Watch the video or listing to the audio to hear his responses to the following questions:

1. Question: Do you feel social media should be included in the overall internet marketing efforts for small businesses such as hotels? What impact do you feel social media has on the overall presence of a business online?

   Answer: In general, think about how much time you need to dedicate to it. If it’s not something you can dedicate enough time to then I would look into outsourcing or just taking a look at what you could in that time. Social Media is definitely a big part of the industry now and you have to integrate it in some way shape or form.

2. Question: If a hotel wanted to get into social media, but could only focus on one channel to begin with – what one channel would you recommend they maximize efforts on (i.e. Facebook vs. Twitter vs. Youtube)?

   Answer: Before getting to that point, you should monitor and figure out where people are talking about your numbers. Lets say for hotels, Dig probably isn’t the best place to enter, but Twitter would be if there’s a lot of people talking about it or looking for deals or what not. It’s always where people are and you want to go where your community is.

3. Question: Do you have any time-management suggestions or strategies for companies who are limited in bandwidth but want to engage as much as possible in social media? Are there any tools out there that you would recommend for social media management, such as TweetDeck?

   Answer: Tweet Deck has an application to manage your twitter stream, that’s a great one. On top of that, there are applications like tweet peep, which monitors keywords or actual twitter handle. You could use applications like tweet peep to follow that and set it to every hour or every day, depending on how many people have applied to you or used that name in their twitter stream.

4. Question:The challenge hoteliers see with social media is how to make money? In our experimentation, we have seen that social media does result in more website leads and better organic placement, which results in higher revenue, but you cannot directly associate revenue with it like with paid search. Any comments or thoughts on this?

   Answer: That’s the same thing with me. I have a problem with SEO and there’s no real science to it. With paid search and PPC, we drop this much money in and we’ve definitely gotten this much conversion. But with SEO and social media, it’s a little more of a gray area because we’ve developed this overall campaign, we’re ranking for something or we’ve developed a social media strategy, we’re reaching a certain audience, but there isn’t an exact number output. If you estimate that you have a x number of conversions based on a certain user base, you could probably divide that up and say, “alright, out of 5000 users, we’ve made $25,000 so its $5/user or whatever it is.” It might be a little iffy to validate, but that’s the best way of figuring it out.

5. Question:How do you measure returns (either impact or monetary) from social media?

   Answer: With anything that you do on Dig, it can be anywhere from 30.000 visits to 250,000 visits a day which is great a publisher. For a hotel, you might want to do something like twitter where you see more interaction with the community, more followers, more feedback and a better understanding of what they’re looking for. So that might be some great insights they can leverage for their business.

In summary, Tony provided some significant insight for small businesses, such as hotels, to take advantage of social media channels. At SMX, Milestone also attended the session, “Proving the Value of Social Media”, and the core recommendation was that social media helps you generate significant discussions about your brand, can increase brand visibility and awareness, drive qualified traffic to your website, help you improve customer service, allow you to test new ideas and get feedback, and increase your customer retention rate.

1. Reassuring policies – Privacy policies, guarantees, rebates, returns, etc. Let the viewer know you are a trustworthy brand and it is safe to purchase from you.

2. Testimonials – By adding what other people are saying about adds to a viewer’s reassurance that you are a reliable brand with a good reputation.

3. Don’t be too forward – Omit credit card forms or any other form that can occur as being too forward. RFPs that invite the viewer to receive a phone call from you are acceptable. But the objective is to be nice to the viewer, build consumer trust, increase the duration of their interest in you, and finally convert the user.

4. Email collection – In addition to RFPs, offer other means to start conversations with consumers. Although it does not have a direct correlation to lowering bounce rates, it is an inexpensive way to increase user retention.

5. Analyze bounce rate – Compare your most effective pages against your least effective. Is there content that is not compelling enough? Does it occur as alienating to a first time user? Should verbiage need to be rewritten? The goal is lower bounce rate.

