September 2006

 

Keyword Landing Pages Increase Conversions

Posted by Aaron on 28 Sep 2006


If you’re pushing all of your search traffic (PPC or natural) into your home page, you may be missing out on conversions.

When a user gets to a page that they’ve found on a search engine, always remember that they got there (usually) by a specific keyword phrase.  You can greatly increase your chances of converting that visitor into a buyer by showing them a landing page with those same keywords.

One thing that I’m continually telling my clients is that you can truly only optimize a page well for 1-2 keyword phrases.  It is also important to note here that an optimized page doesn’t ONLY rank well, but it must convert well too.  If not, is it really optimized?  Maybe our industry should change its name to Search Engine Conversion Optimization…  SECO has a good ring to it too…

So, if a page can really only be SECOed for 1-2 keyword phrases and you’re buying 15,000 keywords that you’re pushing into your home page, it stands to reason that you may be experiencing more fall-out than necessary.  If I go into a store looking for sandals but all I see when I walk in the front door is hiking boots, I may, and a certain percentage of all people may, turn around before we find the sandals by the back door.  The great thing about the interweb is that we can have as many doors as we want.  And if someone wants sandals, or cruises or all inclusive or whatever, we can lead them through that door.

I’ve seen a couple of general studies that have shown around a 40% increase in conversions after implementing keyword targeted landing pages.  In my experience, travel sites can see conversions increase in that same ballpark.  I’ve personally seen it increase conversions by 30-35%.

Landing pages should have your targeted keyword at the top of the page and have a consistent theme throughout the page.  If the keyword is “New York Hotels,” don’t show a picture of a couple relaxing on a tropical beach - instead show the Manhattan skyline so that visitors know immediately that they’ve found the right place.  If you have a booking form on that page (which you should if you can), have the form pre-populated with the city name or itinerary, or package or whatever (you’ll be surprised how many more form submissions this simple little change will garner).

The other advantages of keyword landing pages are that if you create them for your PPC campaign, they usually rank well in the natural results too!  Make sure to include them in your site map and in your Google Sitemaps XML file.  Having well optimized keyword landing pages may help bring the minimum CPCs down in your Google AdWords account as well.

Now go make 15,000 new pages!


Tagged as: Google, Travel Marketing, Search Engines, Yahoo, SEM, SEO, Online Marketing, , , , , ,

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Are Hotels Making a Comeback?

Posted by Aaron on 06 Sep 2006


Can the hotel industry take back control of its inventory and pricing?  The airline industry seems to have been able to make airline booking websites irrelevant for air-only bookings.  Rates are almost always a few bucks cheaper by booking direct and the airlines will usually throw some perks your way (usually bonus miles) when you book direct too.  Can hotels pull off the same thing?  It would seem to make sense in today’s exploding lodging market.

A recent study by PFK Hospitality Research said that U.S. hotels are forecast to enjoy their fourth consecutive year of profit growth in 2007.  So, why not push to keep more of that margin for themselves?

According to a survey released yesterday by Mintel:

After 9/11, hotel companies allowed excess inventory to be sold by third-party Internet sites at discounted rates. This helped to spur increased traffic, but resulted in lower direct online bookings for hotels. With the hotel industry showing signs of robust growth, the direct hotel companies are trying to expand their sales in the online market. With reservation rates rising, hotels are resorting to limiting third-party inventory and promising the lowest prices through their own hotel brand sites.

The online agencies are posing a threat to hotel revenues.  Is this a threat to the online agencies?  Most of the well-know agencies have done a great job at branding themselves as a one-stop-shop for leisure travelers, though, and this is what will keep them in the game.  But for those of us who usually book components separately, going direct to save some coin is the best option.

According to Mintel, more than 36 percent of survey respondents used an agency site to book their hotel stays, compared to 32 percent who said they used the hotel’s Web site.  With combined revenues of over $40 billion, a few points either direction makes a huge difference on the bottom line.

The advantage that the agencies will probably always have (for the foreseeable)  is the ability to search, search and compare hotels side by side.  Although, I can see how this may be a opening for a really good travel search engine, which I’ve not yet run across…


Tagged as: Travel Marketing, , , , ,

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