Site Live Date: August 2012

Website: www.heathmanportland.com

Background

The Heathman Hotel in Portland is a luxurious property located in downtown Portland, Oregon. With the many changes in search algorithm in 2012, Milestone had to revamp the property’s website to continue its exceptional web performance and ensure search crawlability. In addition, Milestone has implemented several strategies such as social media optimization, mobile site, etc. to further enhance the hotel’s web performance.

Strategy

Milestone’s strategy for the hotel included:

1) Revamping the website following the latest search engine guidelines (to ensure website indexability) and usability guidelines (to enhance user experience and increase conversion)
2) Mobile website – developed to tend to the growing population of travelers that use mobile devices to search for and book hotel rooms.
3) Strategic online marketing – comprises of promoting the hotel’s website on multiple online channels such as major and local search engines, directories, yellow pages, and local citation channels.
4) Social media marketing:

•  Blog and News & Awards module – The continuous posts of events, things to do, etc. on the hotel’s blog, as well as publishing news on a regular basis, enhances the site’s freshness score, which is a key search engine ranking factor.
• Social media feed page drives engagement, which again is a key factor to search ranking.

Results

The site revamp was completed in August 2012, and has seen tremendous results:

• 25% increase of unique visitors
• 51% increase of page views
• 60% increase in revenue
• 49% increase in ROI

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Contributed by: Teresa Villaruz, Sr. Marketing Specialist

• Email Collection – make sure your website has an email subscription feature prominently displayed on your site. If the visitor is interested in your hotel but does not convert immediately, you can continue to market to them for future bookings. Email marketing continues to have one of the highest ROI’s.

• Polls & Surveys – Gain insights into the wants and needs of website visitors and then update your content to ensure you are meeting these needs.

• Reviews – Allow your visitors to review your hotel or area attractions directly on your site. With a reviews module, your site will continue to get updated and fresh content, which not only provides value to other people visiting your site, but helps with your site’s SEO as well.

• Social Media – Allow your visitors to easily “like” or “+1” your page as these social signals are valuable to your SEO efforts. Additionally you can invite them to follow your Social Media profiles and continue to connect with these highly qualified prospects.

For every visitor on your site is an opportunity for immediate and future bookings, as well as help in enhancing your site’s SEO value.  Ensure you’re capitalizing on this opportunity.

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Contributed by Heidi Bitar, Director of Client Services

On the flip-side of the argument on Google+, there are several issues that were brought up as points of concern for the platform. While Google+ has grown tremendously over the past year, it still falls far behind other social channels. It’s even lagging far behind sites like Reddit for active users. The point being, Google+ is not (yet) a significant tool for traffic from social content. The other issue with Google+, and its integration in to the Google SERP layout, is the cannibalization of organic traffic to Google+ pages (with connected profiles). Where once Google+ results were only something that appeared for self-verified pages, result pages now display Google+ profiles whether or not they have been user-verified.

It is also important to know the necessity to have rel=author and rel=publisher tags integrated between Google+ and the connected URL for each profile. This will help with ranking and link authority (conversion rate) when effectively used by connected personal profiles.

As far as Google+ post content is concerned, several key are relevant to our efforts. The first involves quantity of the posts. Based on the consensus from the panel, the optimal amount of posting is one every 24 to 36 hours. The second point discussed was involving quality. Rich media content, generated with Google Hangouts, was shown to be an effective way to create an ample volume of content.

In summary, expect even bigger things from Google+ in the coming year, and make sure you have a well-optimized Google+ page for your business.

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Contributed by Tyler Harding, Local SEO Manager

 

What Is Apple Maps?

As a small business owner, specifically a hotelier, management of your presence across the local listings ecosystem is essential.  There are many mapping applications, but one of the most used and authoritative is Apple Maps, which has replaced Google Maps as the stock mapping application on devices running Apple’s iOS6 operation system.  Some users have been reluctant to use Apple Maps after reports of inconsistencies and lack of data causing problems, but the app is currently installed and integrated with Siri and other Apple features on over 200 million iPhones, iPads, and other Apple devices; thus management of your Apple Maps presence is critical.  For the hospitality industry, this is especially crucial as data has shown that Apple users will spend up to 30% more on accommodations.
How Do I Manage My Apple Maps Presence?