Increasing consumer retention offers a higher probability of viewer conversion. That is why looking at bounce rates and improving the content of landing pages is necessary. Not only do you want to take a nice and inviting tone on every landing page, but also offer a means to build a relationship with that viewer. These 5 steps serve as a checklist for a means to do just that. We have referenced article posted on SEO moz while writing this Post.

Speakers:
Craig Danuloff, ClickEquations
Elizabeth Marsten, iCrossing
Shane Snow, Location3 Media

Writing Killer adcopy is all about freeing your mind. It is about explaining the benefit in the adcopy based on search query. Here is the brief synopsis of information presented during SMX advance 2009 in writing killer adcopy session by each presenter.

Steps towards writing high performance ads
According to the very first presenter Craig, every search is a question and results are possible answers to these questions. Ad copy is your hand raised to offer your answer.

As an advertiser, we need to align ads with search queries not with keywords. It is crucial to create focused adgroups based on queries not keywords, and ensure that every answer matches every question.

Possible message components of an ad could include a keyword, features, benefits, trust, economics, shipping, competitors, or call to action. The ultimate goal is to test with different ingredients within an adcopy, monitor the results of these campaigns, and apply your learnings across other campaigns. Craig explained a step by step process for writing adcopy for high performance ads.

1. They are written to address the question asked by specific search queries
2. Targeted to a very narrow band of queries via tightly focused ad groups
3. Tested with many different ingredient messages to find optimal CTR

Steps towards writing killer adcopy by Shane

As a second speaker, Shane shared steps we can take to write killer adcopy. He showed the video focused on reality is not what you see but what you think. Check out the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzm8kTIj_0M. It is not the spoon that bends but it is what you think and see needs to bend.

Very First step in PPC copy writing is to free your mind. Shane shared a video about showing the value of making your mind free and letting your imagination go wild before writing adcopy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9Nh0Fvoe9k - Bottom-line, let your imagination go wild. Consider mistakes an opportunity to learn.

Second Step is to Twist up Features/Benefits - Expressing your features and benefits in wacky or unexpected ways can significantly boost your creativity and response to your ads.

A few great pointers given by Shane for writing killer adcopy
Hype Tagline by using infomercials, sensational vocabulary. Headlines should be engaging enough to lead surfer to read the rest of the text, and rest of the text should be good enough to lead surfer into the click. Infomercials, social media headlines, and other highly competitive marketing venues can be great sources of inspiration for your copywriting. Use exciting vocabulary to spice up your adcopy.

Elizabeth Marsten from Portent Interactive did phenomenal job and shared 7 tricks for writing killer adcopy.

1. Be More Aggressive

• Tell people what to do…with edge!
• Question their safety and security.
• Point out flaws in both their appearanceand personality
• Ask them why they suck?

2. Use Reverse Psychology – By using reverse psychology, you’ll catch all those people that didn’t respond to the aggressive ad.

Here are few examples of using reverse psychology

• Your mom’s been doing it for years.
• Mind games are fun.

  Don’t Buy Shoes
  Shoes Take Up Space, Even
  When They’re on Sale.

3. People need repetition for the message to sink in.
For Example
Double and Triple Your Fun
Double your pleasure. Double your fun!

4. Appeal to their Ego

• Point out how everyone else is a loser.
• Tell them how good looking they are.
• Stretch the truth about their intelligence.
• Mention that they smell nice.

5. Use Guilt - Incite a sense of duty.
Example

• Mention that not buying from you makes small
  children die.
• Millions will go hungry! , Hundreds will die!
• But a Snuggie will make everything all better.

  Pants Don’t Fit?
  Stop Snacking, You’re Doing it to
  Yourself. Free Trial Gym Pass.

  Donate to Our Cause
  Orphan Children Will Die
  Without Your Support!

6. Using Sounds as Words

• It’s time we invoke senses in ads! Not just
  emotions like guilt, anger and shame.
• If they can hear it, they will come.
• Snap, Crackle and Pop proved that it works.
  Mmmm…Cookies
  Crispy, Crumbly Butter Cookies.
  Free Shipping on Orders of $25+

7. Write for Women

• Play on insecurities and weaknesses.
• Utilize that spending power. Shopaholic is about
  a woman after all.
• Pander to their needs.
• They’re always right.
• Show them you care.

