The Forge

Insight Forge has expertise in Search Engine Optimization for Resorts and the vacation industry in general.   While many of the basics of SEO apply to driving organic traffic towards resort websites, there also are several specific details to hone in on.

I’d like to take a minute to highlight some of these tips for Resort Marketing.

1.  Location is Key Your target keywords should definitely be relevant to your resort’s location.  Potential visitors will be typing things like ‘New Hampshire Resort‘ into Google.  You can even afford to get more specific with the keywords, such as honing in on a specific town in New Hampshire.  Even if the traffic is trimmer as you get more targeted, it also will be more relevant to a person’s search and is likely to convert into a booking.

2. A Hosted Blog is Integral In a travel industry full of big players, differentiating your resort with a hosted blog is a very big deal to getting ranked.  This is where you will have the opportunity to expound on the various amenities, seasonal deals, mini-vacation specials, activities and other great things that make your resort unique.  This super targeted content will contribute to making Google see why your resort is relevant for those location specific keywords.  We recommend at least two posts a week using a hosted Wordpress solution (www.myresort.com/blog).

3.  Targeted Social Media Instead of trying to reach as many people as possible with your social media efforts, try and target them towards your resort’s location and specialties.  If you are a ski resort, hop on the #ski Twitter hash, and blast out some of your blog posts mixed with other intresting ski-related articles.  Visit some location relevant forums and begin to create a repetoir with users, before letting them know why your resort rocks.

We have some other tricks up our sleeve… If you own or market for a resort feel free to contact us and we’d be glad to give your resort site a review, free of charge.

You know that dream, where a random person that you haven’t heard from or interacted with in any way for years suddenly pops out of nowhere?  Well I had one of those last night.   Said random person, Lyle, was eating dinner with me at a San Francisco Sushi  restaurant.   It seemed like Lyle and I were best buds in the dream, but in reality I barely even knew him years ago.

I chalked it up to another strange dream, until I was on Facebook the other day and BAM, there’s Lyle right smack dab on my homepage as a ‘recommended’ friend.

First of all, I’m not sure how Facebook figured out to recommend Lyle.  He isn’t friends with any of my other friends.  He doesn’t live in the same city as me.  We didn’t go to the same schools or participate in any of the same groups or activities.  I’ve heard that Facebook may pull from an ‘email’ list if you’ve allowed them access, but my only email correspondence with Lyle was via a now defunct account.   So why did Facebook suggest Lyle to me?

The most likely scenario is that Facebook  is  attempting to control my dreams.  Lyle’s mug must have been sitting on my homepage for a few days and managed to creep into my subconscious.  If not for Facebook’s recommendations, I could have avoided an awkward Sushi dinner with some random guy.  Who knows, I might have dreamt about surfing in Hawaii or living on Mars.   Lyle invaded my dream and I couldn’t do anything about it.

Another new Facebook feature, ‘Reconnect,’ attempts to get you to write on a friend’s wall that you haven’t corresponded with in a while.  Another clear attempt to push random people into our dreams.

Don’t worry though, I can smell Facebook’s dream control plot from a mile away.  Slowly, but surely, you’ll start seeing more random faces in these recommended friend slots.   These random, uninvited individuals will continue to invade your dreams: playing with your dream pets and barbecuing your dream spareribs.  Then, one day you’ll recognize one of these faces in a TV commercial,  a viral video or a magazine ad.    You won’t know this person but you’ll like them for some strange reason.  And you’ll buy their brand name bleach products and anti-depression medications.

Call me paranoid, but I’d bet the farm that Facebook’s various friend finding functionalities are modifying the contents of dreams around the world.  Why don’t you think back to that last random person that popped into your dreams.  Then go and log into Facebook and see if they’re staring right back at you.

Over the past several years, cell phones have advanced from mere portable calling devices to all-in-one mini computers.  The iPhone’s launch marked a transition from our past of using mobile phones primarily for voice, to utilizing them as full-fledged internet surfin’, app. toutin’ devices.

Today, hype is starting to build around the new Android / Verizon lovechild named ‘Droid’.  Droid is being advertised with the following slogan:  “Don’t you wish you had a Robot Sidekick that moved at light speed, could get you out of any problem, and lived in your pocket?”

Clearly Verizon is marketing to the mass of Star Wars fans that have always dreamed of having their own R2-D2 buddy.  (In fact, Verizon is even utilizing Lucas Film’s trademark on the word ‘Droid’.)  Despite the nifty Star Wars tie in, we all know that the Droid’s abilities won’t be able to live up to R2-D2’s intuitive interpersonal skills, such as shocking Ewoks and warning Luke of incoming Tie Fighters.