Short answer; you can’t.  An accurate and optimized Apple Maps profile requires working with a few different outside data sources as currently there is no official claiming process or listing management system available from Apple. Due to this lack of a management system from Apple, editing and optimization of your profile is not as straightforward as other local listing platforms.

Presently, the method for a United States based business to populate data for a listing on Apple Maps is to ensure that Apple’s three main data sources — LocalEze, Yelp, and TeleAtlas – all have correct information.  The idea is the same as any other local Search Engine Optimization efforts in that maintaining a consistent Name, Address, Phone Number, and URL provides uniform and authoritative data sets.  For Apple, further listing enhancements are provided by descriptions and categories pulled in from LocalEze, reviews sourced from Yelp, and map imagery via TeleAtlas.

It is important to note that there is some lag time between when your business information is submitted to the data sources and when it is seen live on Apple Maps. This is because Apple Maps pulls data from many sources in addition to the three listed above, then it must process and verify all data, and then publish its data set to the Apple Maps database. All in all it can take up to three months for this information to filter in.  The Milestone Local Team is currently investigating update times to the database but current reports note Apple is publishing new data on a monthly basis.

How Do I Report A Problem?

In addition to working with the main data sources for Apple Maps to add or edit a business, you can also use the ‘Report a Problem’ function built into the mobile application to alert Apple Maps technicians of an issue with a listing.  This process again has a bit of lag time as the Apple Maps data sets are updated about once per month as noted previously.  Before Apple can publish its data set, the technicians investigate and verify the user request.  Please keep in mind, issues can only be reported on an iOS6 device.

What is the Future of Apple Maps?

While it is difficult to speculate what Apple may do in 2013 with their Map system, but with the initial negative backlash we can expect improvements in map and listing accuracy.  We are also speculating that Apple Maps will eventually launch a listing management system, much like their competitors already have in place.  It is clear that the huge quantity of smart-phones, tablets, and other Apples devices running their map application requires attention from all business owners.

For more information about running a local optimization program across a range of authoritative directories including Apple Maps, please contact the Local experts at Milestone Internet Marketing here.

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Contributed by Nicholas Chloupek, Account Coordinator | Search, Milestone Internet Marketing, Inc. 

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.

Milestone believes NFC can transform how hoteliers welcome guests for an exceptional stay at their properties entwined with the newest technologies on the market.

What is NFC?

Do you know what NFC is? It is not National Football Conference if that’s what you were thinking. NFC stands for Near-Field Communications, an application used through mobile devices to transmit data at close proximity. Check out the picture below for a visual on how an NFC works.

Source: Assabloy.com

Although this technology is still new, leaving a large portion of the market untapped; NFC has proven thus far its abilities to enhance ways in which consumers make transactions, exchange content, connect to other devices and much more.  NFC is a fast, easy way to get relevant, useful information although it is not a constant stream of data because it requires physical interaction between users operated data devices and the NFC tag or sticker. Furthermore, NFC tags are used as a canvas for accessible information on which any type of landing page can be programmed.

NFC in the Current Marketplace:

Some of the common ways NFC technology is currently used by companies and consumers are payment checkout, sending files, photos, contacts, music, etc. to another device with a simple tap, downloading information, opening doors, getting tickets or passes and parking meters.

How can NFC benefit our Hotels?

This technology holds undiscovered uses, many of which can be incorporated into the lodging industry. Tags can be used in various ways at our hotels. To begin, we could have trend triggered tags in which local and upcoming trends in the area can be promoted through the use of NFC. In addition, further interaction between client and customer can be made through the use of NFC by linking tags to Google + Pages, Facebook, Twitter and so forth. The process of checkout can be made seamless through mobile device usage. In addition, hotel keys can be directly transmitted by phone which in turn can increase the security of users.

How is Milestone going to help me utilize this fantastic technology?