  Example

  Terry Cloth Track Suits
  Are Always in Style. Don’t
  Waste Wearing Them at the Gym.

8. Write Ads that Sound Dirty, but Aren’t.

• Buying toner is extremely boring. Spice it up!
• Get that sale by making them laugh.
• Appeal to the gutter minded.

In conclusion, all the presenters did a phenomenal job of showing how to write killer adcopy and some of the crucial steps required to do so.

Why eBuzz Connect^TM?
Social Media Marketing is the next frontier of “organic optimization.” As Social Media sites continue to grow in popularity, it is important for hotels to include these channels in their online marketing strategies, especially when references from these sites are considered important ranking factors by search engines. Hotels that take advantage of this trend and put an effort in managing their online reputation are seeing significant benefits in terms of online placement and increased revenue.

Over the last few years, Milestone has collected substantial return on investment data from social media marketing efforts for several hotel industry clients (see Graviti^TM for more information). eBuzz Connect^TM is derived from the results of these marketing efforts and focuses on the social media channels found most effective for the hotel industry.

eBuzz Connect^TM Key Features
eBuzz Connect^TM comes with several features for monitoring and managing online reputation and proactively marketing the hotel on social media channels. Some of the key features include:

Converting Social Media into Profits
- Monitor, manage, respond (wherever possible) to reviews and comments on social media channels
- Monitor performance on OTA channels
- Reference Guide for Social Media Marketing - which channels to optimize and how to optimize
- Demystifies how hotels can maximize gains and track performance in social media channels

Flexible and Powerful Reporting
- Actionable General Manager’s Summary Report
- Dashboard view and desktop delivery
- Trend Analysis – data saved for up to 2 years
- Brand and group level reporting. Summarize reports by group or region, assign multiple user permissions

Set and Manage Social Media Goals
- Benchmark performance of hotel on social media channels vs. pre-set goals. Goals can be relative to competitors or absolute goals. Track performance pre- and post- changes at the hotel (construction, management change, etc)

Competition Monitoring
- Monitoring of performance vs. competition

Impact Index^TM
- Enables focus on important items. Sort by importance of reviews using Impact Index Rating

eBuzz Connect^TM System Architecture
The system is designed as a central warehouse for collecting and storing data from multiple Web 2.0 and Social Media sites and the capability to present data to the user in easy-to-read dashboard reports and desktop delivery reports. The architecture provides an easy to navigate social media dashboard with summarized reports segmented by the type of channel such as Travel Reviews, Blogs and News, Photo Sharing, Videos, Bookmarking, and Social Networks and easy ability to drill down into each of the channels.

Availability and Pricing
eBuzz Connect^TM is available starting June 23, 2009 at the HITEC Conference in Anaheim, CA. The system is available at a discounted launch price in the range of $95 to $195 per month per hotel. Multiple hotel pricing discounts are offered and the pricing can be obtained by contacting Milestone sales rep. For more information about the product and company or to sign up for a free trial, call (888) 350-8396 or email: sales@milestoneinternet.com

About Milestone
Milestone Internet Marketing, Inc. is a leading provider of Internet marketing solutions for the lodging industry. Milestone’s portfolio of services included Website Design, Search Engine Optimization, Pay-per-Click marketing, Email marketing, and several Social Media Optimization initiatives like Online Videos, Blogs, RSS, etc. Milestone currently works with over 700 hotels and drives over $150M in annual revenue for its clients. Milestone is a preferred vendor for several major lodging industry brands and works with some of the leading management companies in the US. Milestone is also well known as a lodging industry educator for its Hotels to HTMLs internet marketing workshops and book. For more information on our products and services, please visit www.milestoneinternet.com or email sales@milestoneinternet.com or call (888) 350-8396.

To become a buddy with Milestone on social channels and to stay current with the latest tech trends, click here.

^{All trademarks used are properties of their respective owners.
Copyright © 2009 Milestone Internet Marketing, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy}

There are more choices for consumers on bing. Here is the overview.

