Director of Business Development, Milestone Internet Marketing

Click here to register

What: Webinar – What makes a modern revenue-producing website?
When: Wednesday, May 1st, 2013 – 12:00 PM Mountain Standard Time (MTS)
Price: Free

Click here to register

In this session, Milestone will focus on the following topics:

• How SEO relates to design
• Usability
• Mobile or Responsive Design – which one suits your needs?

Speakers:
Bob Kippola, Director of Business Development, Milestone Internet Marketing

Click here to register

We all know that images are more appealing than text and in this SMX West session, the importance of images as great link producers was discussed.

Jennifer Evans Cario with SugarSpun Marketing, reviewed the effectiveness of high-quality image use on social media channels (ex: Facebook) as a great way to gain additional site exposure. People are more apt to actively view and engage in your posts when there is a visual representation attached to it. Not only that, Facebook’s EdgeRank also gives posts with more engagement/interest a higher value than those without. Studies also show that users are 4x more engaged when an image is included, proving that photos should also be integrated into your online marketing presence to enhance your content and minimize text.

Sharad Verma with Pinfluencer, brought a more purchase-driven conversation to the popular photo-sharing site, Pinterest. While Facebook builds relationships and Twitter is all about real-time conversation, Pinterest help users discover and advocate products all with a simple re-pin. With a collection of links that are visual and shareable on your Pinterest page, you can create a “happy viral loop” where the more quality images you share, the more people pin and the more you will gain visibility and visits back to your website (as long as the original image pinned came from your site).

The basic elements of image optimization were covered by Chris Silver Smith with Argent Media, who discussed Flickr’s strengths as a tool being influential for search engines as users can:

• Associate photos with maps/geo-tagging
• Add a description and caption
• Create sets, groups and submit to public albums to increase exposure (helps set optimal link hierarchies)
• Select license choices  to decide how much exposure the image should get

While Pinterest’s construction may be seen as less SEO-sophisticated than Flickr, the social signals read from the # of followers, re-pins, comments and ‘likes’  and give relevance to strong keywords used in the board title and description text, as they help optimize the page title and image alt text.

As a wrap-up, here are some important tips to keep in mind:

• Make sure your images make sense to your topic and are not too cutesy – keep them relevant
• Be careful not to be too self-referential on Pinterest – allow users to add their own content to your boards
• To get link juice from Pinterest, verify your profile link and optimize the captions for the pin and description of each board. It’s not just about the link value you will get from Pinterest but the additional exposure and credit your photos will get when used in other bloggers posts.
• What’s the trick to finding relevant, high-quality images that are affordable and bring a level of authenticity to your brand? Take your own photos!
• To socially optimize photos in Flickr:
  • Use good quality photos
  • High-contrast images increase clicks from thumbnails, so make sure users can decipher the image (bump up the contrast to enhance it)
  • Find groups that are applicable and share images via the groups
  • Use loose licensing – set it so that people can use the image in return for links/authorship (set it to attribution under owner settings)

Speakers:

• Jennifer Evans Cario, SugarSpun Marketing
• Chris Silver Smith, Argent Media
• Sharad Verma, Pinfluencer

Moderator:

• Jennifer Evans Cario, SugarSpun Marketing

_____________________________________
Contributed by:
Zulema Romero, Director of Client Services
Selin Maurice, Team Lead Manager

At SMX West 2013 session titled “ Is Link Building Still Crucial, Or A Waste Of Time & Money?”, the experts opened up about linkbuilding.  The question was just that: Is linkbuilding still relevant? Overall, the resounding answer was “yes”.

Linkbuilding is not dead as long as you are doing it correctly stated Rae Hoffman with PushFire. You must have a business strategy and focus on growing traffic with your links in addition to authority. Always keep in mind that SEO begins with a well optimized, high value site that is link worthy. The focus should not only be on building links.

Roger Montti, aka martinibuster, stated that linkbuilding still weighs heavier than social media signals and still remains the most heaviest signal of authority.

Here are some big linkbuilding do’s and don’ts:

DO:

• Build links to brand home page: this will help boost the domain as an authority
• Inside page link building: Focus on USP’s or keywords that you want to rank for and link to your inside pages for those specific USP’s
• Guest Blogging: This is still OK to do. As long as the post and content is relevant to the topic of the site and discussion, this is still fine to do.
• Expand your blog channels, you will gain more authority.
• Use social media to promote content and gain visibility. This will grow your links.
• Competitor back-link analysis. Secure strong links that a good competitor may have.
• Make sure there is content to support your linkbuilding efforts.
• Focus on quality of links, not quantity.
• Use infographics, videos, images to linkbuild.
• Use no follow.
• Stay away from footer links.
• Cross-link your businesses.

