December 2009 SEO workshop

1. December 2009 SEO workshop 2. Keyword research and selection (Advanced)

2. Agenda The assumption is you already have PPC campaigns and basic Keyword lists. • Targeting customers at the right stage of the buying cycle • Use on-site search (Webtrends?) • Applying data from KW research tools • Group selection • Performance testing and analytics • The long tail

3. Information gathering and browsing are the most time consuming activities on the web Purchasing queries are associated with only 5% of all searches!! Targeting customers at the right stage of the buying cycle 2004 research commissioned by Budget rent a car

4. Targeting customers at the right stage of the buying cycle • Get Holiday Ideas • Destination research • Confirm location • Compare packages & transport options • Select hotel • Decision time • Revisit website to book • Purchase • After sales • http://www.seoptimise.com/blog/2008/10/travel-seo-how-to-target-searchers-at-the-right-stage-of-the-buying-cycle.html • http://www.seoptimise.com/blog/2008/10/travel-ppc-10-ways-to-improve-your-campaign.html http://www.comscore.com/ study – 50,000 UK surfers

5. Targeting customers at the right stage of the buying cycle • Get Holiday Ideas – At the initial stage the travel consumer has a reasonable idea about the type of holiday they are looking to go on, but will still be looking for inspiration. They will go straight to a search engine to find further information about the destinations they can visit to meet this requirement. They will try to identify the holiday via a series of searches such as “summer holiday 2009”, “beach holiday”, narrowing down towards the location with searches such as “beach holiday in Europe” etc. • More or less know where I want to go and what to do • Looking for inspiration

6. Targeting customers at the right stage of the buying cycle • Destination Research – The type of results users will be looking for at these stage are generally travel guides, they have a budget in mind but the most important goal is to identify the location. Users will continue by performing informational searches such as “Climate in Greece”, “hurricane season in the Caribbean”, “best Mediterranean beach holidays in September”. • Looking for travel guides • Know their budget • Identify the location

7. Targeting customers at the right stage of the buying cycle • Confirm Location – In order to find a suitable destination which meets the user’s needs they will perform queries such as “summer holiday in Italy”, “weekend in South of France”, “self-catering holiday in Tenerife” or “all-inclusive honeymoon to the Maldives”. Once comparing multiple destinations a decision is made to confirm the destination. Next they are likely to research deeper into the more specific locations via various research and long-tail queries such as “beach holidays in the South of France”, “best location in the French Riviera”, “hotels in Nice”, “where to stay in Monaco” etc. • Confirm location (narrow down last few) • Research more specific locations (long tail queries)

8. Targeting customers at the right stage of the buying cycle • Compare Packages & Transport Options –The next stage is to identify the preferred mode of transport, this will include various comparisons for flights, trains or driving. Users will look for a range of travel related queries such as “cheap flights to Nice” and “Eurostar to Nice” as well as considering holiday packages which include transport. These are still mainly research based queries, but the user now has a clear idea about where, when and how they want to go on holiday. • How to get there (Air, train, car, cruise, bike!) • Transport price comparison

9. Targeting customers at the right stage of the buying cycle • Select Hotel – Ok, they’ve found a cheap flight to Nice, which is the best travel option so far, now time to find a hotel which matches up with this or perhaps a holiday package which combines both at a cheaper rate. Back off to Google searching for “hotels in Nice” this time. They will scan for the best option to find the most suitable hotel features/location and at the most reasonable price. Again more research, checking out the hotel review websites. • Selected travel option (cheap flight to Nice) • Vulnerable to go for a holiday package • Or search for Hotel price, location, suitability • Check hotel reviews on site – or back to Google to find reviews for hotel

10. Targeting customers at the right stage of the buying cycle • Decision Time - Once they’ve read the reviews and found the perfect holiday, will they add this to a shopping basket and order like you would with any other e-commerce website? No, probably not. Some travel websites you may have to enquire to confirm pricing details and then book over the phone, others you can check for availability and book there and then. But instead they’ll probably think it over one last time, just to make sure. • Found the perfect holiday • Add to shopping basket OR run price comparison • Or park it and book later!

11. Targeting customers at the right stage of the buying cycle • Revisit Website to Book - Ok, they’ve thought it through, decided it’s time to get away from the UK’s glorious grey summer skies, booked the dates off work and got their creditcard ready, great! So back to find the holiday previously selected. If they’re clever this would be saved as a bookmark, the problem is many people won’t have remembered to have done this and even if they did there’s a good chance it’s a dynamic URL which may no longer work. So instead you perform a brand query “Ebookers” or “Ebookers holidays to Nice”, for example. Eventually browsing to the correct listings and hopefully finding the price hasn’t shot up considerably! • Booked days off work • Credit card in hand and ready to book • Find the holiday previously selected (bookmark? Session based?) • New comparison search • Find holiday previously selected

12. Targeting customers at the right stage of the buying cycle • Purchase – They’ve reassured themselves (several times) this is the holiday package they want to purchase and they proceed to complete the transaction either online or over the phone. • Certain what I want to buy • Proceed to buy online or by phone

13. So? Where can we compete? • Select the key areas you can compete in and target! • Research how you do today • What is your competition doing?

14. How does that affect KPI measurement? • For holiday, Destination research and Confirm location – Visitors is the right metric to be looking at. • For Compare packages & select hotel both visitors and itineraries • For Brand terms that include product and destination terms: S2B, + visitors and itineraries. Example: ebookers flights to new york

15. Targeting • Very hard to compete on anything more vague than Transport info on market where we are not leaders • Travel guides and other info however may help us compete for our core business • So when writing travel guides etc be sure to focus on linking to single destinations (flights and hotel) and single hotel pages!

16. What pages for what keywords?

17. All the more reason to tap earlier into the buying cycle • Almost half of all travel searches are brand related • 35% of transactions occur without a search on the same day • 45% of online travel purchases are made without a destination search • Are we targeting other sites brands with SEO / PPC? Can we? • Focus on destination but also product http://www.comscore.com/ study – 50,000 UK surfers

18. Organise keyword lists – Interactive • By product • By hotel properties • By value / volume • Step in the customer path (holiday ideas/inspirational, Destination research, confirm location, comparison, Hotel search)?

19. Use Webtrends to enrich SEO/PPC lists • Log on Webtrends > Deals, e-marketing > Search engine and phrases > Search phrases and engines (organic) • Switch to 1 month window & sort by itineraries descending • Identify the non-brand keywords that bring a lot of conversions • Search the term in Google and see your ranking (if you don’t rank but have PPC WT might be confused – MKT-1280) • Terms that already bring traffic are easier to optimise • Focus on terms with high conversions • Use PPC terms to enrich your keyword list

20. Search phrase by search engine (organic)

21. Tools to use • http://www.google.com/sktool/# and how to use it: http://searchengineland.com/googles-new-search-based-keyword-tool-15525.php • Google webmaster Central (comiiiiing) MKT-1142 • Nichebot • Review tools and find the ones that work in your language • They can save time – but you don’t need them to tell you the obvious!

22. Fill in the categorised keyword spreadsheet

23. Keyword research guides • http://www.seomoz.org/article/bg3