One of the main benefits to NFC technology is that every tag can be customized individually to fit each hotel’s specific needs, interests, and unique selling point. This can range from specific hotel hosted events, special offers and packages, social media profiles, on-site hotel restaurants, spas, wedding/meeting venues, etc.

Furthermore, hotel guests can take away information about the hotel from interaction with NFC tags. They can store it on their devices for a later usage, sharing capabilities and fostering customer relationships which may result in customer retention and increase brand loyalty. It is an up-coming innovation in an up-ward moving trend that customers are showing interest in and willingness to use. If you are a hotel owner of a budget hotel, this technology can be implemented at the property-level as a value-based service, additional to the product they already offer.

Is anyone of my competitors already using it?

The Clarion Hotel in Stockholm Sweden was the first in the hotel industry to make use of this technology on site. They have completed a beta project featuring 28 loyal returning customers in which they participated in the use of replaced hotel keys with NFC-enabled mobile phones.

Overall, the guests were pleasantly surprised and enjoyed the interaction with the hotel via their mobile phones. The surveyed guests claimed they saved time during their check-in and overall stay compared to other hotel stays. They also agreed that the mobile key application has made their hotel stay more comfortable. Lastly, the surveyed guests showed interest in using the mobile keys application if their mobile phone supported it.

Hotel guests were also asked what kind of other services connected to the mobile key application would be successful, out of which results steered towards information about the hotel such as a map, room service menus, spa and gym. The survey also included high interest in paying for food and other services at the hotel through the device as well as obtaining additional information about hotel offerings, restaurants, bars and public transport in the vicinity.

How exactly am I missing out if I am not using NFC?

If you are a hotel owner, you can ensure you do not miss out on the benefits of this new technology. It’s a sustainable practice as you eliminate costs for paper resources such as location based services, post purchase offers, area maps,

brochures, printed menus, maps, etc. it give you the availability to develop a better product and specialize it to meet your customers’ needs whether that be through hotel coupons or trends and events surrounding your property.

Milestone seeks to engage more hotel visitors by allowing hotels to adopt NFC into their properties and as a result encourage more customer interaction via mobile touch-points to their website and social media channels.

Where can I go to learn more about it?

Find out more:

NFC Mobile Phones replace Hotel Keys

How Will NFC Impact the Hospitality Industry?

Evaluation of the world’s first pilot using NFC phones for check-in and hotel room keys

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Contributed by:
Georgiya Yoveva – Project Coordinator
& Lindsay Keller – Jr. Internet Marketing Strategist

1. Slides
2. Webinar recap
3. Webinar Q&A
4. Additional references/resources

Slides

Webinar recap

What: Webinar – Top 2013 Internet Marketing Trends
When: Wednesday, February 13 from 10:00am – 11:00am Pacific Time

Speakers:
Benu Aggarwal, President and Founder, Milestone Internet Marketing
Brittany Bingham, Social Media Team Lead Manager, Milestone Internet Marketing
Kchitiz Regmi, Vice President – Operations and Technology, Milestone Internet Marketing

Moderator:
Mike Supple, Sr. Social Media Manager, Milestone Internet Marketing

Like all years, 2013 is bringing rapid change to the internet marketing industry. Keeping the focus of all your strategies on what is best for your customers will ensure that you stay top of mind (and at the top of search results!). To that end, we put together a list of the 10 resolutions that you as a hotel owner can strive for, keeping you ahead of the game.

Say it with me – in 2013, I will:

1. focus on creating engaging, relevant, high quality content on my website;
2. start a conversation with the search engines by marking up my site with SCHEMAs;
3. create a robust mobile plan that has as much thought as my website strategy;
4. focus on robust cross channel optimization;
5. make linkbuilding an act focused on quality, not quantity;
6. take time to question my site’s usability – it will lead to conversions;
7. uild a thoughtful social content marketing strategy across all channels;
8. leverage social media in my digital marketing; it is a must-have element of SEO;
9. focus on direct bookings: the OTAs will always be a player, so I’m bringing my A-game;
10. leverage remarketing and retargeting to capture pre-qualified audiences.

