Travel Agents Attack Online Marketing

Lessons from the Travel Blog Project

You Can Do This!

By
George Oberle
Creator of the Travel Blog Project

All Contents © 2011

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Table of Contents

Preface Page 4

Chapter 1
The Travel Blog Project Page 5

Chapter 2
Blogging Page 9

Chapter 3
Keyword Phrases Page 18

Chapter 4
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Page 23

Chapter 5
Posting for Web Traffic Page 32

Chapter 6
Facebook Fan Pages Page 46

Chapter 7
Twitter Page 54

Chapter 8
Press Releases Page 60

Chapter 9
SWOT Analysis Page 62

Chapter 10
Putting it all Together Page 73

Chapter 11
Measurement Page 75

Chapter 12
Quote of the Day Page 77

Conclusion Page 87

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About the Author

George Oberle is a second generation travel industry veteran. He

owned and operated two mid‐size travel agencies over a 20 year
period each with successful vacation and corporate travel
departments. He was a webmaster and SEO specialist for a large
regional travel agency for five years. He recently created the
Travel Blog Project which guided 230 travel agents through a 100
day online marketing effort encompassing blogging, social media
and search engine optimization for websites.

In September of 2011, George was a session speaker about SEO at the American Society
of Travel Agents’ THETRAVELBLOGGERSHOW. He has also conducted ASTA webinars
entitled “SEO for Travel Agent Websites” and “Travel Agents Attack Social Media ‐
Lessons Learned from the Travel Blog Project.”

George also operates www.ReviewResorts.com, a user‐generated resort and cruise

review site that welcomes travel agents to post reviews and travel deals. Oberle has a
bachelor’s degree in management from Saint Mary’s College of California.

George Oberle is available for web development, SEO and online marketing assistance.
He can be reached at [email protected].

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Preface
“Travel Agents are the Most Significant Force in Travel Marketing!”

The Travel Blog Project was an attempt to help travel agents increase the size of their
“online footprint” by guiding them through blogging, participating in social media like
Facebook and Twitter and using search engine optimization techniques for their
websites. This was a 100 day multi‐channel, marketing effort that helped agents
understand how to market online and also provided the discipline to blog and post on a
regular basis. For 100 days we examined marketing concepts and provided practical
applications to help agents brand themselves as experts in their chosen travel niche.

Successful travel agents have always understood they are in the marketing business.
Yet, in recent years agents have been challenged to get their message out more
effectively. They face the daunting task of increasing their online footprint in order to
compete with new and formidable competition like supplier websites and the large
online travel portals. In order to compete with these online travel portals agents had to
find their “Unique Selling Position” (USP) to afford them an advantage in the
marketplace. For most agents their USP was to become a specialist in some niche of the
travel business.

I owned and operated a retail travel agency for 20 years. For the last five years, I worked
as a webmaster in a large west coast travel agency based in Silicon Valley. This
combination of travel and web experience allowed me to see the incredible opportunity
the Internet provides to help agents get their message out. I have witnessed first hand
how successful travel agents have become brand marketers and the brand is them. As
target marketers these successful agents use the Internet to go after the business and
clients they choose. They write and post on their websites, blogs and social media
platforms in a concerted effort to brand themselves as travel specialists. They are travel
evangelists and create buzz around their niche. They publish email newsletters and send
out press releases. They aggressively “work it” to generate business. The neat thing
about all this is that every one of these marketing efforts can be FREE of monetary cost.
The cost is your time and effort. With this being said, it is my sincere belief that this
could very well be the dawning of a new golden age for travel agents…That is IF they
capitalize on the marketing opportunities available to them.

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Chapter 1
The Travel Blog Project
“Travel agents are the most significant force in travel marketing. I also believe that
social media such as blogs, Facebook and Twitter are perfect venues for travel agents
to brand themselves as experts in their niche and sell the travel experience.”

The Travel Blog Project came about because of a chance meeting I had with a former
agent employee at a destination seminar. She is a really great leisure travel agent that
could always get the big sale. In our conversation that evening she made a comment
that opened my eyes. She said the business was now for young people because they
know how to market on the Internet. I told her I didn’t think that was true. I was
confused by her statement because I know this agent well and thought what a great
communicator she was. She was always a top producer because of her travel knowledge
and most importantly how well she communicated and connected with her clients. I told
her that her great communication skills would serve her very well marketing on the
Internet and social media. She sighed and said "I don’t know. It’s all so complicated."
Thus, the seed was planted for the Travel Blog Project.

The Travel Blog Project was a 100 day effort to help agents create a multi‐channel
marketing campaign to effectively brand themselves as travel experts. Travel Agents
received step‐by‐step help with blogging, posting on social media sites like Facebook
and Twitter and also search engine optimization (SEO) techniques for their websites.
The overall goal was to use free web marketing platforms and posting opportunities to
increase the agent’s “online footprint.” The theory is that with more online real estate
you ultimately increase the number of people looking at your information (web traffic)
and therefore sales opportunities.

This was a collaborative effort with agents posting their experiences good and bad in the
“Knowledge Centers” located on www.TravelBlogProject.com . Agents would post what
worked well or didn’t or simply asked the group a question. There were separate
Knowledge Centers for Blogging, Facebook and Twitter.

At its core, social media is basically an effort to create an online conversation through
posting and commenting. Blogging and social networks provide the platform to
effectively create this online conversation. The main premise of the Travel Blog Project
was that if you posted on a consistent basis with a methodology and structure you could
effectively brand YOU as the expert in your field. The reward would be that you engage,
acquire and retain clients as a result.

To participate in the Travel Blog Project the agents had to create a blog, a Facebook
business fan page and a Twitter account.

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While the option was presented to own their own blogs, purchasing a domain and
hosting, most chose the free blogging options available on www.Wordpress.com and
www.Blogger.com. We explored the impact of color, layout themes and the overall look
and feel of their blogs. We spent a lot of time examining how to research popular
keyword phrases and target them in their posts for search engine optimization
purposes.

The agents created a professional looking Facebook business fan page dedicated to their
travel practice. They were instructed how to set up custom "tabs” and loaded branded
images in the main body and along the left column of the fan page. The sites became
mini websites within Facebook.

Participants also created a Twitter account. Twitter was a major effort of the Travel Blog
Project. We discussed Tweeting techniques and how to get more followers in order to
drive web traffic to the agent’s website or blog.

The Daily Post

Each weekday I crafted “The Daily Post” email sent to participants that included a
posting theme, a marketing concept and an example of how to practically apply the
concept. The plan was for the agents to spend a half‐hour or so each day marketing
online. Agents were guided to create posts that conveyed their knowledge, experience,
opinion and advice to effectively brand themselves as travel experts in their niche. A key
element in creating a multi‐channel marketing campaign is to have structure so your
audience can rely on your posting schedule. Here was the Travel Blog Project weekly
schedule:

Mondays: Each Monday “The Daily Post” email would have a new posting theme of the
week. Agents would post one or two paragraphs on their blogs based upon the theme of
the week. They posted travel stories, destination knowledge, client case studies, insight,
hotel and ship reviews, best places to eat, things to do and more.

Tuesdays: Twitter Tweets. Agents would set up a week's worth of "timed" Tweets on
Twitter using www.Hootsuite.com to schedule the tweets. Hootsuite allows you to
schedule Tweets to post automatically on the day and at the time you set. Generally
Twitter is used to funnel web‐traffic to your other online assets.

Wednesdays: Agents would create a blog post about a special travel offer or package
within the agent’s niche. The offer would have some energy such as a good deal, a
group departure, a new ship or hotel or whatever else you think is extraordinary. The
key was to stick within their niche.

Note: Midway through the project it became apparent that the Wednesday posting
schedule was too much for the agents. We then adopted Wednesdays as a day to
examine and reflect on online marketing topics.

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Thursdays: Agents would repurpose a brief snippet of the Monday blog post to update
their Facebook fan pages. Facebook had recently instituted the “Like” button. Thus in
the spirit of collaboration, the instructions were to “like” five other participants
Facebook fan pages.

Follow‐Fridays! This was the fun day and also the most important of the week. The
Travel Blog Project was a unique opportunity to promote their blogs by posting
comments on one or two of the other participants' blogs. The instructions were to find a
post they thought was interesting or insightful and leave a comment. Then go back and
create three or four sentences on their own blogs discussing the other blogger's post
and include a link in their post that points back to the other participant's blog. This
created a two way linkage between the blog sites. It also provided a bit of an incentive
to craft interesting and engaging articles so fellow bloggers might comment. The end
result was a web of inter‐linked blogs that made them much stronger as a unit than
individually.

Theme of the week

Each Monday we would begin a new posting theme of the week that agents would
create their blog and social media posts around. Themes were created with two goals:

1) An opportunity for the agent to convey knowledge and expertise to effectively brand
themselves as an expert in their travel niche.

2) Provide a practical way to learn an online marketing concept that the agents could
use as they posted.

Here is a consolidated list of the weekly themes that the agents posted about.

∙ Branding YOU in your Travel Niche ∙ FUN and your Travel Niche
∙ The Value Factor vs. Competing with Price ∙ FOOD in your Travel Niche
∙ Hotel & Cruise Ship Critiques ∙ Client Case Studies
∙ SWOT Analysis – Strengths ∙ Romance Travel
∙ SWOT Analysis – Weaknesses ∙ Becoming a Travel Evangelist
∙ SWOT Analysis – Opportunities ∙ Examining Facebook Fan Pages
∙ SWOT Analysis – Threats ∙ The PEOPLE in your Travel Niche
∙ Image Building – Establishing Trust ∙ Becoming a Travel Evangelist

Writing hotel and cruise ship reviews as blog posts was a reoccurring theme throughout
the Travel Blog Project. Travel reviews are some of the most popular pages on the
Internet. Posting critiques about hotels and cruise ships within your travel niche is an

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excellent way to illustrate your in‐depth knowledge and help brand YOU as THE expert.
Additionally, from an SEO perspective appending the word reviews to a hotel or cruise
ship name helps bring in web traffic. These blog post travel reviews were re‐purposed
on the agent’s website, Facebook fan page and promoted via Twitter.

In week 7 we began a four week SWOT analysis examining our strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats. The focus was to build on strengths and turn negatives into
positives. We came to the conclusion that the main threat to travel agents is INACTION
by not taking the initiative to use the free marketing opportunities available.

As the project progressed it became apparent that creating two blog posts per week
was difficult for many agents. As such, we modified the plan to create one blog post on
Monday and repurpose the content throughout the week onto other social media sites.
Repurposing content was a technique we used to make posting on social media viable
on a long term basis.

Much of the Travel Blog Project was centered on the concept of targeting keyword
phrases. Typically, this is reserved for search engine optimization (SEO) of websites;
however we expanded the technique of including targeting keyword phrases in all our
online marketing efforts. We discussed how to research keyword phrases and what
makes a good phrase.

Overall the Travel Blog Project increased the size of the participating travel agent’s
online footprint while branding them as travel experts by posting a consistent message
across multi‐channels.

The Lessons Learned:

 There are many FREE online marketing opportunities for travel agents to brand
themselves as travel experts.

 Success is not free as there is an “opportunity cost” of time spent creating and
posting.

 Social media requires daily participation to succeed. If you do not actively

participate in the online conversation, you will fail.

 Target marketing using keyword phrases is critical to success.

