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Travel SEO

Travel SEO – GlobalBasecamps.com Travel SEO Assessment

Sep 16th, 2010
by anton.
2 comments

This Travel SEO(search engine optimization) blog post is an unsponsored blog post. The only affiliation with GlobalBasecamps.com that I have is that I follow them on Twitter and we both have participated in TNI or Travelers Night In, a Tweet party that happens every Thursday from 330pm to 5pm est.

As part of the Baldydog.com online marketing program, I am attempting to rank for the keyword phrase “Travel SEO“, and I thought I would start to do weekly blog posts where I do an SEO site analysis of a featured travel site. GlobalBaseCamps.com Logo

Why GlobalBasecamps.com

When I first came to their site, I instantly loved it. Being somewhat pro-environmentalist( see numerous environmental posts on Pixelheadonline), I love the idea of sustainable travel, which is what GlobalBasecamps.com is all about…or greatly about.

So I asked them if they would like to be featured in an SEO Travel review post..

First impressions of GlobalBasecamps.com SEO

The site is really clean, it looks like there is a lot of potential for SEO for this site. At first glance it seems that there could be a lot of great niche keywords that this site could be ranking. Our fist thoughts about the SEO for the site include:

  • How much traffic do they get from “Global Basecamps” keyword phrase?
  • Needs more keyword research.
  • Title tags can be optimized far better, poor use of this highly important SEO real estate is very common.
  • Navigation code takes up too much room in the code and should be in an external file.
  • Overuse of the H tag instead of paragraph tags.

The above initial thoughts were the combined thoughts of my wife, Lizzie and myself. When Lizzie heard that GlobalBasecamps.com has trips to India, and many other exotic locations, she asked me if they would consider bartering for SEO services..lol..bartering for travel…hmm..

GlobalBasecamps.com SEO Site Assessment

Below is a basic SEO site evaluation, however,  a much more detailed site evaluation is done for websites that become clients.

url:GlobalBasecamps.com

domain age: 2yrs 11months at this writing.

Industry: sustainable travel

Page Saturation

How many pages of the site are in the Google index?

142 pages in Google for GlobalBasecamps.com

Link Popularity

131 external links pointing to GlobalBasecamps.com

Sample Keywords:

Used Google Adsense Keyword tool for Searches/month.

Keyword Phrase Searches/month Google Competition
(# of sites in Google for phrase) 		Current rank or position in Google
Global Base camps 28 124 1
sustainable travel 12,100 365,000 58
sustainable tourism 135,000 1,110,000 Nf
custom trip planning 91 8,360 23

Travel SEO Suggestions

It would benefit Globalbasecamps.com greatly to undergo an SEO campaign that has two parts.  The first would be and on page optimization, which would entail optimizing for target keywords. The second part of the Travel SEO plan would be on-going traffic and authority building. Both of these components as done by Baldydog.com, entail a great deal of proprietary knowledge.

It is suggested that the home page have a tighter keyword focus, which would also require continual keyword research to find both long tail(keywords that have little competition but steady flow of traffic) and short tail keywords.

Final SEO Travel Thoughts for Globalbasecamps.com

SEO in general, is now considered to be mainstream advertising. As a business, you should consider implementing an SEO campaign that will see a huge ROI(Return on Investment).  SEO goes hand in hand with all other marketing..from traditional to Social Media marketing, SEO is an essential component to any marketing plan.

Well that’s it for this Travel SEO Post. If you would like to be featured in a Travel SEO Review post, or if you would like to inquire about SEO services for your travel company,  please contact me via the SEO Travel contact form.

Globalbasecamps Links:

GlobalBasecamps.com

GlobalBasecamps Twitter

GlobalBasecamps Facebook

GlobalBasecamps Blog

Travel SEO – What is Travel SEO?

Jul 23rd, 2010
by anton.
No comments yet

Travel SEO or Travel Search Engine Optimization is SEO as it would pertain to people who have a professional marketing interest in the Travel industry.

Who Needs Travel SEO?

As discussed in the blog post about Niche SEO, I believe one of the best SEO Lake Champlain - New Orleans niches is travel SEO, because there is such a huge potential for finding clients who could potentially benefit from your SEO services. Potential Travel SEO clients include:

  • Travel Agents, especially travel agents that are located in larger towns, such as New York or Los Angeles.
  • Casinos – with the deregulation of the gambling industry, Casinos are going to need to compete for all venues for driving potential gamblers. Can you tell me how many Casinos in Las Vegas would like to be on page one of Google for “Las Vegas Casino”?
  • Hotels – many top destinations such as New York City, have multiple hotels that again could seriously benefit for being on page one and also for having their local SEO optimized.
  • Restaurants- Restaurant SEO is a niche that I think could be focused on entirely or be a subset of travel seo. Restaurants really need to be on top their local seo as well. I know I have gone to places that show up on page one more times than not. Its a shame, but many quality restaurants are just no where to be found in the SERPs.
  • Attractions – Many vacation spots have multiple attractions that are competing for tourist dollars.
  • Resorts – How many travel destinations have multiple resorts? I know when we were on our Puerto Rico Honeymoon, there were multiple resorts competing for the keyword phrase “Puerto Rico Honeymoon”. How much does an average honeymoon package run?
  • Real Estate Rental agents – I know we have used a few of these, and I am sure there were others that we could have used had we found them online.
  • Airlines – I actually have worked on several airlines sites..they like to come up before their affiliates.
  • Car Rental Agents

Travel SEO, what is involved with Travel SEO?

First, we recommend doing a bit of keyword research. But for each one of the above categories of Travel SEO, there are certain to be many keywords that are the same, but would require location modifiers.For example,  restaurants in Sarasota would not want to rank for the keyword “Restaurant”, but would want to rank for “Sarasota restaurant” or “Italian Sarasota Restaurant” .

Now more than ever, with Travel SEO, local seo practices are of the utmost importance. Showing up in the local listings is so important, as more and more people are using their smart phones while traveling instead of using the Yellow Pages.  The local listings are often times the results that show up on smart phone screens.

Local SEO is in itself a whole new ball game that I will focus on in another blog post.

In addition to local seo, venues such as restaurants and hotels, will need to monitor and adjust their online reputations..reputation management is a huge field as well.

Natural SEO is so important for travel seo, because a site that uses good seo practices, will show up well in the local serps. Natural SEO has two main components on-page and off-page optimization. Both are very important for the Travel SEO.

Do You Need Travel SEO?

If the above blog post has you dizzy, and you would like an Travel SEO proposal, please feel free to contact us for a free quote and/or  website analysis.

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