Webinar Q&A

1. What percentage of my website visits should I expect to see turn into conversions?
   The answer to this will vary across industries, and is strongly influenced by many factors, but we see the following averages: 11-16% for new visitors and 25%+ for return visitors.
2. How do I deploy SCHEMA on my website?
   SCHEMAs are integrated into the actual HTML programming of your site. For more information, visit http://schema.org.
3. How do I include SCHEMA markup in my social media efforts?
   You can only add SCHEMA tags to content you host on a domain you control – so you can include schema markup on your blogs, but not other social channels.
4. Is local linkbuilding important for businesses that are not location based?
   Linkbuilding in general is important (focusing on quality, not quantity) but local linkbuilding is generally best for busniesses that have a specific geographic location. If you are not location based, focus more on niche industry linkbuilding.
5. What does Google’s Browser Size tool do?
   This is a great tool for seeing how your website will show up in various screen resolutions when visitors land on it. Use this to make sure that your top conversion elements are visible to the largest percentage of internet users.
6. What is the link to your blog post about Facebook Graph Search?
   http://blog.milestoneinternet.com/web-2/what-hotels-need-to-know-about-facebook-graph-search/
7. What is the difference between short tail and long tail keywords?
   Short tail keywords are usually one or two words maximum, and apply in a very broad sense to your business. They usually have a very high monthly search volume. An example of short tail keywords for a hotel in Boston would be “boston hotel.” Long tail keywords are three or more words in length, and are usually more specific to what it is your business does or offers. An example of long tail keywords would be “luxury hotel near boston harbor.”
8. Our social marketing mainly targets local communities. How do we reach a larger audience?There are many ways to reach new audiences with social media, depending on your end goals. Some of the best ways are: 1) Research local events that appeal to your target audience and get involved in conversations about the events; 2) make sure that you are networking with key local players’ and communities’ pages refuqnetly, whether it be @mentioning them, sharing their content, liking or commeting on it; and 3) highly localized sociall ppc is incredibly effective (especially on Facebook) as long as you have a very clearly defined conversion element.

Additional references/resources

• Another step to reward high-quality sites
• What Hotels Need to Know About Facebook Graph Search
• Browser size tool
• The Impact of Social Media on Lodging Performance
• Schema.org

In the past, it was an SEO professional’s challenge to focus the content on a specific set of keywords. The method was to repeat those keywords throughout the text in key places to provide relevancy for the queries we were targeting. Those days are behind us now and we get to be a little bit more natural in our content. So what happens to a slightly older site when we tweak the content to remove instances of “keyword stuffing”?

For this particular client, a few tasks were performed to align this website with the new algorithm:

1. We added fresh content, relevant to the discussion on the page (1^st week of October)
2. We updated the keyword strategy in key locations on the page. We removed instances of “keyword stuffing” (1^st week of November)

The impact below is a direct result of on-page optimization, not off-page promotion: no paid ad campaigns were running during the time periods referenced below.

1. After removing keyword stuffing, we saw an increase in visits from November to December in organic traffic only – December being a down season:
   
2. From October and on – we saw an increase in organic visits from the fresh content:
   
3. Summary of metrics coming from the site as a whole (Dec-Jan v Oct-Nov)
   
   

This is a wonderful case study that demonstrates how content optimization and moving with the trends can help your website. We must move forward in a different but exciting direction with our strategies. Less focus on keywords and more focus on fresh, relevant content that reads well will help your website to receive positive results.

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Contributed by Cassie Vignieri, Sr. eStrategist/Account Manager

Want more information? Register for our free Top Internet Marketing Trends of 2013 webinar now!
When: Wednesday, February 13 from 10:00am – 11:00am Pacific Time
Click here to register

Happy New Year!