 Creating one post per week and re‐purposing it throughout the week onto other
social media platforms is a viable strategy to manage time spent.

 The main threat to travel agents is INACTION. Not taking advantage of the free
online marketing opportunities available to them.

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Chapter 2
Blogging
A Blog is simply a website that allows people a user‐friendly (point‐and‐click) way of
posting articles. However, what differentiates a blog from a normal website is that a
blog allows an easy way for people to comment on your posts.

Blogging, like all social media is the attempt to create an online conversation. You post
and people comment. It becomes a sharing of ideas and thoughts. Blogs allow you to
express your knowledge and opinion of topics relating to your travel niche. Your blog is
an online journal written in your "professional" voice. If you post to your blog on a
regular basis and write intriguing, interesting articles you can develop a loyal following
of readers who just may become a potential client.

Blogs are a part of the "blogosphere" which is the online community of fellow bloggers.
Bloggers like to post links back and forth and comment on each others' blog posts. The
"blogosphere" can be a serious source of web traffic. When you post an article, your
blog software will automatically send the post to blog directories like Technorati
(www.Technorati.com) and others which catalog the latest blog feeds for people to
view. If another blogger likes your post, they may comment about it and link back to it.
This exposes their loyal readers to your blog which in turn builds your following. This
web of inter‐linked blogs builds upon itself under the theory that a rising tide raises all
ships. Cross‐linking blogs was one of the key advantages of the Travel Blog Project.

The travel agent community is clearly moving away from price driven, high volume sales
to promoting unique travel experiences with higher profit margins. Blogs and social
media are much better suited to selling the travel experience than other forms of
promotion. Blogs allow YOU (the branded travel expert) to tell about the “travel
experience” by posting your special itineraries, client testimonials, upload pictures and
even travel videos!

Blogging is not about the hard sell. You mostly "tell" and sometimes "sell." The soft‐sell,
long copy method of promotion is usually the best path to building a loyal audience. You
would never post something you would find in a newspaper advertisement like "Waikiki
from $299* restrictions apply." However, you could post on your blog about how you
“just found this $499 Waikiki travel deal and it reminded you of the last time you were
in Waikiki. You had such a great time shopping and lying on the beach, but you stayed in
the Hyatt which is priced at $799 on this special deal and that you are excited about
confirming these special deals for your clients and that”...well, you get the point. You
speak about the experiential aspects of the trip, sliding in how this is such a good deal
and that you can confirm them too!

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Setting up your Blog

Blogs are relatively easy to set up. You have a choice of setting up your own blog with
your own domain which will cost about $75 annually or use one of the free blog
platforms such as www.Blogger.com or www.Wordpress.com. We examine these
choices below.

Free Blog Platforms

Pros: No cost to have a blog. These free blog platforms provide customizable space for
you to set up your blog in a user‐friendly format. Set‐up is point‐and‐click from your web
browser and takes about 30 minutes. You can create a very nice blog with the tools
provided. No coding or programming to learn. You can also install widgets and plugins
that provide some really cool functionality. Posting is easy and the blogs get cataloged
by the search engines fairly frequently.

Cons: You don't own the blog as there is no registered individual domain. These sites
give you a virtual extension of their web domain (i.e. www.MyBlog.Blogger.com). While
you can make a nice looking blog, you don't have total control. You are limited to the
templates, rules and policies of the blogging platform. If they decide to cancel the
service or begin to charge, you have no recourse. You will put in a considerable amount
of time building a loyal following, yet you will be subject to the host’s rules and
decisions.

Free Blog at www.Blogger.com

Google provides the www.Blogger.com platform for people and businesses to set up
free blogs. Google does a great job at providing set‐up help with tutorials and videos.
Written tutorials: (http://www.blogger.com/tour_start.g)
Video tutorials: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA4s3wN_vK8).

Blogger makes it easy to set up your blog and offers a number of templates, color
options and styles for a custom look and feel. No code or programming to learn. It's all
done with point‐and‐click from your browser.

Blogger offers many templates from which to choose. However, don’t just use the
template without customizing the look and feel or your blog. If you simply use the
template, it will look like thousands of other blogs using the same template. Put some
effort in to customizing it for your taste. Make your blog special and pertinent to YOU.

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Wordpress

Wordpress is the leading blogging platform on the Internet. They offer two options for
creating your blog. They provide the software to power your own blog at
www.Wordpress.org and they provide a free blog platform similar to Blogger available
at www.Wordpress.com (not to be confused with the .org extension above).

Wordpress is the leading blog software and it’s FREE. With Wordpress you will not be
alone as there are tutorials, forums and hundreds of blog sites dedicated to providing
assistance for setting up and managing Wordpress blogs.

Free Blog at www.Wordpress.com

Wordpress provides FREE blog space on their industry leading platform

www.Wordpress.com. You don't have to purchase a domain name or web hosting.
There is no programming code to learn. All setup is done in a user‐friendly point and
click format. Wordpress.com provides an array of widgets (aka: plugins) that provide
some neat functionality. Wordpress also has a great library of tutorials at
http://en.wordpress.com/features/ and also a very active user‐forum to ask questions of
fellow bloggers and experts.

Wordpress software to power your own blog – www.Wordpress.org

Wordpress software powers 90% of the blogs on the Internet and they give it away
FREE. Another great benefit is that Wordpress is open source software which means you
have thousands of developers creating plugins (aka: apps and widgets) that provide cool
functionality. The major benefit is that you own the domain which means you control
everything from look and feel to content.

While the software to drive your blog from Wordpress is free, there are some monetary
costs. You will need to purchase your domain name from a site like www.GoDaddy.com
for about $10‐15 per year. You will also need to purchase web hosting to load the
Wordpress software which should run about $60 per year or less. Total cost is about $75
per year for the domain and web hosting.

Pros: You own the domain and therefore your blog. All blog posting and admin
management is done from the user‐friendly dashboard you access from your web
browser. Wordpress has literally thousands of professional looking templates called
“themes” to choose. Themes provide the layout, look and feel for your blog. You also
have access to over nine thousand 3rd party widgets (aka: plugins and apps) developed
to provide some really cool functionality. Themes and plugins allow you to easily set up
a professional looking blog site with very little programming.

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Wordpress is very easy to manage once installed and set up. If you have questions,
there are hundreds of websites with information on how to set up Wordpress with very
detailed instructions and videos. Do a Google search for: Wordpress set up.

Cons: While the Wordpress software is free, you will have approximately $75 per year in
cost to secure a domain and web hosting. Installation requires some basic web
programming knowledge. However, after initial set up there is no code or programming
knowledge required.

Basic Instructions to set up a Wordpress blog on your own domain:

Step #1 ‐ Find an available domain name. You can buy a domain through GoDaddy for
about $15 per year.

Step #2 ‐ Purchase Linux based web hosting (not Windows) for about $60 a year through
a hosting company like www.GoDaddy.com or www.Hostek.com.

Step #3 ‐ Download the Wordpress software FREE at: www.Wordpress.org

Step #4 ‐ Upload (FTP) the free Wordpress software to your web hosting.

Step #5 ‐ Create an email address on your web host to receive Blog comments

Step #6 – From the c‐Panel on your web host admin, create the MySQL Database.

Step #7 – Follow the instructions to have the software automatically set up the database
and database connection.

It takes about an hour or two to get Wordpress set up on your web host and running.
You or somebody you know will need to have some very basic knowledge of FTP and
web programming. There are very detailed installation instructions on Wordpress at:
http://codex.wordpress.org/New_To_WordPress_‐_Where_to_Start. The good news is
that once Wordpress is up and running, you will totally manage your blog from your
web browser using the admin dashboard.

Wordpress Themes

With Wordpress installed you now have access to thousands themes which provide the
layout, look and feel of your blog. Themes are easy to change. Don't really like the first
choice, no problem. Simply download another theme and go to the dashboard, check
the box to use the new theme. It's that easy. Here is the link to the free Wordpress
themes pages: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/.

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First Impressions

We began the second half of the Travel Blog Project by examining how the look and feel
of the agent’s websites, blogs and flyers impact their opportunity for success. When you
look at a website do you judge the business by the impression you get from their online
presence? Of course you do. We all make judgments based upon the level of
commitment we feel that was put into a project. If a website or flyer looks amateur or
carelessly put together you likely won’t feel a sense of urgency to contact that business.
Do looks count? You bet they do!

The Impact of Color

Color choices count because they have deep psychological meaning. As you pick a color
scheme keep in mind the persona of your typical customer (target market). The color
choices you make have an impact on how your target will perceive your message.

Red = Romance, emotion and energy

Blue = Trustworthiness, reliability and calming effect
Green = Tranquility, natural and a sense of renewal
Yellow = Happiness, optimism and encourages communication
Orange = Controversy, flamboyance and social interaction
Purple = Balance, calming and encourages creativity

I’ve got a secret for you. I am not the best with color schemes. Pairing colors is not one
of my strengths. I cheat with a website provided by Adobe Software called Kuler
(http://kuler.adobe.com). This is a really cool site that pairs colors. The pairings are user‐
generated input by graphic artists. You pick the main color by clicking on the “create”
link and then you will be presented with pairings of colors that work well together. Give
Kuler a shot with your main color and see what it comes up with for your secondary
colors.

Tip: Limit yourself to three colors maximum on any given website or blog unless you are
a darn good designer. If you load more colors you may dilute the message

Background color

As you set up your blog, consider the impact that a simple change to the background
color can have. Many people use the standard white for their website background and a
centered main body with a thin grey border to frame the posting area. This white
background and white body area fails to highlight your content. Consider the effect if
you made the background a different color. Notice how a darker background makes the
content in the white body area really stand out. I generally like to use blue or light grey
backgrounds on travel sites such as www.ReviewFriends.com. The blue is reassuring and
allows a nice contrast to make the web content stand out.

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Background colors are generally changed in the CSS style sheet file for your chosen
theme. The color is accessed from the Admin dashboard >> Presentation >> Theme
Editor. In the Theme Editor, access the style sheet. Look for the snippet labeled Body.

The body instructions should look something like this.

body {
background‐color: #00008b;
}
However, keep in mind that it may have quite a few different instructions such as font‐
family, font‐size and other style commands.

Here are a few html colors:

#00008b = Blue #003366 = Grey/Blue
#8b000 = Maroon #993300 = Dark Orange
#000000 = Black #ffffff = White
#666666 = Grey #f5f5f5 = light Grey

Only change the background color. I would not recommend changing anything else
unless you know what you are doing. Have your web master make the change. The
effort can be worthwhile because making a simple change to the background color can
have a huge impact on the look and feel and performance of your website or blog.

Wordpress Plugins

By using Wordpress software to power your blog, you have access to over nine
thousand plugins designed by independent developers. These plugins can provide some
really cool functionality to your blog like adding your latest Twitter Tweets, Facebook
updates, automated search engine optimization (SEO) and much more. Here is the link
to check out plugins: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/.

Here a few plugins I have used and recommend:

Akismet Anti‐Spamware ‐‐ http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/akismet/

This plugin works incredibly well to detect and eliminate spam posts. Robot spammers
will find your blog quick and without an anti‐spam program, you will be inundated with
spam comments. The Akismet plugin will ask that you sign up at www.wordpress.com to
secure an activation key. You will need to input this user activation key into Akismet to
activate the plugin. This is Wordpress' way of knowing who uses their software.