It’s going to be a while before mobile device A.I. catches up to George Lucas’ imagination.   However, there are several future phone features that we will see in the next few years that should bring us that much closer to having our own ‘Robot Sidekick’.

Augmented Reality 2.0: We already have apps like Layar and Yelp’s iPhone App. which lets you pull up anything from Wikipedia articles to restaurant reviews by pointing your phone in the direction of the object of interest. This stuff’s only gonna get better.  I suspect lightweight glasses with virtual information displays will become as big as iPod earbuds.   Think Terminator’s Termo-Vision, only with less data on killing people.

Also, social augmented reality that ties in Social Networking data and visual recognition software seems a logical next step.  Imagine pointing your phone at that gal in the bar only to find out she’s a friend of a friend and also can’t wait for the 2013 release of Episode 7.  Kinda creepy though.

Language Translation: Imagine traveling around the world and speaking every language you encounter.   With the progression of current language translation and voice recognition software, this doesn’t seem very far off as a mobile application.  Any incoming speech will be instantly translated to your default native tongue and relayed to you through an ear bud.

The output is harder, and might be a bit culturally sensitive.   Speak into your mouthpiece and have the phone output the audio translation in a designated language.   Many cultures could see a ‘robot’ speaking to them as somewhat offensive, however, it could also be a great way to get out of a jam.  The real question: will the app. be able to translate Wookie and Elvish?

Holograms / Projector Displays

When will we get to re-enact the ‘Help us, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re our only hope,’ scene with a holographic text to friends?   LG expects to have a projector installed on some phones by 2010.  While it’s not quite a hologram, this could be a great way to take us away from squinting at tiny screens all the time.

A Zen ‘Koan’ is a short story or sentence that seems paradoxical in nature, but can also prove to enlighten a person.  One Koan states: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

SEO Writing  is also a bit of a paradox, due to the fact that all good online articles will inadvertently have an SEO effect, and those written purely for the ‘purpose of SEO’ will most likely fail to accomplish their goal.  In other words:  if you begin with the mindset of writing purely for the search engines, you’ve failed already.  The key to SEO writing is to forget SEO.  Kinda Zen huh?  Let me explain…

The Art of ‘No Mind‘.   Zen Masters used to profess a state of mind called ‘No Mind’.   This mindset was attained when a specific art, say archery, was perfected to such a degree that the master did not need to devote a single thought to hitting a bulls eye.  In modern athletics, this is often referred to as ‘Muscle Memory’.

I’m not saying an SEO writer needs to punch a board ten thousand times to get their article picked up, but rather an SEO writer should stop thinking about SEO.   An SEO writer should think like a REAL writer:  What sort of relevant topics are novel and interesting for my audience?  What writing style should I utilize?  What are the reoccurring themes within my article?  Do I have a beginning, middle and end?   Concentrate on writing first; forget about the keywords.

Keywords are Only as Good as What Surrounds Them.  Now that you’ve gotten all this keyword nonsense out of your head, lets talk about keywords.   Are your target keywords working for you or are you working for them?

IF you are writing SEO articles and stopping to think about throwing in your keywords, you’re working for them.   This is how SEO articles are born with titles like:  ‘5 Ways to Purchase Discount Leather Boots, Leather Gloves and Leather Belts.’   And I’ve definitely written articles just like that.  Nobody reads them, I know.

Write about something you would read.  Even if you are limited by your target keywords, like ‘Leather Boots,’ try to find an angle with some interest.  What are the recent trends with Leather Boots:  did Lindsay Lohan just puke on a pair?  Who wore the first leather boots in history?  How fast can a chimp run 200 meters wearing leather boots?  Seriously, that last one may seem a bit crazy, but wouldn’t’ you read it?

The List is a Powerful Tool…If Used Correctly. I’m sure you’ve heard the hooplah about how lists are great for SEO writing.   There is a grain of truth to this, however, just because you are using bullet points instead of paragraphs doesn’t mean your list will be a sure thing.

Good List:   Top 10 Most Ridiculous Craiglist Posts of All Time

Bad List:   Top 10 Promotional Pens and Pencils by Category – Promotional Gifts with a Difference

While the first list may not be for SEO purposes, it should be used as an example of something people might actually be interested in reading.  The second article clearly was not meant to be read by a person.