Bing is not only the search engine but a decision engine. Bing as a product took very differential approach. It promises to offer rich and organize user experience. It is based on user intend and what is most relevant in that area.

Lot of R& D is done by Microsoft in creating Bing,. Search results are based on what people are looking and what is most relevant. Goal is user can make more intelligent decision and faster.

According to Dr. Qi Lu, digital universe is very complex. As a search engine, lot more needs to get done to produce search experience. Best way to predict future is to create one.

How did bing came with the name?

Two things were very important for Microsoft while deciding name.

1. First – Very Important to have a new brand which only represent search.

2. Second- Microsoft wanted some thing small, short and works well across the globe.

What happens with live services?

• MSN will still be there. Live brand will continue to stay. Bing is only offering search.

• Any last minute surprises!

• Search experience can be lot more compelling and search is still new. A lot more can be done. More competition and more choices is good for every one. Keep doing Research and keep innovative. Bing is ideal to do Real time search. Twitter is a great tool as well. Fresh content is the answer.

This session included some great insights on key 2009 SEO ranking factors. We also manage to interview Rand after the session. Thank you so much rand for sharing inslights and helpful tips for all the SEO’s. .

Rand Fishkin shared details based on the recent survey SEO moz conducted where they matched expert opinion with real data. Survey is based on 70 + SEO worldwide and from data correlation.

Here is the Bullet point suggestion list based on the survey and data compilation.

1. Most important ranking factors are URL, Title and Alt Text.
2. If you base it solely on SEO, keyword should be used at the beginning of the title tag.
3. Having title tag starting with keyword phase and images with alt tag utilizing keyword tag have high correlation. Correlation is not causation. Just because you have great alt tag does not mean that you will rank high. It only means that sites which has both i.e. title tag and alt tag with keyword phrase seems to rank high.
4. Root domain is more important than subdomain. Most people feel that content on subdomains inherent some, but not all, of the query-independent ranking metrics of the root domain and is judged partially as a separate entity. Subdomain are not inheriting all the ranking benefits from root domains. (In case of wordpress and blogspot subdomain is treated as separate entity)
5. Keyword tags is not used at all. Meta tags is used but not that much.
6. Importance of keyword usage in different part of url – Utilizing keyword any where in the url either domain, url or any where helps in ranking.
7. URL with keyword has more impact on ranking than content on the page
8. Hi Tags – Should be done utilizing keyword phrase but has very little effect.
9. Freshness of the content, recency of the page creation has huge impact.
10. HI validation has week impact. Static URL performs better than dynamic URLs.
11. Number of linking domain has impact on ranking.

    

12. Important SEO matrix in Google Algorithim of percentage breakdown . High level view of Google’s algorithm

    * Trust authority of host domain - 25 percent

    * Link population of specific page - 22 percent

    * Anchor text of external links - 20 percent

    * On page keyword use - 15 percent

    * Traffic and CTR data - 7 percent

    * Social graph metrics - 6 percent

    * Hosting and registration - 5 percent

13. Future of Algorithm

    Links will remain most important part of ranking algorithm

Laura Lippay from Yahoo stated that key factors are not only meta tag optimization, affiliate networks, inlinks, keyword density, but also include sites being viral, having buzz, getting link, and being your own linkbait. She discussed how great product is the fundamental for high ranking.

She gave example of knitting world and knitting life and how knitting life will do so much better because its viral nature and it has capability to upload video, share photos and having site which is viral in nature.

Speakers:
Brent Csutoras, Social Media Marketing Consultant, Brent Csutoras, Inc
Jen Miller, Manager, Delta.com Onsite Marketing & Content, iProspect
Dave Snyder, Co-Founder, Search & Social

Managing your social media profiles can become repetitive once you get the hang of things. Here are a few new tips and tactics to try:

Stumble Upon Tactics:

• Select categories with the biggest audience. The pages that you submit into Stumble will only appear in the networks of people that have selected the same categories as you. Go to www.stumbleupon.com/submit to find out the hot and popular categories / tags at the moment

• Find the right categories for you by going to www.stumbleupon.com/ads

• Avoid using the ‘SHARE’ button. There is a lot of negative buzz surrounding this feature. Instead, use the “SEND TO” button to make the profile more natural.