SI Captcha – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/si‐captcha‐for‐wordpress/
SI Captcha is another tool to reduce spam comments. Robots will hit your blog
attempting to crack the database to inject their nasty ads and malware. Captcha adds a
series of letters in a format the robots cannot read which must be entered to submit a
form.

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All‐in‐one SEO – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all‐in‐one‐seo‐pack/
SEO is critical to gaining web traffic from the search engines. This plugin will help make
your blog posts search engine friendly. All‐in‐One allows you to manage your SEO efforts
from the admin dashboard. Each of your posts will be named a search friendly file name.
This plugin is a must‐have to help increase web traffic of your blog. All‐in‐One requires a
bit of configuration and I will detail the settings in Chapter 4 which deals with SEO.

Sociable – http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sociable/
This neat little plugin provides Social media logos linked to each of the major social
networks you indicate. A small web logo of each social network you choose will display
on each of your posts.

Creating Blog Posts

You are now ready to begin posting to your blog. Here are some tips to get started.

Find your voice – Develop a writing style and stick with it. Richard Earls from Travel
Research Online calls this finding your writing voice. Find a writing voice that expresses
your personality and style. Always make sure your posts are written in that same voice.

Post on a regular basis – To be successful in building a readership or following, you must

post on a regular basis. The minimum posting amount would be no less than once a
week and preferably two or three times a week. Successful, high traffic blogs have at
least one post each day. A blog is not like a website where you can set it up and leave it.
The cost of running a blog is your time spent posting. You must post on a regular basis.

Keep it real – You can't fake it in the blog world. If you do, you will be challenged. Phony
people fail miserably in the Blogosphere. People will post on your blog and elsewhere
online that you are blowing smoke. Not good.

Stay on topic – Stay focused on your business topic and theme. If your niche is travel to
Hawaii, writing about politics or how you feel today is irrelevant. Some politician or
other news item may make you mad as heck, but your travel blog is NOT the place to
vent. Only post articles relevant to your travel niche. Posting off‐topic will simply
confuse your audience.

Have an opinion and express it freely – No one wants to read blah, blah, blah copy. It is
critical that you craft articles that incorporate your opinion. If a hotel or destination
stinks, say why it stinks. State your opinion because you are branding YOU. You must
have an opinion and offer advice for potential clients to reach out to you with their
vacation plans. However, be professional and as positive as possible.

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Write engaging posts that elicit responses – One way to elicit responses is to write
articles that offer two (2) ways of solving, doing or providing with the second solution
being your favorite. Here is an example of how to write a post offering two solutions:

“Hawaii is the top destination for North Americans. One of the reasons for this
popularity is that Waikiki offers so much to for tourists to do. The shopping, dining and
Pearl Harbor tours keep vacationers busy. While Waikiki is indeed very busy, Maui is
clearly the most popular island for travelers because people really love the beaches
and...”

Don't be thin skinned! – People will post responses that agree and disagree with your
posts. This is what you're working for. Engage your audience to a point they respond.
Take a deep breath. It's okay for them to disagree, as long as they do it in a constructive
manner.

Jerks – You will get comments from argumentative people who just want to be jerks.
Don't take the bait. If the post is mean spirited, you don't have to allow it to appear. Just
delete it. If you do allow it, don't respond defensively. If you choose to respond, be
professional, proactive and positive about the criticism and thank them for their input.

Spam – You will get spam. Just delete spam. These will be comments that you will
wonder if they even read the post. They're irrelevant. They are "bots" looking for
vulnerability to your system to post all kinds of the usual bad stuff. There is no way to
stop them, but most blogs have an anti‐spam program installed to slow them down.

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The Lessons Learned About Setting Up a Blog:

 Set up a Free blog at www.Blogger.com or www.Wordpress.com

 Own your blog by purchasing a domain URL and hosting.

Power your own blog with the FREE Wordpress software from
www.Wordpress.org.

 Choose a theme that fits your travel niche.

 Make sure you customize the look and feel.

 If the stock background color is white, consider changing the background to

another color.

 Your choice of colors matter. Colors have meaning.

 Post frequently to give people a reason to visit your blog regularly.

 Stay on topic. Post only about your travel niche.

 Use plugins and widgets to give your blog cool functionality.

 Make sure you have ASKIMET or Captcha anti‐spam plugins installed on

Wordpress blogs.

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Chapter 3
Keyword Phrases
Target Marketing using Keyword Phrases
Before we discuss search engine optimization (SEO) we must start at the beginning with
an understanding of the concept of targeting keyword phrases. So we begin
appropriately with a discussion about keyword phrases and how to discover them
through research.

The Keyword Phrase

When a person’s brain takes a raw thought and applies the process of making meaning
out of it, their mind uses its verbal mechanism to assign a few appropriate words to the
thought. In web marketing terms, these few words are known as a keyword phrase.

Critical point: The basis for all online marketing is rooted in targeting keyword phrases.

Go to Google type something travel related into the search box and see what the search
engine results page (SERP) returns. Those sites listed on that first page are not there by
accident. Notice that the keyword phrase you typed into Google is probably included in
many of the options in the returned results. You now begin to see the impact of
targeting the right keyword phrases.

Let’s take it a step further. Consider for a moment if you had a web page that appeared
as the number one listing in Google when you typed in a specific set of words. However,
what if that page had only a couple views per day? How could that be? The answer to
why this Google #1 listing would have such low page views would probably be found in
knowing how many people search for information using that specific set of words.

Keyword Research

Fortunately we can avoid the situation above by using some online tools to research the
popularity of keyword phrases. The two leading websites to research keyword phrases
are Google Keyword External and WordTracker. These research sites allow you to see
important trends. You will be able to see how many monthly searches people conducted
for a phrase and also the number web pages that include that phrase. The number of
other web pages with a specific phrase is who you are competing with for top listing in
the search results.

Keyword research allows you to discover which phrases people search with, when they
consider a topic. You must do the research to find the best keyword phrase to use for a
specific page or post. If you make the mistake of targeting the wrong phrase, your page
views will suffer and the number of people who leave your site after viewing only one
page (bounce rate) can increase to as high as 90%!

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Keyword research also tells you the reality of how popular a topic is. You may think
something or place is popular only to find out it has very few people searching for it.
This is critical market knowledge you need to be a successful marketer.

Google Keyword External ‐ https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

My preference for a keyword research tool is Google Keyword External because Google
controls 80 percent of all web searches and most importantly it's free. It is a great tool
that provides real insight into trends and what people are thinking at any given time.
Google Keyword External will tell you the monthly number of searches for a keyword
phrase along with a number of closely related phrases to consider targeting. These
closely related keyword phrases can allow you to uncover another set of words that may
work even better than your original.

You will find Global Monthly Searches and Local Monthly Searches. If you click on one of
those headings, Google will sort by the number of searches in descending order. You will
also notice that each keyword phrase is actually a link that launches a Google search for
that phrase. It is here you will find the number of competing web pages listed as the
number of results in small print just beneath the search box.

 A lot of people searching with that phrase of words.

So what makes a good keyword phrase?

 Not many pages competing for that phrase.

► The Sweet Spot – A lot of people searching with a phrase which doesn’t have a lot

 Target three to six word phrases.

of web pages with that phrase.

 Longer keyword phrases are better than short.

 People using longer phrases are usually further along the buying process.
 Less competition for page #1 SERP placement.

Factors to consider as you choose a keyword phrase:

1) How many other websites are you competing for search engine ranking?
The longer and the more specific the keyword phrase, the less competition from other
web pages. If you type “cruises” into Google you will find the search engine has over 24
million web pages cataloged with the word "cruises." You will need to be pretty darn
lucky or extremely good at SEO to gain a Google page #1 listing for cruises. However, if
you targeted a longer keyword phrase like “Mediterranean Cruises” you will be
competing with only 2.1 million web pages for a page one listing. If you narrow it further
to “Carnival Mediterranean Cruises” you find only 744,000 web pages have this term.

2) How many people search with that keyword phrase?

This is information you need to know to determine if a keyword phrase has enough
people searching with it to be worthwhile pursuing. Researching the examples above in
Google Keyword External you will find there were 16.6 million monthly searches for the

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term "cruises" but only 165,000 people searched for “Mediterranean Cruises” and
1,300 people searched for "Carnival Mediterranean Cruises."

So which of these keyword phrases would I target?

I would choose Carnival Mediterranean Cruises for a number of reasons.

• The term has the least amount of web pages competing with it for position in the
search engines. I have a better chance of attaining a page one or two listing.

• The keyword phrase “Cruises” is not something that one might type in who is far
enough into the purchasing cycle to be considered a worthwhile lead. If someone types
in "Cruises" you would figure they were in the beginning stages of researching their
cruise vacation right? They will probably continue searching before taking the leap to
make an inquiry. How about if they typed in Carnival Mediterranean Cruises? Now we’re
getting a person who has done some research and is getting more serious.

Here is a screen shot of a Google Keyword External research for Maui Condos.

Figure #1

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Now let’s look at finding a better Keyword Phrase using terms related to Maui.

 Keyword Phrase: Maui

4,900,000 Monthly Searches for Maui
65,100,000 web pages have this phrase

 Keyword Phrase: Maui Hawaii

165,000 Monthly Searches for Maui Hawaii
37,800,000 web pages have this phrase

 Keyword Phrase: Maui Activities

14,800 Monthly Searches for Maui Activities
11,700,000 web pages have this phrase

 Keyword Phrase: Maui Condos

74,000 Monthly Searches for Maui Condos
470,000 web pages have this phrase

 Keyword Phrase: Maui Condo Resorts

390 Monthly Searches for Maui Condo Resorts
180,000 web pages have this phrase

 Keyword Phrase: Wailea Maui Condos

1,900 Monthly Searches for Wailea Maui Condos
134,000 web pages have this phrase

 Keyword Phrase: Kaanapali Maui Condos

1,600 Monthly Searches for Kaanapali Maui Condos
86,600 web pages have this phrase

 Keyword Phrase: Kaanapali Beach Hotel

22,200 Monthly Searches for Kaanapali Beach Hotel
718,000 web pages have this phrase

* Note: Searches and the number of web pages fluctuate with seasonality.

As you can see the term Maui by itself would not be a good one to target. While it has
4.9 million searches per month, it also has 65 million competing web pages that have
that that term included. Not an easy task to get a webpage to place high in the results.
Additionally, you would want to ask yourself what information someone is looking to
find who simply searched with the one word; Maui? My guess would not be vacations.
Probably third graders doing a state report! However, what if you targeted Maui
Condos? There are 74,000 monthly searches and 470,000 web pages that have that
phrase included. Much better odds and could produce someone looking for something
you sell.

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The Lessons Learned About Keyword Phrases

 Keyword phrases are the words people type into search engines to find the
information they want.

 The basis for all online marketing is rooted in targeting keyword phrases.

 Use keyword phrases to craft your target marketing strategy.

 Keyword research is critical to find the right phrase to target.

 Consider plural keyword phrases and a singular keyword phrase.

 A good keyword phrase has few competing web‐pages and a lot of people
searching with the phrase.

 Go to Google Keyword External and research a list of 20 keyword phrases you

want to target for your travel specialty or niche. Keep this list handy so as you
craft your blog articles you can include one in each of your posts.

