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

In addition to winning impressive honors in the category of Social Media, Milestone received an Outstanding Website Award for the Wyndham Oceanside Pier Resort’s website design & marketing strategy. Milestone developed a search optimized website for the resort with the purpose of enhancing performance, drive traffic and increased revenue. The site launched on December 17, 2012 and has already experienced incredible results. Within the first month, the property saw:

• 64% increase in overall website traffic,
• 81% increase in Google traffic, and
• 17% decrease in bounce rate.

Produced by the Web Marketing Association, the Internet Advertising Competition honors excellence in web and social media marketing, recognizing the individuals and companies responsible for creating world-class campaigns that drive awareness and exceptional ROI results. Entries are judged on specific categories including Creativity, Innovation, Impact, Design, Copywriting, Memorability and Use of the Medium.

Milestone Internet Marketing, Inc.’s portfolio of services for the lodging industry includes award-winning website design, search engine optimization, pay-per-click marketing, social media optimization, and eBuzz Connect™ online reputation monitoring. A premier Internet marketing agency, Milestone currently drives over $550-million in annual revenue for its clients and works with over 1,400 hotels, including numerous global brands and leading management companies. Milestone is also well known as a lodging industry educator for its Internet marketing workshops and book, Hotels to HTMLs. For more information, please visit www.milestoneInternet.com or call 888-350-8396.

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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

A hot topic in the local world is the use of review filters on local platforms. Better customer reviews lead to higher rankings in search engines, so business owners and managers are willing to do just about anything to boost the quantity of positive reviews. Yelp, for instance, has caught many businesses paying customers to add positive reviews, which goes against Yelp’s slogan, “Real people, Real reviews”.

In order to ensure that reviews posted about a business are authentic, websites such as Yelp and Google are using algorithms that filter reviews based on keyword stuffing, extreme adjectives or profanity, and link inclusion in a review. Seems fair and justified right? However, there is a problem with this system. Many “real” reviews are being filtered out.

How Are Reviews Filtered?

Local search engines are beginning to employ more sophisticated review filters that target user characteristics.  Many reviews are filtered out based on the activity level of the user.  If they don’t have friends, a social circle, or don’t post reviews very often, they aren’t as credible as those who do.  The following are a few reasons why a user’s review may be filtered out:

1. Review was sent from an on-site computer
2. User has left one or very few reviews
3. User has no profile
4. User left a high frequency of reviews with a lull in between
5. The review is extremely one-sided (positive or negative)
6. User made it to the review page through an email
7. User sent the same review on multiple platforms

How Do I Prevent My Reviews From Being Filtered?

In short, you can’t. However, you can try to get reviews taken out of the filter, as search engines constantly review previously filtered work. For businesses, the best way to do this is to engage the review and the reviewer. Connecting with them can influence the reliability of their profile and thus, their reviews as well. You can do this by adding the reviewer as a friend or to your circle, interacting with their posts, or rating their review as helpful.

For users creating reviews, having an active profile is key to making reviews “stick”.  Updating your profile image, writing reviews for numerous businesses over time, and making sure to create distinctive reviews when posting on different review sites will help characterize your profile as useful and trustworthy.

Future of Review Filters

Overall, review filters will continue to sort through reviews and may pull out legitimate ones. However, search engines are aware that there are problems with the algorithms being used. In a perfect world, they will be able to figure out a way to distinguish between accurate and false reviews with 100% certainty. In the mean time, focus on the reviews that are showing up and engage with your followers as much as possible. Respond to reviews, both negative and positive. Show those who love your business that you appreciate their response and let those who did not have the best experience know that you are listening.

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Contributed by Claudette Linzey, JR. Internet Marketing Strategist

• 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: 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

 

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. 

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

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