Taking a look back at 2012, we can say that most of the predictions and resolutions we published last year still hold true for 2013 – http://blog.milestoneinternet.com/web-development/top-10-internet-marketing-resolutions-for-2012/. As we look and plan ahead, several new trends and strategies have emerged that are essential to our “do” list. This article covers some of the major trends we are noticing in the search industry and how they will impact customer behavior. We will also discuss how businesses, hoteliers, and search partners can capitalize on these exciting trends for 2013.

1. Content quality over quantity across platform – Search engines are giving high importance to website content quality, relevancy, freshness, and engagement. A site’s content should be unique, engaging, and relevant and can generate social signals. Quality content can help customers easily find what they’re looking for, improve SERP placement, and in the end drive higher conversion.

Here are a few recommendations for ensuring your site’s content is of high quality:

• Evaluate if your site has quality content. Look at site analytics, bounce rates and understand or and why people are leaving your site as soon as they get there.
• Keep your site fresh by constantly posting new, unique, and relevant content such as upcoming events, integrating a local events feed, twitter feed, etc.
• Take advantage of local events to drive incremental traffic and revenue to your site by integrating an events calendar, creating and sharing posts about the most popular events.
• Create specials and packages, or associate existing ones, to identify with local events.
• Increase website engagement by allowing guests to interact with you directly on your site with the use of a blog, comments, a guest reviews module, polls, contests, etc.
• Enhance your social profiles to include links to your site, optimized categories, hotel details, upcoming events, photos and videos, offers, and coupons.

Focus on capturing consumers early in the purchasing decision.We focus on building semantic and long-tailed relevancy within the content featured on client websites, blogs, and social media platforms creating an overall consistent and enriched user-experience.

2. Mark up your site with SCHEMAs–The three major search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo) came together, collaborated, and launched a set of standard codes (also known as SCHEMAs) in 2011 for the web developer – http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-schemaorg-search-engines.html. These codes help search engines find the most relevant information on a website easier and faster.  SCHEMA.org shows all the codes, verified by search engines, which are available for any business.

It is crucial for websites to use proper SCHEMA’s so search engine crawlers can find the most relevant information such as reviews, address, rates, things to do, attractions, events, video, recipes etc. We are seeing SERPs directly impacted when the correct SCHEMAs are used. As a first step, find out if your site is using SCHEMAs and they are all verified in webmaster tools.

3. Have a robust mobile strategy- We continue to see an increase in the amount of people doing searches on mobile devices. According to Cisco, the number of smartphones and tablets will soon outnumber the amount of human beings on the planet.  (That’s over seven billion mobile devices!)

There was huge growth in mobile social channels use in 2012. According to a Nielsen report released in 2012:

• Over 39% of time spent on social media is done through mobile devices and apps.
• Time spend on social media channels using mobile devices and apps increased by 64% from July 2011 to July 2012.
• 43% of users said they use smartphones to access social media, and 16% said they connect using a tablet.

As smartphones become more advanced, and the use of mobile devises for making purchases continues to increase, it is crucial for businesses to have a robust mobile strategy by keeping location, time, screen size, content preciseness, and consumer intent in mind. It is important to have either a mobile-specific website or a responsive website that scales properly on different devices. In addition, ensure that your site is well optimized by testing it on different devices (from PC to mobile to tablet) and take time to look at your mobile traffic and analytics reports.

Below are several recommendations to ensure your mobile strategy is well optimized:

• Have either a well optimize mobile site or responsive website that scales appropriately
• Highlight the most crucial information for mobile users on your site. Having too much content can drown out the important points and decrease your mobile site’s usability
• Run PPC for mobile search- we are seeing higher conversion on mobile platform than web
• Secure qualitative links in relevant mobile directories
• Continue to leverage hyper-local channels such as Google+, Foursquare, and Facebook near friend
• Feature check-in offers and specials for mobile channels
• Develop or utilize Facebook applications that are mobile-friendly
• Review your mobile site user analytics to ensure you continue to enhance your site for better conversion.

With the increasing use of hyper-local channels and check-in applications, Milestone is looking to incorporate technology such as near-friend communication (NFC) as a tool to reach and engage more hotel visitors.