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Chapter 4
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Think of the search engines as a card file system at the library. The card file system
allows you to look up a book by title, category or author. Your blog or website is
cataloged in a similar manner by the Internet search engines. When the search engines
visit your site they try to find out what your pages are about so they can catalog each
one. The search engines goal is to deliver the most appropriate pages to people
searching for the information they are looking for. Your goal is to target your web pages
to appear in the search engine results for the keyword phrases people are using.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO as it is known is the strategic placement of keyword

phrases in places the search engines look to determine what a page is about.

The battle for web traffic is fought page‐by‐page for your targeted three to five word
phrases.

It is not realistic to expect a page to achieve high search ranking for more than one or
two related keyword phrases. Thus, the name of the game is to create as many pages of
quality content as possible, each one targeted for a specific keyword phrase.

We will first discuss SEO tags and coding techniques to help your web pages become
search engine friendly.

Tags

You will hear the term “Tag” used when discussing SEO coding techniques. Tag is a
jargon term used for html code that carries meaning as opposed to code that
determines how a page renders. Placing your keyword phrases in certain html Tags
allow you the opportunity to craft how the search engines catalog your page.

Title Tag ‐ The title tag is the most important piece of code on your page with regards to
SEO. It is the first thing the search engine spiders find when they visit your site. On a
website page you put should your main targeted keyword phrase in the Title Tag. In
Blogs, your post title becomes the Title Tag. When creating blog posts, make sure you
include a keyword phrase in your blog post titles. Preferably the first words of your title.



The Title Tag is the most important piece of code on your page for SEO purposes


75 Characters maximum.


Up to three keyword phrases.


Website pages: Keyword phrases separated by comma (,) or Pipe (|).


Located inside the Head area <head> </head>


<title>Main Keyword Phrase | Keyword Phrase 2</title>
Blogs: Post title becomes the title tag. Use Keyword phrases in post titles.

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Title Tag appears at the top of your browser.

H1 Tag
Figure #2

Heading Tags – Heading tags can be H1 through H6 and are ideal places to put your
keyword phrases. The search engines assign the most importance to the H1 tag with the
least importance to the H6 tag. In blogs you can use header tags within your post’s body
copy to reinforce the main keyword phrase. For those who know a bit about web
programming header tags can be stylized in your CSS file to render in any font and style
you choose.

CSS H1 Tag stylization example:

<style>h1 {font‐size: 14px; font‐family: arial; font‐weight: bold; color:#000000} </style>

Inline style:
<h1 style=”font‐size: 14px; font‐family: arial; font‐weight: bold; color:#000000”>Main Heading</h1>

Think of the H1 heading tag as similar to the title of a book. It should be set with the
same targeted keyword phrase as your page’s title tag.

Heading Tag Sample: <h1>Maui Condo Resorts</h1>

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H3 Heading Tag H2 Heading Tag

Figure #3

H2 & H3 Sub‐Heading Tags – If the H1 tag is the title of a book, the H2 and H3 tags could
be considered chapter titles or bold headings within the chapters. Sub heading tags are
useful to target closely related keyword phrases. These can be stylized in CSS just like
the H1 tag.

Sub Heading Tag Sample: <h2>Kaanapali Maui Condo Resorts</h2>

Image Alt Tag ‐ The search engines cannot see images. Alt tags allow you to let the
search engines know what an image is about with words. Alt tags are used within the
code to display an image. Each of the pictures you post on your blog should have an Alt
tag with a keyword phrase.

Alt tag sample: <img src=”Maui‐Picture.jpg” alt=” Maui Condo Resorts”>

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Meta Description Tag ‐ Search Engines generally display the information in the Meta
Description tag directly beneath the link in the search results. The Meta Description tag
represents a sales opportunity to entice someone to click on the link to your site from
the search results.

<meta name="description" content="Kaanapali Beach Hotel | Read Post Reviews of Maui

Hotels | Kaanapali Beach Hotel Reviews | Read and Post Maui Hotels Reviews. Stayed at a Maui
Hotel? Post a Resort Review!">

Here is a screen‐shot of how this page is listed in Google search results.

Meta Keywords Tag ‐ is generally ignored by most search engines including Google
because of webmasters stuffing them with irrelevant keywords strictly for traffic.

 Blog directories like Technorati recognize the Meta Keyword tag.

However the Meta keyword tag is worth paying attention to because:

 It can be useful to reinforce your targeted keyword phrases.

 Up to 15 Keyword Phrases separated by a comma (,) and a space.

<meta name="keywords" content="Kaanapali Beach Hotel Reviews, Kaanapali Beach

Hotel, Maui Hotel Reviews, Maui Resort Reviews, Maui Hotel Reviews, Maui Hotels,
Wailea Resorts, Wailea Hotels, Maui Resorts, Maui Condos, Maui Condo Reviews,
Kaanapali Maui Hotels, Wailea Maui Hotels, Kaanapali Hotels, South Maui”

Anchor Text – Anchor text are the “on‐page” words used in a text‐link. Anchor text can
be a very valuable SEO tool as search engines will assign higher ranking for a keyword
phrase to your web pages that have incoming links to them that include that keyword
phrase.



Use your targeted keyword phrases as Anchor Text within text‐links.


Never use “Click Here” as the words within a text‐link.
Example of a text‐link:


The West Maui area has many Kaanapali Beach Hotels for tourists to enjoy.
The link Kaanapali Beach Hotels should be a link to a page listing your Maui
hotels or even better, a page about Kaanapali Beach Hotels.

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Duplicate Content

The issue of duplicate content cannot be overstated to anyone wanting their website to
be included in Google, Bing and Yahoo natural search listings.

Let’s say you did a Google search for Caribbean cruises. The search engine came back
with pages and pages of websites about Caribbean cruises, however your excitement
dimmed as you clicked on each one only to find they all had the same content. Each one
was a duplicate of the other. If this happened often you would quit using Google
because it wouldn't provide much value. This is the reason that the search engines
eliminate web pages they label duplicate content.

The reason I bring this up is that many travel agents are affiliated with a host agency
that provide a website loaded with content. All you do is add your logo and contact
information. Affiliation with a host agency is a good move for many reasons. But the
website they provide has the exact same (duplicate) content as all the other agents with
your same deal. Those web pages are not likely to place in the search engines because
they are filled with duplicate content. However, almost all of those sites allow you to
build pages and add content that YOU create. There is no trick or easy way out.
Duplicate content is eliminated by the search engines from results. You must create
your own unique and custom content to have any chance of being included in natural
search listings.

Incoming links and Back‐Links to your website

An Incoming Link is a link on another website that is pointed to your website. Search
engines will give your site higher ranking with the more incoming links you have. It’s a
popularity contest. Sites with a lot of incoming links tell the search engines that the
information the site provides is valuable to others therefore worthy of a higher ranking.

Let’s have some fun. Go to Google and type in: link:www.YourSite.com (replace
YourSite with your own website) to see how many links point to your site. You will
probably find many sites that have a link to your site. However, as you page through the
listing of sites be very careful and do not click on any site you are not familiar with.
Many of them are link‐farms and spammers that have malware and viruses that may
infect your computer.

Building incoming links to help your search ranking

SEO consultants speak to the importance of building incoming web‐links. However, this
is not an easy task. If you own a website, I’m sure you have received those spam emails
asking for a link exchange. They paint themselves as a small operation sign their name
as a sweet girl or innocent guy, yet you notice the script they ask you to input is pretty
sophisticated. The reality is that almost of these are link‐farms and spam sites which will
actually hurt your website rankings by having your web‐link on their site. The

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proliferation of these spam emails has made asking other websites to exchange links
a futile effort unless you already have a business relationship. Yet, there are a few ways
to secure incoming links that are relatively easy and extremely worthwhile.

Social Media Posts – Search engines are now cataloging social media like Facebook,
Twitter and LinkedIn among others. This means including your link on Facebook updates
and Twitter Tweets can help your ranking because it will appear on your follower’s
pages. Thus you have the opportunity to build many incoming links as your followers
increase.

Comment on other blogs and forums – You can build your incoming links by
commenting on other blogs or forums leaving a link to your website or blog as part of
your signature. Be tasteful and respectful in your comments so they are not deleted by
the site owners. Do not post on competitive websites or blogs. Look for complimentary
niche blogs and forums to post.

Facebook, Google & Yahoo Groups – Each of these online portals provide the
opportunity to create discussion groups about specific topics. You can participate in an
existing group that focuses on your travel niche and even better is to consider setting up
your own group for your specialty. For example, let’s say you are a specialist in
Caribbean scuba travel. Consider setting up a Facebook, Google or Yahoo group page for
Caribbean scuba diving. Always append your web‐link as a part of your signature when
you comment and post. These updates go to each of the members in the group. If you
are the group coordinator you will be considered the resident expert which is a great
step toward building your brand.

Back‐links

Back‐links are generally defined as a link within a site pointed toward another page on
the same site. Also known as in‐site links, back‐links carry almost as much weight with
the search engines as incoming links. It is critically important that you take back‐links
seriously because they can have a major impact on your SEO efforts. Back‐links should
always be absolute format using the full web address of a page:

<a href="http://www.YourSite.com/Your‐Web‐Page.html">.

A couple good ways to implement back‐links would be in your site navigation and also
within your on‐page copy used with Anchor Text (discussed above).

For your site navigation, I would suggest using stylized text‐links or a CSS drop‐down.
Don’t use linked images or image rollovers driven by JavaScript as the search engines
have difficulty following them and more importantly do not provide ranking weight for
the anchor text used.

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Recap of SEO coding techniques in order of importance

• Title tag ‐ <title>Main Keyword Phrase | Keyword Phrase 2 </title>

• Unique page copy ‐ Written with keyword phrases included. Example: The Kaanapali
Beach Hotel is one of the original resorts located in the West Maui area of Kaanapali
Beach.

• META Description tag ‐ meta name="description" content="Main Keyword Phrase |

Enticing description to get web surfers to click" />

• H1 tag ‐ <h1>Main Keyword Phrase</h1>

• H2 tag if applicable ‐ <h2>Second Keyword Phrase</h2>

• Alt image tag ‐ <img src=”picture.jpg” alt=Kaanapali Beach Hotel”>

• Incoming Links – Secure as many incoming links as possible through social posting and
commenting on forums and other blogs.

• Back‐Links – Create in‐site links to other web pages in your site. Use Anchor Text and
the absolute format such as: http://www.MySite.com/MyPage.html

• Anchor Text – Use text links within the body copy on your web page or blog post that
the words used inside the link are your targeted keyword phrase. Here is an example:
<a href=”http://www.MySite.com/MyPage.html”>Kaanapali Beach Hotels</a>

• META Keyword Tag ‐ <meta name=“keywords" content="Main Keyword Phrase,

Second Keyword Phrase, Up to 15 phrases" />

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SEO for Wordpress
The Wordpress platform from the original download is not very search engine friendly.
The easiest and best way to maximize the SEO potential of the Wordpress system is to
use what are known as plugins. These little programs enable Wordpress to be
configured to perform automated tasks. If plugins were for a cell phone they would be
called apps. There are hundreds of plugins that provide all kinds of neat capabilities. You
can search for available plugins and install them right from your Wordpress dashboard. I
have found two which are very useful with regards to increasing your online footprint
through SEO and social media.