• Avoid patterns and only voting for your friends.

• Add and make new friends on a regular basis

• Vote for video and photos

• Tag & Review often

• Optimize your profile (fill out as much information as possible)

Flickr Tactics:

• Upload photos that someone would enjoy looking at or share

• Add unique titles with keywords

• Start your own group and recruit new members

• Upload photos every 2 -3 weeks

• Limit anchor texts to only the better quality photos

• Limit back links to your website, your account may be banned if abused.

• Be aware of Creative Commons

• Become a member of the Pro Account. It’s only $25!

Viral link building will happen naturally with the right strategy. Be a good contributor to the social community by creating authentic profiles. The panel suggested thinking of social media as a fast track SEO. The bottom line is … social media is not all about links, it is about visibility.

In the SMX Advanced session, “Proving Social Media’s Value”, the speakers showed how social media can be proven helpful for securing links, for brand reputation, ranking and traffic to your site, reputation management and to engage community while gaining effective feedback. While there are many social tools and channels out there, it is crucial to decide which ones will work for your business based on your customer profiles. Based on your overall marketing objectives, you should create a custom strategy that reaches out to your target market on these channels.

The speakers offered ROI measurement strategies and engagement tactics used by businesses to validate the benefits of social media marketing. They explained how social media can generate significant discussions about your brand, can increase brand visibility and awareness, drive qualified traffic to your website, help you improve customer service, allow you to test new ideas and get feedback, and increase your customer retention rate. Here are some highlights on how to measure ROI and the benefit of participating in social media channels:

• User forums represent a large source of online conversations. Tech companies (e.g. consumer electronics, software) have an opportunity to participate in forums, which can account for 30-50% of total UGC, in a meaningful way. Whether you are looking to build your own user support forum or participate in 3rd party forum conversations, you can apply an ROI calculation to this form of engagement.

• Typically, your “earned” social media referrals have better conversion. A recent Razorfish marketing study showed social media referrals to have a 1.5-4x conversion rate when compared to organic and PPC traffic. Social media can generate a significant amount of “earned” referrals, and drive extremely quality traffic. Don’t forget about the positive people too! Just because they loved you from the start doesn’t mean they don’t deserve your TLC attention. Reach out to your fans and thank them for the positive feedback. Incentivize them to continue to be a positive social influencer – offer them a special discount or promo to come back and stay with you.

• Identify negative noise-makers on social channels (e.g. TripAdvisor). Who is talking negative about you? What are they saying and why? Get to the bottom of who is negatively buzzing about you.

• Next, turn that negative influencer into a positive one. Reach out to your foes on social channels, and incentivize them to turn their buzz into a positive one. The incentives could be a kind, sensitive hand outreached to hear their side of the story – which sometimes may work to show the company cares to make things right. Or, it could actually be an incentive, such as a coupon or complimentary add-on if they come back to stay with you. Chances are, if the person is truly genuine about their bad experience, your initiative to make things right will make a difference to the.

• Identify opportunities to socialize with your potential fanbase or niche audiences on social forums (i.e. Facebook Groups) or travel blogs. Recognize the opportunities your brand has to have a voice on existing social channels that are already buzzing about travel to your geographic area.

• Send out coupons or promotion codes to your fans on various social networks. For example, on Twitter and Facebook, offer a coupon to all your fans and followers for “free Fridays when you book Saturday and Sunday”. Make it know that the coupon is for your social networking buddies only. You want your fans to know the benefits of staying connected with you on social channels.

In summary, If you can turn one negative noise maker of your brand or product into a positive one, you’ve already converted a “never again” guest into a potential repeat guest. Already you have proven value. If you turned a neutral customer into a positive customer, you’ve scored again. And if you turn a fan into a die-hard fan, you’ve across the board, proven that you can monitor your brand image, and make the most out of all 3 experiences. As you continue to do this, monitor your social media “earned” referrals and traffic. Compare your additional earned social media traffic to organic and PPC traffic, to see the increase of traffic social media has provided to your website. Also, if you can assume that the social media referrals have a significant conversion rate, an estimate ROI can be applied to your efforts – on both customer retention and the increase of traffic to your website.