4. Personalization of Search forces holistic approach- The way consumers search on the web today has dramatically changed and will continue to do so in 2013 as users’ searching methods and patterns evolve. Personal, private, public, and social searches are merging together to customize desired search results, while location continues to grow in search result relevance. For example, if a traveler is looking for a hotel in Chicago verses San Francisco, search engines will provide a custom list of search results based on the traveler’s current location. Search results will be heavily impacted by social signals, friend preferences, and whether the user is logged in to their social profiles.

Smart marketers will take a holistic approach to their online marketing by integrating their website, blog, mobile site, and social channels strategies with the end goal of delivering the most desired content to the customer in order to perform well on search engines.

5. Links: Quality over Quantity – Link building has always been one of the most important SEO factors. However, it is important to understand that the quality of links associated with a website and how we gain links have become extremely important in today’s fight for page credibility, reachability, and top-notch ranking.  A website with 5 solid authoritative and credible links is more likely to capitalize qualified traffic and SEO relevance over a website with 50 low-quality irrelevant links. By using social signals on various social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, businesses can earn natural links by sharing “worthy” content.  In 2013, hoteliers need to evolve their methods to build trusted links. For example, getting links from social channels, tweets, wall post, blogs post, forums, destination sites are weighted higher by the search engines.

6. Usability and conversion factors – Web analytics is moving from page orientation to customer orientation as usability and conversion truly goes hand in hand. In the end, it is important to know how efficient your site really is.Although sites can generate strong traffic from best-practices SEO efforts, PPC campaigns, and promotions, ROI and conversion rates are still the ultimate measures of success. When performing a usability study on a website, marketers should include important steps such as navigation analysis, analytics review, content and user intend analysis, site analysis, and several others.  It is important to set up SMART goals, which can help improve site conversion and is more user friendly. Website design and architecture will have to be optimized for the user, which means it needs to be high in quality and high in functionality in order to engage.

7. Robust social content, more visual – The necessity of a refined content marketing strategy for your social media marketing is undeniable. In 2012, social signals, blogging, and Author Rank all broke into the SEO realm, producing SERPs in a way that created the highest quality result and most personalized consumer-experience. We saw semantic search emerge as an integral element of SEO, creating meaning behind what used to be a seemingly simple search.

In 2013, social media and blogging will continue to play a critical role in building authority to your website content as SEO and search marketing become more centered on content-focused disciplines. As the quality and engagement factor of content plays a larger role in SEO, developing a creative and defined voice will also contribute to the success of your social marketing strategy.

An increasingly important aspect of creating valuable content is images. We saw that posts that include a photo album, picture, or video generate about 180%, 120% and 100% more engagement respectively.

Last year we integrated blogs as part of our social media plan. This year,we are incorporating user-sentiment, semantic keyword saturation, and search trends into our blog and social posts – in addition to leveraging the rich schema.org markup on our blogs.  We highly recommend using compelling visuals to enhance social key performance indicators while building strong social signals.

8. Social media is a must have for successful SEO strategy – In 2013, it is even more evident that social media is a non-optional part of a successful internet marketing strategy. With the personalization of search results in 2012, it became increasingly evident that driving social signals (on and off-page) was an integral part of SEO. Leveraging social channels, particularly Google+, as a social link-building platform, will help enhance your internet marketing strategies. Particularly with the timely announcement of Facebook’s Graph Search, social networks will become an alternative or supplemental resource to traditional search engines. As Mark Zuckerberg puts it, “it will give people the power and the tools they need to search through the content on the site.” As simple as this sounds, it’s clear that Facebook is moving towards becoming a social search engine.

Social PPC and advertising opportunities will only continue to expand. Ultimately, with all of the integration of social media into SEO, brands must measure the ROI of their social efforts. Cornell Center for Hospitality Research reported that a 1 pointincrease for reviews (on a 5 point scale) allows for an 11.2% rate increase without any impact on occupancy. The implications of social media and online reputation on the bottom line make it a key element in the success of your internet marketing.