WordPress Plugin #1: All‐in‐One SEO pack

The All‐in‐One SEO Pack is probably one of the most popular plugins of all. It creates
search engine friendly page names for your posts. This plugin allows you to configure
your blog to turn your post title into your web‐page file name. If you use a targeted
keyword phrase in your post title it should help your pages rank in the search engine
results and also in the blogosphere. The All‐in‐One SEO Pack plugin does most of the
work for you with a little configuration from the Admin panel. Download the All‐in‐One‐
SEO Pack from: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all‐in‐one‐seo‐pack/

Configuring All‐in‐One SEO Pack ‐ From the dashboard area, find the link for plugins. On
your plugin page, you should see the All‐In‐One plugin listed and a link to "activate."
Click on this link. Now click on the adjacent "Edit" link. Here are the entries I have found
to work well and a list of other optional entries.

Post title format:

%post_title% | %blog_title% | Your Blog's main keyword phrase

Page Title Format:

%page_title% | %blog_title% | Your Blog's main keyword phrase

Category Title Format:

%category_title% | %blog_title% | %blog_description%

Wordpress Permalinks
To complete the SEO task you must now go back to the Wordpress dashboard and find
Permalinks.

• Click on Permalinks.
• Now find the button that says "Custom."
• Click on "Custom, Specify Below:"
• In the text box input: /%postname%/
• Click on save.

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Plugin #2: Sociable

The Sociable plugin is an automated program that allows your web surfers to easily
share your posts on their favorite social media platforms. The Sociable plugin displays
the popular social media logos and links to them on each of your posts. You choose from
over 80 social networks like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn among others. This adds a
nice social element to your posts and also provides colorful look and feel to your blog.
Sociable also creates the opportunity for your blog posts to have a "viral" effect,
spreading across social media. I generally limit mine to six of the top sites. Too many
links and you look desperate or greedy.

Technorati

Welcome to the Blogosphere. Technorati is a giant directory of blogs. Technorati is also

a blog feed aggregator that will catalog your blog based upon theme and content.
Technorati assigns a ranking authority based upon the influence your blog has in the
blogosphere. The more you post and the more comments you have will help raise your
ranking. The higher ranking authority you achieve, the higher listing Technorati will give
your blog posts.

To get started with Technorati you must “claim” your blog. This three‐step process is
somewhat confusing, but the web traffic makes it worthwhile. The first step is to sign up
for Technorati at: http://technorati.com/account/signup. Upon successfully signing up
go to your Technorati personal profile page by clicking on your name in the top. You will
begin your claim by entering your blog URL. The Technorati system will give you a
specific code identifier that you must create a blog post with. You will need to create a
post with this Technorati code as the post title and also in the post body. Publish this
post live. Leave it up for a day or so to let Technorati’s spiders find your blog and the
snippet of code they are looking for. Once they find it, you have claimed your blog.

Another advantage of signing up for Technorati is the huge library of blogging resources
available to help you get started. If you can think of a topic or question about blogging,
it is probably addressed in the Technorati knowledge bank.

Key points of SEO for Blogs:



Use the All‐in‐One SEO Pack plugin to make Wordpress SEO friendly.


Keyword research is the foundation for success.


Target 3 to 5‐word keyword phrases.


Incorporate targeted keyword phrase in post titles.


Repeat targeted keyword phrase 5 to 6 times in body of post.


Back‐link your blog posts to each other using anchor text links within your post copy.


Claim your blog on Technorati
Avoid plagiarism and duplicate content. Write your own content.

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Chapter 5
Posting for Web Traffic
The main goal of the Travel Blog Project was to increase the agent’s online footprint and
brand them as travel experts in their chosen niche. This was pursued by methodically
crafting interesting posts with a positive message delivered in the art of the written
word. We incorporated SEO techniques into the posts so they would be easier to find on
the Internet thereby increasing web traffic.

Let’s start with the three options I see as a basis to craft your blog posts:

1. Decide to pursue a popular (or profitable) topic or niche that you want to target.
Research keyword phrases about your topic or niche on Google Keyword
External. Craft an article around one of the keyword phrases you discovered in
your research. Incorporate the targeted keyword phrase into your blog post title
and three or four times within the body copy.

2. Research trending keyword possibilities. Discover a keyword phrase that has high
search and low web page competition. Craft copy around your keyword phrase
to exploit the trending popularity. Incorporate the keyword phrase into your
blog post title and three or four times within the body copy.

3. Write articles for personal satisfaction ignoring target marketing and keyword
phrases.

I am sure you have opinions about which of these three options above are best for you.
However, keep in mind that becoming a successful blogger requires crafting intelligent
and interesting posts along with many people reading your work. Embracing SEO
techniques such as incorporating keyword phrases into your posts provides greater
visibility of your blog posts online. Also consider that you help people make meaning of
your articles by incorporating the keyword phrases that come to their mind when they
think of your travel niche. Incorporating keyword phrases into your blog titles and post
copy is critical for increasing your web traffic.

The first assignment given to the participating travel agents was to research a list of 20
keyword phrases related to their niche and store them for reference as they created
their articles. This list was referred to throughout the Travel Blog Project as the travel
agents crafted their posts targeting a different keyword phrase each time.

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Developing your writing skills

Writing is a skill that only gets better with practice. You will find and hone your writing
voice as you craft more blog posts. The words will flow easier and your posts will
become more polished. You will learn how to say more with fewer words. You will find it
easier to incorporate targeted keyword phrases into your posts.

You will also find it easier to craft posts that brand YOU by offering your advice,
experience and knowledge in telling what YOU think about vacation options. YOU are a
travel professional and expert in your niche. Your opinion is valuable. However, as you
offer your advice and information have you considered who is reading your articles and
posts?

Who are you marketing to?

Have you ever noticed that men and women learn differently? No, really it’s true! I’m
not kidding and scientific studies have proven it. I know, I know. You’re sitting there
reading this thinking why don’t those silly scientists just give me that easy money and I’ll
tell them that women are from Venus and men are from Mars! But seriously, have you
ever thought about how to capitalize on the differences to improve the success of your
travel marketing?

Factual data matters to men. We acquire information and store it in long‐term memory
for some sort of future advantage. The “how many” and “how much” information is
voraciously soaked up. Need proof? Go ask a man the size of the engine in his first car
and he will be able to tell you right away. Crazy huh?

Statistical data is also important to women but they place a higher value on the
experiential aspect. Women want to know the "how" and the "what" and also want see
how the information is relevant to them before they value it.

Have you ever heard a woman say she really "connected" with another woman after
having a conversation? Women learn best from another woman whom they view as
successfully mastered the topic they are trying to learn. Learning improves even more
when the successful woman is able to make the information personally relevant to her.

So what does this all mean to travel marketers? It means that to connect with women,
travel marketers would be wise to highlight the travel experience and make it personally
relevant. For example, describing spa treatments in detail or the exhilaration of seeing
lions in the wild or the romantic dining experience. To connect with men, agents should
quantify the travel experience with how many rating stars; how many rooms; how many
pools; how many restaurants, how much money and so on. Create your travel marketing
with a combination of "what" and "how many" to have a greater connection with both
men and women and hopefully increase sales leads.

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Personas ‐ Who are you marketing to?

Developing an intimate knowledge of your target client type(s) is the basis we will use to
examine the marketing concept of client personas. This is a concept where you create a
hypothetical client based upon your target market. Here are key questions that must be
answered to develop a client persona.

• Who is your average client?

• Men, women or both?
• Are they young, middle‐age or seniors?
• Married, single or either?
• Do they travel as couples? With children? With grandchildren?
• Are they the affluent or middle‐class?
• What motivates them to travel?
• Do they travel for adventure, a unique experience or to learn and sightsee?
• Do they repeat taking the same type of vacations such as scuba trips or cruises?
• Do they visit different destinations but stick within a certain niche?
• What is their attitude toward technology and the Internet?
• What do they do for fun?

Answering these questions and others you come up with allow you to develop a profile
or "persona" of your typical target customer(s). Personas are similar in concept to
demographics, but quite different. Demographics provide insight into the make‐up of a
group by measuring the percentage of people that fit into certain categories. Personas
are different in that you are developing a complete profile of your target client. Some
marketers will even name their personas as the detail become so complete. You may
also come to the conclusion that you have more than one client persona. Most travel
niches have three to five personas of typical clients.

Why are personas important? Personas allow you to tailor your marketing message
closer to target's needs and wants increasing the chance they may respond. It is much
easier to sell something that someone already needs or wants, rather than trying to talk
them into buying something YOU want to sell. Developing personas will allow you to
choose advertising venues more wisely based upon where your typical client will more
likely receive your message. An example of using a persona might go something along
these lines. Let's say you specialize in honeymoons. You have developed two personas.

Persona #1: 25 to 30 year olds that prefer beach destinations with an active nightlife.
They are fun loving and like to be active. They tend to be very active online using
Facebook and Twitter. You indentify certain honeymoons that match this lifestyle and
promote them on a social media marketing campaign. A year after you book their
honeymoon, you start sending the bride girlfriend get‐a‐way trips! Three years later you
start sending them Disney packages.

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Persona #2: 45 to 60 year olds getting married for a second time. They have a higher
rate of destination weddings. They prefer upscale beach resorts offering a luxury spa,
tennis, golf, a nice pool area and fine dining. They have a taste for the finer things in life.
They are greater users of email so you create a monthly email newsletter to send out to
your client list promoting destination weddings. A year after you book their honeymoon
you start sending them deluxe cruise information.

The Persona of a Pied Piper

Birds of a feather flock together. It’s a well known fact that groups are one of the most
profitable niches of the travel business. The problem has always been how to get
enough people to fill them. You are probably aware of the children’s tale about the Pied
Piper who played a magic flute to have all the little rats follow him into the lake. Group
trips are generally filled by Pied Pipers whom people will follow and sign up for a trip.

A Pied Piper may be the couple above arranging a destination wedding bringing family.
Pied Pipers are usually leaders of an organization or group of people. They could be a
Pastor, Priest, Rabbi, or other religious leader. They may also be a club president, a
celebrity or a television or radio personality. It could also be newsletter publisher,
renowned chef, musician, major league sports figure or a well known business person. A
Pied Piper can be anyone who attracts people. Pretty much anyone who has a following
can be considered a good choice for tour leader. A key factor to the success is that they
must have a way to communicate with their group and solicit for travelers.

Writing as a Travel Evangelist

People gravitate to positive people. They are repelled by negative people and are
uninspired by boring people. Does your writing inspire and motivate? Become a travel
evangelist for your niche to create buzz and excitement about the travel experiences
you are selling.

As you create your posts consider that your audience is probably pretty darned excited
at the prospect of taking a vacation. You can feed their enthusiasm by writing with
descriptive adjectives. For those who have not had an English class in a while, here is the
definition of an adjective:

"Adjectives are one of the eight parts of speech that express an attribute of a person,
place, or thing. In simpler words, adjectives describe, qualify or modify nouns. Adjectives
(the descriptor) precede the noun (person, place or thing) in a sentence. There can also
be more than two adjectives qualifying a noun. Adjectives in English are categorized into
two types; limiting adjectives and descriptive adjectives."

The most influential platform to communicate your travel evangelism is your written
marketing. So let craft a few sentences as a dry travel professional and then as a travel
evangelist.

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Example #1:
The Sandy Beach Hotel is ocean front, has 16 stories and is located on a nice stretch of
beach. The hotel also has a pool and swim‐up pool bar for beverages and snacks in the
afternoon.