·Don’ts

• Use the same network of small blogs, it will send a negative signal.
• Rely on the page rank meter
• Focus on quantity of links
• Release press releases that are not newsworthy.
• Participate in linkbuilding networks

Again, the message is still the same. Linkbuilding still has great value as long as it’s done correctly, strategically, and it adds value to your website.  The saying “Quality vs Quantity” absolutely applies to this topic. Keep this saying in mind as you create and execute your linkbuilding strategy.

Speakers:

• Adam Audette, RKG
• Rae Hoffman, PushFire – SugarRae
• Arnie Kuenn, Vertical Measures
• Debra Mastaler, Alliance-Link
• Roger Montti, MartiniBuster

Moderator:

• Matt McGee, Search Engine Land & Marketing Land

_____________________________________
Contributed by:
Zulema Romero, Director of Client Services

Analyzing traffic for websites can be more difficult than ever given the fact that Google no longer reports on search activity for those users logged into Google. In addition, if a user is utilizing Firefox as their browser, this activity is transparent either.  As a result, “Not Provided” can be as high as 40% of your traffic.  During today’s SMX West session, Advanced, Bullseye Keyword Research Tactics, Christine Churchill, with KeyRelevance, discussed a few work arounds for this issue:

• Use your PPC Data: Google Privacy setting not applied to PPC
• Use Bing Analytics:
  • Upside is that Bing provides full transparency for all keywords
  • Downside is that Bing’s marketshare is only 16.5%
  • Google Webmasters Data:
    • Shows all keyword data, impressions, and clicks
    • Can see last months work of information.

In addition, Marty Weintraub with aimClear showed us a few tips and tools to use for keyword research.

• GoogleAdwords:
  • Google search your top keywords, ex: san Francisco hotel
  • copy Google SERP URL and paste into “website” field in Google keyword tool
  • this will result in extremely relevant results for your target phrases

• Mozenda:  Web scraping scalable tool for capturing related terms
  • Works for most search engines
  • Easily captures all search engine suggested terms based on basic keyword phrases

• Allows for keyword research to be based on semantic search results

• Scrapebox:
  • Able to select multiple search engines to scrape
    • Google
    • Yahoo
    • Bing
    • Youtube
    • Amazon
    • Run results against SEOmoz keyword difficulty tool to identify low hanging fruit

This session proved to be quite useful and reinforced that SEO’s will have to continue to get creative in order to understand what keywords are working for their sites.  In addition, they will have to continue to advance their keyword strategies in order to determine not only keywords, but intent behind keywords in order to enhance semantic search.

Speakers:

• Christine Churchill, KeyRelevance
• Marty Weintraub, aimClear
• Matt Siltala, Avalaunch Media

Moderator:

• Christine Churchill, KeyRelevance

_____________________________________
Contributed by:
Zulema Romero, Director of Client Services

Why automate your socializing?

1. Build relationships without being on social sites 24/7
2. Establish yourself as a thought leader in your niche
3. Get people to talk about your brand
4. Some tools have good analytics to help focus on success

What are some downsides of automating?

1. Less control over what you post (if you directly publish somebody else’s RSS feed to your social channels)
2. Can come off as looking inauthentic
3. Can build expectations that somebody from your brand is there 24/7 to answer questions
4. Some networks (like Facebook) reduce the visibility of posts made through automation tools

Key takeaway: Use automation tools to help manage and curate, but keep the human touch in your social marketing efforts.

The focus from all of the panelists was using automation tools as a guide or an assistant, not as a replacement. Staying active and fresh can take a lot of time, but when used properly, automation tools can have a positive impact on the quality and reach of your social marketing.

Below are a few recommended tools:

Tools

1. IFTTT
2. HootSuite
3. Triberr
4. Social buzz club
5. Tweetreach
6. NinjaPinner

Panelists:

Nicole Munoz, CEO and Founder, Start Ranking Now, Inc. (@nicolemunoz)
Amy Vernon, GM, Social Marketing, Internet Media Labs (@amyvernon)

Brent Csutoras, Social Media Consultant, Kairay Media (@brentcsutoras)

_____________________________________
Contributed by:
Mike Supple, Sr. Social Media Manager

Experts at SMX West 2013 include Google’s Matt Cutts and Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan.

Keeping up with SEO best practices is almost like watching a mystery movie – Things can happen really fast, and if you’re not paying attention to the clues around you, you’ll miss something that’s been under your nose the whole time.

The industry does move fast. However, if you’ve been paying attention, the changes in the past few years have culminated into just a few trends. The goal of 2013 for every website is to create a great user experience. That’s defined as enticing guests to click on the website, giving them interesting content (and all the information they’re looking for), and giving guests a call to action. It’s also giving the search engines signals of your authority through link building and social media.