Here are a few recommendations for Google+ to incorporate social as part of your SEO strategy:

• Develop a Google+ Pages for your hotel and actively promoteyour brand and website on the channel
• Expand your on-page features to encourage social sharing, promote user-generated content, and build social signals
• Test and implementsocial media PPC strategies and integrate it into your cross-channel promotion strategies.

Having presence on Google+ will not only help increase social signals to the website and other online channels, but can also stand as a centralized hub of information for your online network.

9. Increase direct bookings and pay less OTA commissions–Hoteliers should saturate all search results for their name.  Where ever prospective guests look, they should be able to book directly on your site. This means doing sponsored listings/CPC on Tripadvisor, running PPC on Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), and saturating social, local, paid, video, news and other results. The end goal is to enhance your hotel’s overall visibility and improve chances of converting searchers into bookers. A well refined strategy will give the user several options on how to book a room at your hotel.

Milestone is answering the challenge for its clients with campaign optimization tactics geared towards maximum ROI through direct booking efforts.

10. Effective re-marketing at scale – Large media companies have always been challenged to meet hotel property level demands for re-marketing products. If you are a hotelier looking to increase your brand awareness, remarketing can help achieve that goal rather easily. The average cost to run a re-marketing campaign is significantly lower than a typical keyword search campaign. Thus, even at lower budgets, re-marketing campaigns can help you achieve your goals. Here are a few Milestone recommendations to run effective re-marketing campaigns:

• Run banner ad/display campaigns rather than just text campaigns
• Ensure banner ads contain offers, special rates, etc. to get the end-user to convert
• Define the customer list you want to target so that you reach the right customer

New technologies in search remarketing will be increasingly demanded as Facebook PDX and other search remarketing platforms allow early adopters to implement solutions.  Although this technology is still new and preparing to leave beta testing, advertisers should be prepared to take full advantage of this exciting new trend in search engine marketing.

Milestone Resolutions for 2013 –The Social Experience

In today’s dynamic and social space of internet marketing, the customer experience is everything. In 2013, we resolve to create successful internet marketing strategies that engage the modern consumer with content that makes them communicate and purchase. The hottest trend in SEO is creating a holistic approach, integrating your website, mobile, blogs, videos and social channels to deliver the most compelling content and perform well on the search engines. At Milestone, we only create fresh, engaging and relevant content that generates social signals and gets people spreading the word. With over 7 billion mobile devices around the word, it is truly essential to have a vigorous mobile strategy that creates a personalized user experience that is visual and compelling.  Let the adventure begin.

 1.    Changes in Search Algorithms

1. Search engines introduced several key changes in 2012 to the search algorithms through Panda and Penguin updates. Most of the changes were focused on getting higher quality, original content to rank high, as well as to focus on the freshness and engagement of the web content.
2. In April 2012, Google launched Knowledge Graph, which was a major update to their search algorithm.  Knowledge Graph puts the emphasis on semantic search and provides additional contextual information for the searched keyword using information from Wikipedia, Freebase, and websites.
3. Search engines also launched the use of schemas for tagging website content making it easier for search engines to index the website more efficiently.

For 2013, we recommend upgrading your websites to include schemas, adding different engagement features, and focusing on high quality original content that can constantly be refreshed. Engagement and freshness can be driven by including polls, contests, events calendar, blogs, and user generated content such as reviews on the website. Milestone recently launched the latest version of our Content Management System Platform Galexi CMS 5.0, which enables hoteliers to include several of these elements with relative ease.

2.    Mobile

With 97.3 million mobile users per month logging in on the Internet, and experts predicting that almost half of the U.S. population will be using mobile Internet by 2015, it is critical for hotels to have an optimized mobile site plus have a presence in key channels that consumers are accessing through mobile. These include hyper-local channels, such as Yelp, and social media channels.

3.    Local Optimization

Search results are increasingly becoming more localized and personalized. Things that impact placement in local search results include the hotel’s location relative to search term, optimization of local profiles, online reviews for the property, and consistency of name, address, phone number, and domain information. Hotels should make sure that they have a clearly defined process for using the same aforementioned data across all channels along with a well-optimized listing.