Example #1 – Rewritten by a Travel Evangelist:

The Sandy Beach Hotel is a fabulous hotel is located right on the beach. The
breathtaking views of the islands are unbelievable from the top of this 16 story hotel.
The huge pool area is a perfect spot to spend a lazy afternoon lounging in the tropical
sun or underneath one of the plentiful palapas for shade. Enjoy a delicious afternoon
snack and beverage served to you poolside. This is a perfect hotel to enjoy an
unforgettable vacation in the islands.

Example #2:
The Ocean Serenade cruise ship is one of the newest vessels in the line’s fleet. The ship
has 1,200 cabins of which 75 percent are outside. You will enjoy dining at five
restaurants onboard. The ship has a spacious promenade with shops, clubs and many
activities. Enjoy the fitness center for a workout or the spa for a massage and other
treatments. This ship offers a fun cruise experience.

Example #2 – Rewritten by a Travel Evangelist:

The Ocean Serenade is an award winning Mega class cruise vessel combining passenger
comfort with an unbelievable assortment of activities. The ship has a spacious shopping
arcade with great shops stocking the latest cruise attire and collectables. You can make
this your own personal wellness cruise at the fully equipped fitness center offering
morning Yoga classes. Complete your experience at the incredible Spa at Sea for all
those wonderful treatments to make you feel like a pampered movie star. The Ocean
Serenade offers an incredible culinary experience with five exquisite fine dining
restaurants and bistros. There is so much to experience aboard this fabulous ship you
will be calling me to plan your next cruise as soon as you get home!

Do you feel the difference between the first version and the second version written as a
travel evangelist? The first version attempts to let the hotel or cruise ship sell itself with
the writer simply telling the story. The second version is clearly fluffier, but much more
compelling and positive. One of the secrets to writing as a travel evangelist is rooted in
using positive verbiage to creating compelling content. Which one of the above
examples do you think would motivate a web surfer to take a desired action like call you
or send an email inquiry?

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Creating Buzz around Change!

New • State of the art • Progress • Renovated • Evolved • Improved • Develop

These words describe changes happening right now in your niche of the travel business.
As a travel evangelist, change represents an opportunity to create buzz and excitement
that you can use to help brand yourself as an expert. The “Great Recession” has
accelerated the rate of change. Hotels are using low interest rates to finance
renovations. Cruise lines are building magnificent new cruise ships which are entering
the market with new amenities and sailing new itineraries. Destinations are upgrading
their infrastructure and tourist facilities. Most importantly, the “Great Recession” has
permanently changed consumer behavior with an emphasis on value. Each one of the
points above represents an opportunity for a travel evangelist to create some buzz and
excitement. Post about changes in your travel niche as a reason for people to go back
and revisit their favorite holiday spots. Create posts about the value YOU provide. Use
new features, renovations and upgraded facilities as an opportunity to create
excitement about your travel packages.

AIDA ‐ Attention • Interest • Desire • Action

As you create your blog posts, it is important to incorporate copy that exploit the stages
and emotions people go through to make a purchase. We will now examine the
marketing concept of AIDA which stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action.
Let’s break it down:

 The persona you develop can be considered a suspect. A suspect is a potential

customer. This suspect has a need or want that your advertising and marketing
efforts are targeted to get their attention. Your blog post title or web page
header is how you grab their attention. It must incorporate the keywords that
come to their mind as they consider what you are selling. You only have a split‐
second to grab their attention. Make sure your post title is compelling, jumps out
and grabs their attention.

 You have about 2‐seconds to gain your their interest. Your first two sentences
should be targeted, to‐the‐point, discussing the benefit for the prospect. Your
post should also have an inspiring picture that adds to your story. Now that you
have your suspect’s attention they have turned into a prospect.

 Once you have their interest, the rest of your post needs to create a strong
enough desire to make them take the action of making an inquiry or purchase.

As you contemplate how to make the AIDA emotional steps happen, consider the
persona you created of your typical client. Think of what will resonate with them to gain
their attention, capture their interest and create enough desire to make them take
action.

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The Daily Post

As mentioned earlier, The Daily Post e‐mail was the core of the Travel Blog Project. It
was sent each weekday and included a theme of the week and marketing concept to
create posts around. The Daily Post helped the travel agents create articles by asking
four or five open ended questions about a theme or topic as it related to their niche.
Agents simply answered the questions in paragraph format. The core concept of the
project was building pages of quality content. The more web pages and blog posts they
created, the larger their online footprint would get. Here are some examples of the
posting ideas agents received throughout the Travel Blog Project.

The Daily Post - Week #1 ‐ Theme: YOU and your Travel Niche.

We begin the process of branding YOU as a travel specialist in your travel niche. You
may be asking why limit yourself to a niche when there’s a big world out there to sell?
The answer is to consider if you were a traveler researching vacations online. How
would this person find you? They would find you because they typed in a keyword
phrase into a search engine and your website came up in the return listings. What would
it take to get them to make an inquiry? Probably a combination of factors, but most
important would be to see the agent had a deep knowledge of the travel experience
they were researching. With this thought, this was the first blog post assignment of the
project. In your online writing voice and speaking as a professional travel agent discuss
what attracted you to your travel niche.

1) How and why did you decide to focus in your specific travel niche?

2) What are three things that make your travel niche a great vacation?
a.
b.
c.

3) Close by sharing a piece of inside information about your travel niche.

4) Add your signature tag.

5) Add a picture to your post. Your own vacation pictures are the best as they prove you
were there and add credibility to YOU.

What follows here is an example of a blog post around these questions. Notice it is only
two paragraphs. If you write more, you will be writing for little benefit as people don’t
really read on the Internet. Sorry, but it is true. You will also be spending a bunch more
time crafting long posts that people won’t read and you will quickly run out of
enthusiasm and quite blogging as it will take too much effort. Stay on topic, get to the
point and keep your posts about two paragraphs in length.

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Here is an example blog post:

Title:
How I Fell in Love on a Family Hawaii Vacation.

Blog Post:
I fell in love with the Islands while on a Hawaii vacation. We went as a family traveling
with my wife and children for a vacation. Experiencing Hawaii through the eyes of my
children gave me a totally different perspective of the islands as a family vacation. From
that Hawaiian vacation experience I knew that I wanted to share this with as many
families as I could and decided to become a Hawaii vacation specialist. That was ten
years ago. Since that awesome Hawaii vacation, I have been back to the islands 15 times
and love it more now than ever.

Hawaii offers so much to do. What more could you ask for a family vacation? The
Hawaiian beaches are awesome. There are optional tours for adventure seekers and the
whale watching was absolutely spectacular. The highlight of our Hawaiian vacation was
the Pearl Harbor tour. A money saving tip I always tell my clients is to simply take the
transit bus out to Pearl Harbor as opposed to setting it up through the hotel tour desk.
You will save a bunch of money.

Your Name
Hawaii Travel Expert
[email protected]

Did you notice:

• I targeted the keyword phrase "Hawaii Vacation" in this blog post? I mentioned the
keyword phrase in the title and also repeated it four times in the blog post. I also have a
secondary keyword phrase of “family vacation” included in the post.

• It's short and sweet. Do not create five and six paragraph blog posts. No one will read
them and it will take you entirely too much effort to create.

• There are no misspelled words. Make sure you spell check prior to posting. Create the
post in your blog however prior to saving it make sure you use the spell‐check function
to check for misspelled words.

• Develop your closing signature. You may just want to sign your name or you may want
to list your name, email address and industry credentials or awards.

• Most blogs have a Reply form directly beneath the post for readers to comment. If you
do not see this, it probably needs to be enabled or turned on in your admin panel.
People will contact you by submitting your reply form.

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• When you are creating your post, beneath the posting area you will find a text field
labeled "tags” or “keywords" depending on the blogging platform. This is where you
input your targeted keyword phrase (which in the example above is Hawaiian vacations)
along with a few closely related phrases separated by commas. For example: "Hawaii
vacations, Hawaiian vacations, family vacations" and up to 10 maximum.

The Daily Post - Week # 2 ‐ Theme: Fun and your Travel Niche.

One of the main things people are concerned with as they consider a destination is what
to do once they arrive. When discussing activities, excursions and things to do within
your travel niche, “paint a picture” of how great the travel experience is by being very
descriptive. This also helps establish you as an expert as you get to detail your deeper
knowledge of the travel niche. In week #2 the agents discussed the fun things to do in
their travel niche by answering the questions below.

1) What fun things have YOU done while traveling to, or within your travel niche?

Ideas: Was it an optional tour? A cruise shore excursion? An adventure? Traveling with a
special group of people? A night out? A dining experience? Swimming? Something else?

2) In complete sentences mention three fun things you recommend your clients do
while vacationing in your travel niche.
a.
b.
c.

3) Now share a piece of inside information that you discovered about a fun thing to do
in your specialty or niche.

Now let’s craft a blog post of a couple paragraphs around these three questions. Here is
an example of a blog post that I crafted around a fictitious new Royal Caribbean shore
excursion. Remember, we always target one of our keyword phrases as we create our
blog post. For the example below I am targeting the keyword phrase "Royal Caribbean
shore excursions."

Title: Royal Caribbean shore excursions are now offering amazing Snorkeling trips.

Post:
I recently booked a couple on the new Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Seas cruise ship. I
recommended the snorkeling excursion to them as a part of our pre‐trip consultation. I
contacted them upon their return, as I do all my clients, to find out how their cruise
went. They raved about the snorkeling excursion they took from the ship. It was the
highlight of their cruise.

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Royal Caribbean shore excursions have always been regarded as some of the best in the
cruise industry. The last time I sailed on Royal Caribbean was on the Sovereign of the
Seas and I remember how impressed I was with the quality and variety of the shore
excursions. I took the snorkel trip and vividly remember how the reef fish were almost
fluorescent with their bright colors. The ship was brand new and the staff was very
helpful. I also recommend the Mayan ruins tour and the shopping trip to all my clients
taking cruises that stop in Cancun. It was obvious to me that Royal Caribbean shore
excursions were very important to the management of the line as the quality of the
experience was sensational.

One thing we learned was to pre‐reserve these special snorkel trips at the time you
make your travel reservations because they only take a limited number of people to the
reef per day. As a travel professional, I recommend these snorkel trips for my active
clients as one of their fun Royal Caribbean shore excursions.

Your Name
Cruise Specialist
[email protected]

 It's short and sweet. Only two and a half paragraphs

Did you notice:

 I used the targeted keyword phrase in the blog title and also 3 times in the post.
 I shared my opinion and painted a picture of the experience.
 As a travel professional I made a recommendation.
 The closing is a nice soft‐sell way of saying I would like your business.
 I also list my name and specialization.

The Daily Post - Week # 3 ‐ Write a review of your favorite hotel or cruise ship.

Travel Reviews are hot right now. People include the word “reviews” along with their
topic when doing web research. A couple examples using a travel related topic could be:
Hyatt Maui Review or Carnival Cruise Review. Including the word "reviews" at the end
of your hotel or ship name can bring additional web traffic as you may get people
searching for Hyatt Maui as well as Hyatt Maui Reviews.

During the course of the Travel Blog Project we created numerous travel reviews about
favorite hotels, resorts, cruise ships, cruise lines and destinations. These reviews were
re‐purposed onto the agent’s websites and also on their Facebook fan pages. Agents
simply answered a few questions in a paragraph or two. The questions were broken
down to be applicable to critique either a hotel or cruise ship.