Target Keywords… Finally

So you ask, where’s all the ‘basics’ about inserting target keywords into your article?  What is the proper density of keywords to content?  How about anchor tags? And what about story titles?

I’ll answer these questions with another famous Zen Koan:

“When you can do nothing, what can you do?”

Here’s to Google Docs

Open Collaboration

At your finger tips

One thing you should know about the Insight Forge team here in San Francisco: we’re all pretty big Google Document devotees.  We utilize Google Docs for pretty much everything – idea brainstorms, camping trip supply lists , brownie recipes, time spreadsheets, you name it.

If you own a small business, Google documents provides a forum for you to collaborate in real time between team members or directly with your clients.   For example, if you’re a chef and want to send a revised menu out to your staff, a Google Document would be the perfect place to express your thoughts.  You could add notes, and they could respond with questions to prepare for the menu’s release.

Most of the hitches we’ve encountered have to do with formatting between Google Docs and MS Word or MS Excel.   In an ideal world we would never need to use Word or Excel, and all of our writing could take place on Docs.

Google just released a new feature that allows complete folders to be shared, each containing multiple documents and spreadsheet under one umbrella.  This further promotes the easy collaboration and quick access that Google Documents excels at (no pun intended).

So… cheers to Google Docs!

Another hot trend in search engine optimization is social media marketing.  Approaching social media work from a beginner’s standpoint can be a daunting task.  There are a ton of tools, sites and ‘expert’ opinions which you will find shoved in your face as the ‘new best way’ to get your website on the map.

The truth is, there are quite a few routes to go with social media marketing, and only several that will provide any real dividends.  When it comes down to it, as far as utilizing any social media method that requires gaining followers or building clout, honesty and repetition are the ways to go.  Many people will tell you that there are fast tracks to social media success, but there aren’t.  Like anything, it takes time, repetition, and trust to get ahead.

I’d like to take a moment to go over the basic points of social media marketing to get a beginner in the field on the ground and running.

Forums

Forums may be old school, but they are also a great place to reach a targeted group of users in your space.

Are you promoting the website of a bike shop  in San Francisco?  Post on local bike forums, but don’t just sign up for an account and blast your url out, that will probably only result in you getting kicked off the forum.  Try to participate in worthy discussions, and lend your input for at least a month before slipping your relevant site into the mix.  Be open with the forum community, tell them you work as a marketer in the field and are simply interesting in picking the brains of relevant users.

No forums on your specific topic of interst?  Create your own.  Our friends over at Lefora provide an easy to use Web 2.0 forum solution that will get you going in a jiffy.

Social Sharing Tools:  Twitter / Tumblr / Jaiku

Twitter is fast becoming spam central like MySpace, with legions of marketing bots attempting to gain as many followers as possible.

Don’t spam people on Twitter: what goes around comes around.  Sure, you may end up with thousands of followers using twitter bots, but they will be essentially worthless.   It’s pointless to have followers if most of them don’t care about the subject you are tweeting about.

Any real value you will gain from twitter will be sending out tweets to people in your space.  100 followers that are somewhat relevant to your San Francisco Bike site are far more valuable than 1000 irrelevant followers (most of which that are primarily spammers and robots).

If you are building a twitter following, send out relevant tweets with the topic’s # (hashtag) attached.

Ex.  I can’t wait for the #SanFrancisco Bikeathon in Golden Gate park this Weekend!  Anyone planning to attend? 

Building your following won’t happen overnight.  Keep a schedule of consistent tweets and be flexible.

Social Aggregation Sites:  Digg / StumbleUpon / Reddit

There are all fantastic tools for ‘blasting out’ your relevant blog post, site news, or site launch to the masses.  The key here is using the tools for what they are meant to be used for: allowing users to find and share interesting / entertaining information.

Of course ‘interest & entertainment’ value can be somewhat difficult to achieve depending on the subject of your site.  If you working on the SEO for Tom Brady’s new webpage, filled with updates about his latest date with Giselle, getting the word spread will be fairly easy. However, if you are trying to find an angle to make a used toilet brush site look entertaining, it may be an uphill climb.

The key here is picking the interesting content out of a haystack and ‘blasting’ it to the right audience.  Make sure to categorically classify your used toilet brush site update and get it to the right people.  Stay tuned for a post on the basics of SEO writing, and how to make a totally uninteresting subject somewhat palpable.

Social Networks:   Facebook / MySpace / Ning / LinkedIn

Just as in forums, the key to utilizing social networks for marketing purposes is reaching the right users.  Don’t go crazy and simply try to get as many friends as possible- find users that may actually be interesting in what you are promoting.  Join and create groups, fan pages, etc about your site or subject, but do so discreetly.  Build some trust by participating in discussions even if they don’t directly relate to you marketing your site.