I’ve summarized the 2013 tips below.

1. Authorship – The identity of the person responsible for contributing the content will be more important. The goal for the search engines is to limit bad, syndicated content by focusing on authoritative content. They’re also motivating hotels to take ownership, and to consistently create fresh and engaging content. It’s advised to be clear with the name of the person speaking on behalf of the brand and to avoid using pen names when possible.
   Insider tip: It’s even more beneficial to have an image next to that person’s name. 
2. Links – Paid links are still good. However, there will be more strict guidelines on link networks, link pharming, and other black hat SEO tactics. It will always better to secure organic links from other sites who can verify your credibility. The search engines want hotels to have real businesses attest to the hotel’s reputation than the hotel buying links to attest to their own reputation.
   Insider tip: Start spending less time worrying about links and more time creating a great user experience on the website. The best websites will naturally have users link up to them (i.e. via social media, personal blogs, image sharing, etc.) 
3. Keyword research – Although it’s useful, there’s no dire need to focus on search volume. It used to be applicable when there were fewer competing websites back in the day. But nowadays, it’s misleading to guarantee ranking based on search volume. Still do some keyword research for a given page, but optimization around a chosen keyword theme is now more holistic. First, there needs to be valuable content about that keyword. Second, that content needs to have authority, measured by authorship and links. Third, content must be fresh, have a call to action, and create an engaging user experience. Only until all those metrics are met is the optimization for that page and that target keyword phrase complete.
   Insider tip: Shift your focus away from keywords per se and more to the quality of landing pages. In that sense, the search volume of a keyword becomes less important. 
4. Social – Integration of social signals will be increasing in importance. Social signals unlock the intent of any query by telling the search engines the connotation of that query. Therefore, every hotel needs to be actively participating in social media on behalf of their brand. Only those who are active and engaging with trending keywords will have consistently better performing websites.
   Insider tip: Don’t cheat by trying to increase your Facebook Likes just for the sake of increasing it. You will be penalized. Like the insider tip for links, as long as you are engaging and creating a great user experience, users will naturally like you. Search engines will prioritize natural relationship building. 
5. Mobile – First, take a look at analytics. Notice the bounce rate of users going to your desktop website from their mobile device. Chances are the bounce rate will be high, mostly because the download time is slow, some images won’t render, and content is too small. Those are immediate reasons why every hotel needs a mobile compatible website. When looking at analytics, look at the most frequented pages and the pages with the most engagement and conversion. Those are the pages to carry over to a mobile website.
   Insider tip: Whether it’s a mobile or desktop site, if the site isn’t pleasing to the user, the user will leave. No matter what, that bounce rate will negatively impact your website performance. Therefore, even on mobile website, it’s important to create an engaging user experience.

Conclusion

Never say, “Well, that’s how we used to do things.” While that is true, it unfortunately doesn’t matter. Those tactics used to work when there were fewer websites on the Internet. Now, there’s so many, the search engines need to examine more items to really discern who has authority, who is the most engaging, and who is the more valuable brand to users. For the search engines, figuring those things out is like watching a mystery movie too. But, as a hotelier, as long as your website provides a great user experience in all the items listed above, you’re pretty much giving the search engines the answer – It’s you.

Tips provided by the following speakers at SMX West 2013

Topic: Conversation: What’s Needed For SEO Success In 2013 & Beyond?

Moderator: Danny Sullivan, Founding Editor, Search Engine Land

Speakers:

Greg Boser, SVP of Search Services, BlueGlass Interactive, Inc.

Annie Cushing, SEO and Analytics Consultant

Matt Cutts, Distinguished Engineer, Google Inc.

Janet Driscoll Miller, President and CEO, Search Mojo

Duane Forrester, Sr. Product Manager, Bing

Rae Hoffman, CEO, PushFire

______________________________
Contributed by:
Nelson Toriano, Account Management Team Lead

Andrew Shotland, Local SEO Guide,  answers the question of how can small businesses fix their listing in Apple maps.

Right now, the only way that I know of to fix problems with Apple Maps, besides going into the “report a problem” screen on Apple Maps, is to fix it at the core data listing level.

There are currently only a few suppliers in the US for Apple Maps in the business listings data. There’s Localeze, Acxiom, Factual for core business data, and then YELP for review data. So at the very least, you want to make sure your listings are all up-to-date in those three systems plus YELP.

And right now the fastest way that I’ve seen for listing updates to make it into Apple Maps is by going through Localeze’s premium listing, which costs about 300 bucks or so per listing per year. In my experience, it takes about 60 to 90 days for those updates to make it into the system.

One thing I have noticed that we’ve gotten verified is that residential businesses in residential areas will not make it through those update systems. Apple is turning those down. So if you have a residential-based business, you’re going to have some problems.