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Example of Hotel Review
If your niche is a destination then provide a review of a favorite hotel or resort.

Post Title: Start the title with the name of the resort followed by review. Then the name
of the destination followed by the word review.

Post title example: Hyatt Maui Review | Maui Hawaii Hotel Review

Questions to answer as you critique this resort:

1) What is the name of the hotel or resort? Describe where it's located.

2) What makes this hotel or resort special or exceptional?

This might be the location, a nice spa, fitness center, level of service, beautiful views or
special activities. “Unique” is really cool and perfect to post about.

3) How many rooms does this hotel or resort have? How would you rate the rooms?

4) How would you rate the pool and/or beach area?

5) How would you rate the dining options and food?

6) What is the overall condition of the hotel or resort?

7) What type of client would you recommend this hotel or resort?

Now close with a sample air and hotel package from your area including pricing from
and to.

Your Name,
(your niche destination) Specialist
Email: [email protected]

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Example of Cruise Review

If you are cruise specialist then critique a ship, cruise line or itinerary critique:

Post Title: Start the title with the name of the ship followed by review. Then the name
of the line followed by the word review.

Post title example: Pacific Princess Cruise Review | Princess Cruises Passenger Review

Questions to answer as you critique this cruise ship or line:

1) What is the name of the ship and cruise line?

2) Include a brief description of the ship you are reviewing.

3) What features stood out and made this ship special for you?

4) How would you rate the cabins?

5) How would you rate the pool area?

6) How would you rate the dining options and food?

7) What was the overall condition of the ship?

8) What type of client would you recommend for this ship?

Now close with sample itinerary including sample pricing from and to.

Your Name,
Cruise Specialist
Email: [email protected]

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The Daily Post - Week #5 – Client Case Study

Once of the best ways to display your professionalism, capabilities and instill confidence
is using client testimonials. However, it’s always a bit awkward asking clients if they will
be comfortable with you posting their recommendation. To avoid this situation we
reverse engineered the testimonial concept by examining past clients as a case study.

Did you book a client that stands out in your memory that had an issue you were able to
solve? Did they need some sort of special assistance? Did they have an unusual request?
Were they confused or concerned and you helped them feel at ease? Maybe they were
not sure about traveling within your travel niche? With this blog post you get to tell how
you helped this client and what solutions you provided. Without identifying the client's
last name, construct a paragraph or two by answering the questions below.

1) Why does this booking stick out in your memory?

2) Describe this client and what type of vacation they were looking for?

3) Did they already know what they wanted or were they searching for options?

4) What questions did you ask your client to find what they wanted in a vacation?

5) What did you do to solve your client’s dilemma or issue?

6) Did you contact the client upon their return to get feedback? What did they think?

Here are some talking points:

• How did you provide value to this client?
• How did you find the perfect vacation?
• How did you save them money?
• Did they appreciate your knowledge?

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The Lessons Learned about Posting for Web Traffic

 Keyword Phrases ‐ Research and target specific keyword phrases to use in your
posts. Make sure your keyword phrases are in the post title and repeated four or
five times in the body of your post.

 Short & Sweet Posts – Try to keep your blog posts two paragraphs. You will find
it much more enjoyable to craft posts if you keep it a manageable effort.

 Create Client Personas – You must know who your audience is to craft blog posts
that connect with them.

 Use the AIDA concept – Gain their Attention, capture their Interest and create
Desire to make them take Action.

 Write as a Travel Evangelist – Craft positive posts using descriptive adjectives to

detail things about your travel niche. Get people excited about what you are
selling.

 Create Hotel Reviews, Destination Reviews and Cruise Ship Reviews – Show
your knowledge. Have an opinion. Brand yourself by articulating your
experience, insight and knowledge as a travel in your travel niche. These hotel
and ship reviews will become the most popular pages on your site.

 Client Case Studies – These pseudo client testimonials help tell your story about
the great service and value you provide your clients. People considering a
vacation will feel fortunate to have you on their side.

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Chapter 6
Facebook Fan Pages
I am willing to wager that almost all of you have a personal page on Facebook.
Businesses also have the opportunity to create a presence on Facebook with what they
call “Fan” pages.

Marketing on Facebook was a major part of the Travel Blog Project. We created
Facebook business fan pages and modified them to become professional looking mini‐
sites. Facebook fan pages seemed to garner the most enthusiasm from the participants
of all our marketing efforts.

Facebook fan pages are your opportunity to build a community of people who "like"
your page. Once they click on the “like” button they become a “fan” and they can
receive your status updates on their wall. The goal is to develop as large a community as
possible of people who "like" your page.

Marketing on Facebook is quite different than traditional advertising. Facebook is about

engaging with people to entice them to comment on your posts. The goal, as with all
social media, is to create an online conversation. Marketing on Facebook involves
mostly “asking” sometimes “telling” and once in a while “selling” in the effort to build
your community. The hard‐sell, always pushing sales style of promotion will fail on
Facebook. It is more of a soft‐sell nurturing environment. Think of your Facebook Fans
like meeting a friend on the street. You pause to have a short give and take conversation
about travel and then go on your way until you meet again. This is marketing on
Facebook.

You will notice that people with a lot of fans put quite a bit of effort into their pages.
They post every day and sometimes more that that. When a fan comments on one of
their posts, they respond back. They also go and comment on their fan's posts. Success
on Facebook does not happen by chance. It’s a popularity contest which you must
participate freely and often to have any chance of succeeding.

Post and update your Facebook content on a regular basis. No one will be impressed
with a page that has three or four updates a month. You must make it worthwhile for
people to “like” you by putting in the effort to update regularly.

Craft your Facebook fan page as a complete resource for your niche

During the Travel Blog project we found that agents who filled their fan pages with lots
of information and photos about their travel niche had more people “like” their fan
pages. It really is a pretty simple concept. If you build your Fan page with useful
information and post beautiful pictures focused on a specific niche; like‐minded people
will “like” it. You can also post destination information, hotel critiques, cruise ship

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reviews, travel statistics, weather trends, places to eat, things to do, advice, nightlife
and anything else that people may find interesting. We found that a key element of a
successful Facebook fan page was that it developed into a valuable resource for people.

As you create your Facebook updates keep in mind you are trying to brand YOU as an
expert in your specific travel niche. You must stay on topic and focused. If you post
about all different types of travel, your page will be undefined and will not stand out for
anything in particular. However, if you stay focused, post often, load it with lots of
information about your travel niche it will stand out as a useful resource.

Creating a professional looking fan page

The default Facebook fan page is really quite boring. The goal of any travel marketer is
to create a brand that represents fun, adventure and excitement. Fortunately, Facebook
provides a number of tools you can use to transform your fan page into a mini‐website
with custom tabs for multiple pages, photo albums and much more. Let’s examine some
of the techniques and tools of Facebook.

Photos on Facebook:
Being in the travel business affords you to access to beautiful photo images. Use them
to your advantage. Facebook fan pages allow the creation of photo albums. You can
categorize photos in albums by destination, theme or whatever you choose. Many of
the agents noticed a correlation in the popularity of their fan pages with adding photos.
One of the blog participants wrote this in the Travel Blog Project Knowledge Center
about using photos to get fans:

From Kerry:
"I am still struggling with interaction on my Facebook page. The only thing that HAS
worked is posting pictures. That has generated some comments, interest and even leads.
I recommend posting albums for each place you've been."

Left Column Logo:

One of the first tasks you should undertake when creating your Facebook Fan page is to
upload your logo. Facebook allows your logo image to have a height of up to 600 pixels
by a width of up to 200 pixels. Successful marketers on Facebook have colorful and
personalize graphics specifically created for the left column on their Facebook fan page.
Creating a custom left column image can add a very professional quality to your fan
page. This custom image can help tell your story visually. Below is a screen shot (figure
#4) of the Facebook page I created for ReviewResorts.com. Notice the image along the
left side of the page. This image stays on all your other fan pages which creates a nice
branding effect.

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Figure #4

Creating Custom Tab Navigation

Custom Tabs is a tool you can use to add pages to your Facebook site. Adding pages
allows you to develop your fan page into a complete resource center for your travel
niche. In figure #4 above, notice the arrow pointing to the “Welcome” link in the left
navigation. This is a custom tab I created for people to see when they visit this fan page
for the first time.

When you create custom tabs, they appear in your Fan page navigation giving it a mini‐
website effect. Many marketers create custom tabs for their Facebook fan pages. Tabs
can be created for anything you like. A “welcome" tab is one of the more popular to
create. Welcome pages are generally loaded with a nice graphic about 500 pixels high by
525 pixels wide and some verbiage beneath about your business. Make sure your
targeted keyword phrases are included in this verbiage. The verbiage provides
searchable content so the Facebook internal search function can deliver your fan page
as one of the results. Many people will set their welcome tab as the default landing
page. Once people “like” your fan page they bypass the welcome page and are taken
directly to your posting wall. A welcome tab with a nice looking, colorful and lively
image shows there’s effort put into the page and worthy of them clicking your “like”
button.

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Creating a “deals” tab is a nice way to offer travel packages and specials without
upsetting your fans. Constant posting of travel deals on Facebook will upset people and
cause them to consider your page a spammer and “unlike” you. However, some of the
agents create a “deals” tab to post their travel specials. This way, if the Facebook user
wants to see travel specials they can click on your “deals” tab to view. Others created a
“travel reviews” tab where they loaded the vacation, cruise and hotel critiques we
crafted for blog posts. Use your creativity and custom tabs to create a complete traveler
resource as a catalyst to grow your fan community.

Using FBML to set up custom tabs

While there are a number of vendors that provide apps (for a fee) to set up tabs, you
can set them up FREE using the Facebook provided FBML app. FBML is FREE and makes
it relatively easy to set up custom tabs. Here are the step by step instructions.

1) Log into your Facebook fan page. In the upper left area you will see some links. Click
on "edit page."

2) Now click on the "Apps" link. You will see an application labeled "Static – FBML."
Click on "Go To App." Then click on the button labeled "Add Static FBML."

3) Now go back to the original "Edit Page" link and click that.

4) Now you will see a link in the same upper left area called Apps. Click the Apps link. A
list of apps will show, but at the bottom you will see FMBL and click on "Edit Settings."

5) On the page that appears, you will see a text field labeled Box Title. Put "Welcome."

6) Beneath that field is a text area where you can put text and a link to an image.

7) When you are done with step 6, click on the Save button

8) Now go back to the main edit page where you clicked on Apps. This time click on
"Manage Admins." You will see a drop‐down box labeled "Default Landing Page."
Welcome should be one of the options. Click on Welcome as your default and Save.

Congratulations! You now have a welcome tab and it will be the page people see when
they visit your page for the first time. But it seems boring with just text. Would you like
to add an image to the body of your Welcome page?

9) Load the image you want in the photos section of your Fan page.

10) Move your mouse over the loaded picture and right‐click your mouse. One of the
choices you will see in the menu is "Properties." Clicking on properties will open a pop‐
up box (figure #5) and one of the fields you will see is "image source." Highlight that

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long image source of where Facebook stored your image by clicking the left button on
your mouse and dragging it over the source code. Sometimes the image source gets
hidden as it is so long, but if you move your mouse over it, still holding the left button
down, it all becomes visible. With this image source highlighted, copy it (push Ctrl key
and the C key at the same time). See figure #5.