There are a lot of urban legends and speculations out there when it comes to PPC campaigns – what converts, which strategies work, and ultimately, what will get you the highest quality score and CTR with the least amount of marketing dollars.

At SMX Advanced Seattle this year, a few of the top fables were debunked. Here are the top PPC myths that were discussed:

Myth #1 - Content Network is not good

• According to Fredrick from Google this is a myth. Have a separate content campaign and take advantage of your enhanced PPC campaigns by actively reviewing content network placements and keywords. It was suggested that an advertiser should use Placement Performance Reports to discover opportunities in your content network placements or to find sites that are not converting, and to make those negative matches. One last suggestion was to use Google’s Conversion Optimizer, which will let Google manage the bids to hit your CPA targets.

Myth 2 - Lower positions convert the same as higher positions.

• A big question amongst advertisers is can I lower my bids to avoid the high spend at top positions? According to Fredrick from Google, a lower position definitely affects CTR (click though rates) which usually results in a lower total number of conversions. Calculate the ideal position by determining VPC (value per click), and the incremental CPC (cost per click). Pick the bid where ICC (difference in costs / difference in clicks) is lower than your value per click.

Myth 3- Broad match is worthless.

• Is broad match worthless or is there value to having keywords set as broad match? Overall, Frederick suggested advertisers consider broad match a great way to find new search keywords. Your PPC campaign should always have broad match enabled. Use the Search Query Report to eliminate keywords by setting them as negative match. Also, it helps to create separate campaigns for your exact and phrase match keywords.

Myth 4 - My quality score will be affected by testing.

• Will my quality score be wiped out if I restructure my PPC campaign? Frederick advised that the history of your keywords, ad text, and landing pages is always preserved, even when you are restructuring your account. The visible keyword history is reset when campaigns are restructured but the history to calculate quality score is always preserved. The best practice is to experiment with improved account structure and strategies. You can always go back to your original campaigns if it was not a success.

Myth 5 – Geo-targeting does not work.

• Geo-targeting is good for local business or for businesses that sell goods or services to exclusive locations. However, it should be used carefully since the only way a search engine knows to serve a geo-targeted ad is based on the user’s IP address or zip code. IP targeting can sometimes be inaccurate; for example, a user is located in California but they are using AOL so they appear to search engines as if they are coming from Reston, Virginia. The recommended strategy is to add modified keywords such as “dallas auto body shop” or “phoenix tanning salon” to your geo-targeted campaign.

Myth #6 - A PPC landing page is a single page.

• Actually, the landing page is a bridge between the “click” and the “conversion”. And while one may thing a single landing page would have a high conversion rate, studies have shown that sometimes a 2 or 3 path landing pages has a higher chance of converting the user. So why are 2-3 page landing pages more effective? Landing page paths (multiple pages leading to final conversion page) give opportunity to segment the users into their niche buckets, they allow you to ease the user into the buying process, and they can introduce a savvy buying experience.

Myth #7 - Flash on your landing pages is slow and bad.

• Though flash has a bad somewhat rep for being slow and undesirable, it is actually beneficial to have flash on your landing pages. When done correctly, strategically-used flash effects can increase conversion, create better branding, engage your audience, and provide a creative differentiation for your landing pages.

Myth #8 - Multivariate Testing (MVT) is better than A/B Testing.

• Though some would argue that multivariate testing is better than A/B testing, it isn’t exactly true. It’s just that each has its own pros and cons. And even though some PPC experts have shyed away from A/B testing, it really does come with a lot of benefits that we should revisit. A/B testing requires less traffic in order to collect data, it allows for apples-to-oranges type tests, and it will produce fewer variations, which means little to no risk of bad combinations. Ultimately, the goal is to think big with your PPC campaign but test small and safe.

