Posts Tagged ‘websites’
Central Motel in Port Fairy gets a Website Makeover
Peter and Linda from the Central Motel in Port Fairy recently engaged us to give their old website a makeover. The usual goals:
- Make a Good Presentation of their Accommodation, Central Motel is an attractive accommodation with a great location in Port Fairy. It was easy to make improvements to the old website simply using new images and layout.
- Improve Search Engine Results, keywords like Great Ocean Road and Port Fairy have been emphasized along with basic terms like accommodation and motel.
- A Flexible Website that can be easily Managed, we’ve used BurgundySky again to make this website as it consistently provides great results. We’ve used Google Maps, embedded video hosted on YouTube and Online Booking to simplify sales.
At the same time we updated their website, we also looked at inbound links, additional sales channels and opportunities to improve online bookings.
Tags: accommodation, BurgundySky CMS, Google Maps, motel, SEO, websites, YouTube
Using Wordle to Make Keyword Word Clouds
I went to the ‘Search Engine Boot Camp‘ last week to see what I could learn and picked up a few good tips and reconfirmed a few things I already knew. One item that seems like fun and perhaps will also be useful is creating ‘Word Clouds’ using Wordle.
A Word Cloud would be a jumble of words where the more frequently repeated words are emphasized with size. Naturally, when you review the text of your web pages, you would like to see the most important keywords are the largest words in the cloud.
Using Wordle is very easy – I like that! Just copy the text from a page and paste it into the box and click create. With web pages, Search Engines see everything, so I would suggest you use the ctrl+a command to select all. Then, you’ll get the whole page. One very important thing Wordle does not see is your Meta Page Title. That’s a shame because that is very important for Keywords – perhaps add it to the words manually.
Here’s an example for Australian Holiday Guide for Motel and Hotel Accommodation.
Here’s another example for Great Ocean Road Holiday Guide for Motel and Hotel Accommodation.
With the Great Ocean Road, it is easier to target keywords as the subject is narrower, but there is still a lot of important keywords to consider. Most motel websites have fewer important keyword topics and you’ll see they can be easily covered with a few pages. Remember, you may not get the best result putting all your Keywords on one page. Instead, use a couple of pages to target specific keyword themes.
Naturally, if you have a hotel or motel website, then your most important keywords would be
- Business Name
- Location: Town, Region and State
- Product Type: Accommodation, Motel, etc.
When you see the cloud misses these major keywords, you’ll need to go back to your page and update the text. I can see that Australian Holiday Guide should have more emphasis on Product Type words.
Hope you enjoy this new toy.
Tags: keywords, SEO, websites, Wordle
Setting up a New Website for Accommodation in Robe SA
My good friend Bruce Henderson rang me today to share ideas on how to improve ranking for regional travel websites. Bruce runs a very successful website about Warrnambool on Victoria’s Great Ocean Road.
We could have discussed for hours the ways to optomize around how people mis-spell ‘Warnambol‘, but this time we were scratching our heads over how to plan new website for Robe Australia. Bruce has just started a new website called Robe Accommodation Guide. Here, you have to ask the classic question, is it better to extend the Warrnambol website to include Robe or to build 2 websites?
Physically, Robe is 6 hours drive from Warrnambool. It’s in another state and another travel region. It has a different type of visitor.
So, does it make sense to build a new website or build upon an existing website? The jury is still out. For now, Bruce has done both. It will be interesting to see what happens.
Tags: reciprocal links, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, websites
Should Albury Motels use Reciprical links for SEO?
Interesting question came up today where Janice from Australia Park Motel in Albury NSWasked how to add a link to her home page for a local Albury Wodonga website.
Adding links is pretty easy. The main question is Why? The website requested it, or required it, because they want to develop their inbound links. Of course, the same is true for Australia Park Motel. Inbound links are very important to every websites success with search engine ranking.
But, these are reciprocal links (I link to you and you link to me). Having reciprocal links is not bad, but Google no longer gives them much value. The real sticky point for me is when a website is a paid listing and then they also ask for a reciprocated link. I don’t think you should give it IMHO.
Also, assuming Google valued this style of reciprocated link highly, would there be any consequence to adding a link? I would always be wary of links to a website that generally advertises the area – including competitive businesses? In some cases they are really valuable references for our customers.
Links are good. We need to help our visitors find good information. A good website always links to good information because that is part of giving service.
We also did a website for Commodore Motor Inn in Albury. Should we link this motel in Alburyto Australia Park’s website? Here you are going to say, these guys are direct competitors – the answer is no. Maybe. But they are also members of Golden Chain Motels. Perhaps as a group they like to work together and help each other? Then, links make good sense.
So, if the links make sense because you just want to have them and you think they add value – then do it. Reciprocated Links won’t hurt your website. Well, that’s not totally true. Links to ’bad websites’ may hurt you because Google would see links to porn or other negative websites in a bad light. But Hey, that’s pretty obvious anyway.
Tags: accommodation, Albury, Australia Park Motel, Commodore Motor Inn, motel, nsw, reciprocal links, websites, Wodonga