sascon market focus – travel - kevin gibbons
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How to use social media for travel SEO
Kevin Gibbons, Director of Strategy - twitter.com/kevgibbo Kevin Gibbons, Director of Strategy - @kevgibbo
“Social media is changing the face of travel”
Social Media vs Search – who to trust?
90% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know…
70% still trust online consumer opinions from people they don’t know!
* Nielsen – July, 2009
41% trust search engine results
Here’s some ideas on how to use social media to impact your search strategy…
But how does this influence SEO?
Twitter – find journalists/bloggers
Action: Use relevant hashtags & Jounalisted
Video – universal search results
Action: Distribute to multiple channels
Facebook – search isn’t just Google
Action: Build great/shareable content
Images – universal/image search
Action: encourage users to credit you = links!
Reviews – Improve Seller Extension Ratings
Action: Incentivize users to leave reviews
e.g. Offer 10% discount to returning hotel customers
who leave a review
Blogging – become an authority = links!
Action: Build relationships online
Connect with authority bloggers by:
• Interacting on Twitter – sharing content, @replies, #followfriday’s etc…
• Linking out – get there attention by linking to them – and use their name/brand, they’ll probably spot it in Google Alerts.
• Commenting on relevant blogs – adding value to a discussion of course!
Social media bookmarking – traffic & links
Action: Use great images/infographics
Forums – targeted links & traffic
Action: Don’t spam – build a trusted profile
Flowtown – find customers social profiles
Action: turn customers into brand advocates
Social signals – boost topical/QDF rankings?
Action: Being first is very important
Catch users early in buying cycle via social
Action: Give users a reason to return to influence personalised search via brand queries
Recap – so how does this impact SEO?
• Search isn’t just Google organic - changing search trends/habits means you can’t ignore social, e.g. Facebook, YouTube, Tripadvisor searches
• Universal search – travel generates high volume of video/images results
• Target users at earlier research stage in buying cycle – so that they return via brand query, this is likely to impact personalised search results
• Links! Great potential to strengthen backlink profile with targeted/relevant links
• Social signals – more social buzz = better search rankings?
Thank you
Please subscribe to: www.seoptimise.com/blog
And follow me on Twitter: @kevgibbo