The Associated Press reported that online advertising has felt the recent economic slump, falling 5% in the first half of 2009.  Although online advertising as a whole has felt the pressure, search advertising seems to be doing fine.  Google Inc., which controls 2/3 of the search advertising market, reported  a 4% gain during the first half of the year.

So what does this mean? Maybe nothing, and we are simply seeing fluctuations due to an unsteady market.  However, it could also be a sign that search marketing is continuing to eat away at other forms of online advertising.  Consumers continue to rely heavier on web search as a prominent source of educational, entertainment and business related information and media.   This supports the fact that getting basic SEO on a website now will provide enhanced dividends in the future.

During an economic downturn, if consumers are still attuned to peripheral  Pay-Per-Click ads (like Google Adwords), they must be even more familiar with getting what they want within the actual search results.   As far as spending money on marketing, getting a higher search ranking for a website would probably place among the highest cost / benefit ratios of any advertising budget.

Elizabeth Blackburn © 2007 Micheline Pelletier

Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of San Francisco was one of three scientists to receive the Nobel Prize today for her research on chromosomes.

This is not only huge news for the human species (her research on the enzyme Telomerase could be pivotal to stopping cancer and lengthening the human lifespan) but also for San Francisco, as she has been a long time researcher at UCSF’s department of biochemistry and physics.

I’d like to say to Dr. Blackburn:  Represent!  Why aren’t we as proud of locals like Dr. Blackburn as we are of our other San Francisco heroes like Joe Montana or Willie Mays? Although brilliant scientists may not agree, I’d like to think we would worship them ala that Intel Commercial featuring the ‘USB Co-Founder.’ Perhaps if our culture was more centered on making celebrities out of innovators we would see more funding going into pivotal research.

This isn’t the first time that UCSF has produced a winner: three past scientists, Stanley Prusiner, Harold Varmus and J. Michael Bishop have also won the Nobel Prize for their works.

Blackburn will be splitting the $1.4 million dollar prize with two others.  Hopefully after all her dedicated research she will use some of her prize to enjoy herself.   I recommend Cafe Maritime in the Marina district, if she’s a fan of seafood that is.

Search Engine Optimization has been a trendy topic over the past several years, and while it has certainly proven to be very effective, some ‘experts’ can often get out of hand with the details.  Google & Co’s algorithms for crawling websites and providing search results are  constantly evolving,  which can explain the need for SEO experts to adapt their methods to a constantly changing field.

However, there are several basic SEO techniques which are proven and haven’t changed much at all.  It is important to always keep the SEO basics in mind, and not get too caught up in the details.  I’ll start with three of the most important things to keep on the top of the list when implementing an SEO friendly site:  Title Tags, Page Copy and Content.

Title Tags

Title Tags are definitively one of the most important single elements in a website’s SEO structure.  These are the integral keywords that appear on the top of each search result listing.  It is important to keep title tags simple, descriptive, and to-the-point (under 68 characters).

For example, if you run a San Francisco catering and event planning service:  San Francisco Catering and Event Planning | Caterati

Of course, there are other factors to take into account, such as keyword traffic and page copy relevance.   Otherwise, fairly simple and straightforward.

Page Copy and Headers

It is important that your page copy and header tags (H1, H2, etc.) mesh with the general topic your site covers.   If you have a website about puppies, the pages should generally be about puppies, from different types, to how to train them, etc. Makes sense, doesn’t it? There are a surprising number of sites out there that don’t follow this simple rule though, whether it be covering too wide a breadth of topics or simply not staying on topic.

The target keywords on eac page should be inserted deliberately but discreetly within the copy.  This means the keywords should go unnoticed (from the rest of the copy) to your average human reader.  Try testing this: have a friend read a page without ‘keyword pretense’ and see if they notice if something is ‘off.’

Fresh Content

Providing ongoing fresh, keyword relevant and interesting content for your website is probably the most important thing you can do to give it a boost in search rankings.  This isn’t about ‘tricking’ Google or any other sort of work-around:  it is simply about keeping a regular schedule to publish your fresh, on-site content.

We often recommend installing a hosted Wordpress blog as a forum for publishing your fresh content.  Wordpress can do wonders with SEO.  Even if you don’t have anything to write about, just write and see what comes out.  If possible, throw in some of your relevant topics / keywords in a discreet,  ‘non-spammy’ way.