  

In conclusion, the following points were made in the SMX Advanced “PPC Urban Legends” sessions:

1. Multiple landing pages (forming a click-path) have shown to increase conversion vs. having just one landing page.
2. Flash can be a good thing when used on landing pages, as it shows a higher conversion rate due to increased engagement and differentiation.
3. A/B testing should not be wiped out by multivariate testing. A/B testing is a great strategy when you want to stay controlled and precise.
4. Campaigns should use geo-targeting, content network and broad match campaign but should be tested by setting up separate campaign for each variable.
5. It is good to test different structures for your campaign. Campaign history is not lost. If new structure does not work, you can go back to the original one.
6. It is advisable to bid high when you start your campaigns to secure better CTR.

Milestone Internet Marketing, Inc. recommends that GMs and DOSs look at the following key items on a regular basis. Monitoring these items will enhance the eCommerce productivity of your hotel.

Download GM’s eCommerce Checklist

	Website Design
	Architecture
	Website is easy to navigate and every page is one or two clicks away
	Primary and secondary navigation should be clearly visible and above the fold
	Website has a sitemap.xml feed set up and verified by Google
	Website has a sitemap.xml feed set up and verified by Google

	Content
	Include unique selling propositions
	Have only one mail URL and redirect other URLs to the main website.
	Make sure website content is original and does not violate any duplicate content guidelines
	Website describes local attractions and things to do

	Multimedia
	Website features good quality hotel and destination images
	The hotel has copyrights to all the pictures used on the site If you use Flash, it should be used in moderation and should be optimized

	Converstion Factors
	Hotel Information is accurate and easy to find – phone, fax, email, address, etc.
	Specials and Packages are current, easy to find, and can be booked online.
	Calls to actions and booking mask should be above the fold
	Email offers can be easily found and are easy to sign up for

	Validation
	Website works properly on all major internet browsers such as Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, etc.

	Brand Compliance
	Website follows all the brand compliance guidelines such as logo, links, trademarks, and privacy policies.

	Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
	Meta-Tags, Sitemap, Robots
	Keyword-rich meta-tags are present – Title, Description, Key-Tags, Alt-Tags
	Body copy should be optimized for search engines – H1, H2, anchor tags, etc.

	Page Rank
	Check if homepage and internal pages are ranked by Google

	Link-Building
	Check competition and local sites to define backlinks. Do a backlink research by using our tool: link.milestoneinternet.com
	Build at least 1 link per week from relevant websites only

	Web Promotion
	Local & Organic Search
	Website shows up organically and in local search when searched by name
	Check if your site is ranking high for desired KWPs

	Hotel should secure listings from search engines, IYPs, local and niche directories, social media sites, etc.
	Ensure that local listing for hotel accurate and enhanced information about hotel.

	Email Marketing
	Email addresses collected online and at front desk
	Send monthly special offers and newsletters to guests

	Paid Marketing
	Landing Page is specifically catered to the PPC traffic, includes clear call to actions, selling points, bulleted points, book now button, and trust indicator logos above the fold line.
	Make sure geo-targeting is set up

	OTA and 3rd Party Sites
	Online Inventory and Rate Parity
	Rate Parity – Check rates on all channels
	Check Inventory on all channels

Check how competition looks on different channels

	Social Media
	Online Reputation Management
	Monitor online reputation and have an action plan for responding to criticism honestly. Include review channels, blogs, twitter, etc.

	Blogs
	Blog about local area, business drivers of consumer interest, and any special offers in your location
	Encourage customers to engage and interact by sharing interests/comments/reviews about the hotel and surrounding areas

	Social Meida Optimization
	Upload and tag videos on sites such as YouTube

Upload and tag photos on sites such as Flickr

Create social networking profiles for the hotel on sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.

Use social media to communicate what is happening at your hotel, business, and particular location

	ROI Tracking
	Website Tracking
	Check your website tracking report, check how many unique visitors, search engine referrals, page views, clicks on the booking engine page, and the total ROI Produced through your website

	Review reservations and packages booked through the booking engine
	Track phone calls to understand your complete conversion from internet marketing and ecommerce activities

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Contributed by: Benu Aggarwal | Anil Aggarwal, Milestone Internet Marketing