Figure #5

Now go back to steps 3 & 4 to open up the FBML app and then Edit Settings.

11) In the large text area you will input the code below after replacing
YourImageSource. < img src="YourImageSource.jpg" border="0" / >

Note: Replace "YourImageSource.jpg" in the statement above with the long source you
copied (Hold down the Ctrl and the C keys) in step 10 by pasting it (Hold down the Ctrl
and the V keys).

Note that the image you are loading must be less than 525 pixels wide by about 600
pixels high. Fonts and other content within the FBML pages can be stylized (color, fonts,
bold, web‐links, etc.) by using html tags.

12) Save changes and Voila!

You should now have a Welcome tab and it should be the default landing page for
people visiting your page. Note that if someone "likes" your page, they will
automatically be taken directly to your wall.

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Driving traffic to your fan page

Many agents are using their entire online footprint including websites, blog, newsletter,
email signature and social media sites to drive traffic to their Facebook fan pages. Some
companies are driving traffic to their fan pages by providing an incentive for people to
"like" their page. Some promote special content that can only be accessed on their
Facebook page. Another popular way to get Fans to like your page is to run a contest.
However, there are strict rules by Facebook about running contests as one of the
project participants pointed out:

From Jennifer:
“I wanted to share a really useful article that someone shared with me regarding promotions on
Facebook sites. I haven’t yet done a promotion, but was considering it and this article outlines
the rules. www.socialmediaexaminer.com/facebook‐promotions‐what‐you‐need‐to‐know .“

Cross promoting with a Facebook badge on your website

Cross promoting your Facebook fan page with a linked image from your website is a very
popular way of generating “likes.” Facebook provides a number of tools that you can
use to bring people to your fan page. You can find these tools when you login as the
admin, click on edit page and you will find a link labeled marketing in the upper left.
Here you will find “Get a Badge" and “Add a Like Box to your Website." These are tools
you can use to put Facebook images on your website and blog that are programmed to
link directly to your fan page. The main point is that getting fans does not just happen.
It’s like all marketing with a direct correlation between the effort you put in and the
level of success achieved.

Warning: Not all updates post to your fan’s wall

There is also a little known but well recognized fact that not all Facebook status updates
wind up in your fan's wall stream. Huh? That’s not fair! But it’s true. What led me to
discover this was from comments in the TBP Knowledge Center about agents seeing a
higher level of fan engagement by posting photos. I wanted to find if this was the power
of imagery or are there other factors involved? This question led me to do a
considerable amount of online research to find out what truth is.

• There is a widely accepted rumor that Facebook assigns a page rank to fan pages very
similar to the search engines.

• Facebook has a default setting of Top News. Facebook does not include updates from
lower ranking fan pages in the Top News stream. This means your updates never appear
on your fan's update stream if your page is not ranked high enough by Facebook.

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• Facebook ranks fan pages higher that have lots of photos and videos. This seems to
explain why many of the Travel Blog Project participants found posting photos was one
of the best ways to get fan interaction. Thus, updates with photos seem to have a higher
chance of winding up in your fan's wall stream.

• The age of a fan page counts. New fan pages have a hard time getting ranked high.
Facebook programmers like fan pages that have been around for a while and show
consistent activity and fan engagement.

• You always hear about posting updates that engage your fans. Getting people to
comment on your Fan page is a major factor Facebook uses to determine page rank.
Thus, it may be wise to craft some posts with opinion, a bit of an edge or controversy
and finish with an open ended question asking your fans to post comments.

• Facebook assigns higher rank to fan pages that have lots of clicks on the included links.
This is the engagement you constantly hear about. Craft your updates to entice people
to click on a link to your website or blog for more information.

Comments from the Travel Blog Project Facebook Knowledge Center:

From Lynn:
"I have found that when we ask for ideas, opinions or data (i.e. an open‐ended question)
we get comments as opposed to just stating something or directing people to our
website, which generates few if any comments and maybe only a few "likes." The
exception to that is a new blog post that provokes discussion."

From Lanier:
"The power of Facebook is awesome. I was working on a package for a family for the
summer of 2012. A cruise on the Disney Dream and I received an awesome rate for a
family of 5. The cruise was only for 5 days and the family wanted a 7 day, so the package
had to be changed. But I kept thinking about the awesome rate and wanted to let other
families know and Facebook came to mind. I got pictures of the Dream's maiden voyage,
went to my fan page on FB and posted the info about 2012 summer awesome cruise
rates and asked for takers and got two families inquiring. I was shocked. I do group
cruises each year and I plan on using my pics from the previous cruise to advertise my
current cruise. It really works. I'm liking this social media marketing."

From Margaret:
"I try to post once a day, but it doesn't always happen. I post interesting news, and of
course, specials. It's important to keep your "fans" engaged and create some interaction
by asking questions and posting relevant content that fans comment on. It's important
not to be monotonous and post the same kind of thing all the time. Creating a Facebook
ad is a really inexpensive way to get fans, which hopefully leads to sales. You can spend
as little or as much as you want. Your ad can be targeted to your Facebook page, to an

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event, or even directly to your Web site. Your ad can be as specific to a targeted
market as you’d like, and Facebook emails a weekly ad performance summary. I have a
couple ads running every so often."

From Darby:
"Hi I wanted to share with everyone that there are plenty of apps on Facebook, Twitter
and LinkedIn that you can use so you only have to post once and it will post in any or all
of the places you would like. It makes it less time consuming. Good luck to everyone."

From Tyjuana:
"At the risk of sounding like a crazed infomercial B‐lister, you have to get a landing page
going on your pages. When you do, add coding that will allow your visitors to leave their
name and email address. I use www.Mycontactform.com. It's free to use."

From Sevin:
"I created my blog from Wordpress and from the settings I activated a connection into
Twitter and Facebook Fan‐page. Now whenever I write into our blog page it posts
directly on my FB and Twitter account at the same time...It's easy and free!"

The lessons learned about marketing on Facebook

• Successful people with lots of fans put quite a bit of effort into their pages.

• Create a professional looking fan page with a left column logo image and custom tabs.

• You must post and update your Facebook content on a regular basis.

• Post a lot of vacation pictures of your travel niche in photo albums.

• The goal is to develop as large a community as possible of people who "like" your
page.

• You “ask” and “tell” rather than just sell.

• Facebook is a popularity contest which you must participate freely and often to have
any chance at succeeding.

• Your updates are not guaranteed to post into your fans data stream or wall unless
Facebook gives you a high enough page ranking based upon number of fans, clicked on
links, number of updates and other criteria.

• You must be very proactive in posting and engaging to succeed on Facebook.

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Chapter 7
Twitter
When I first heard about Twitter and the fact that posts must be less than 140
characters, I really thought it wouldn’t last. Was I ever wrong! It turned out that the 140
character limit forced people to remove the fluff and get right to the point. People like
that.

A post on Twitter is known as a Tweet. Generally, people on Twitter will Tweet a teaser
sentence and include a link to a web page for more information. The simple fact is that
Twitter generates web traffic to your blog or website. For every 2,000 followers you
should count on between 20 and 50 clicks on each Tweeted link.

If you need any convincing of the power of Twitter, take a look at this person's Twitter
account: www.Twitter.com/@adventureGirl. This is a former bikini model that started
“Tweeting” four years ago. She had no background in travel. She was somewhat broke
by her own admission. Out of desperation, she created a Twitter account to get some
free publicity. Now look at the number of people following her! Every time she tweets
almost 1.5 million people get her message. With those kinds of numbers do you think
she is still hurting for money? This is clearly an extreme case, however there are other
attainable levels that can provide a very valuable source of clicks (web traffic) to your
blog or website.

Another popular Tweeter is www.Twitter.com/@JohnnyJet. Johnny is a travel agent

who has 17,350 followers who receive his Tweet messages. Think if you had a mailing
list of seventeen thousand people that you could send a message to them in an instant
and free. This is the power of Twitter.

Make no mistake, success on Twitter takes real commitment. You must participate and
work hard to build a following. While the two examples above are wildly successful, we
can examine a few things on their pages to help you learn how to make Twitter work for
you too.

Twitter UserName – When you create your Twitter user account, make sure your
"UserName" relates to your business or specialty. Remember, we are branding YOU as
the specialist. Your Twitter handle (name) is critical to your success. It should
immediately resonate meaning about YOU and that you are a travel expert in your
niche.

Have a theme – Successful Tweeters have a theme. They construct a persona that is
genuine and Tweet within that realm. They make it personal. They are not faceless.

Your description – Another critical area is the description of who YOU are and what YOU
do. Craft a well written and enticing description about YOU and your travel niche.

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Add a picture of yourself – This is about branding YOU and your travel practice right?
People like doing business with people. Use your own picture whether you like how you
look or not. By adding your picture you personalize your page. It becomes genuine and it
will be more popular and easier to gain followers.

Add a web link – Notice that both the examples above have a link to their websites. You
should definitely load a link to your main online property whether it’s your website, blog
or Facebook fan page. Link to the site you want to funnel web traffic.

Add a background image – You need to have a background image to make your Twitter
account look professional. I load raw images from my digital camera. They are about
2,500 pixels wide by 2,000 pixels high at 230 dpi resolution. This will create a four‐tiled
background that can look pretty good with the right image. You may have to try a few
images to get the look you want. Keep in mind it is not a good idea to load an image
with stranger’s faces as you can have liability issues unless you have a signed release.
For my Twitter account @ReviewResorts I added a picture of the pool at the Pueblo
Bonito Emerald Bay Mazatlan.

To add a background image, log in to Twitter, click on Profile then Edit Profile then
Design. At the bottom is a link change background image click on that link. There is a
check‐box at the bottom tile background. This needs to be checked to make your
background image repeat.

You can also add a Twitter background from one of the free Twitter background
websites. Simply Google free Twitter background and the results will be filled with
websites that provide them.

From Jennifer:
Just wanted to share a site I found (via mashable) on a free customizable twitter
background: www.freetwitterdesigner.com

Time management by scheduling Tweets

Participating on as multiple social media platforms is time consuming. One of the best
time management tools you will find is the free www.Hootsuite.com program. This is an
indispensible tool that helps you manage your social media marketing efforts.

Hootsuite allows you to create and schedule Tweets and Facebook updates up to 30
days in advance to post at the exact day and time you designate. This allows you to
manage your time spent on Twitter and Facebook. Using Hootsuite allows you to sit
down and schedule a weeks worth of Tweets with the knowledge they will post on the
day and the exact time you select.

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Another key feature of using Hootsuite for Twitter is link‐shortening. This is important
as many web links will take up almost the entire 140 character limit. The Hootsuite link‐
shortening tool allows you to add a web‐link to your Tweet in about 15 characters so
you have more space for your message.

During the Travel Blog Project we started off scheduling one Tweet per day. This is
clearly the absolute minimum. Better would be to set up at least two Tweets per day
with one set to post in the morning and one in the afternoon. However if you're going to
work it, posting about five to ten tweets throughout the day is ideal. If you post many
more than ten Tweets a day, you become a spammer.

Techniques to increase your Twitter followers

Follow others – The number one way to build followers on Twitter is to follow other
people. Most people will generally follow you back if you follow them. The additional
benefit of being proactive is that you can craft the audience for your Tweets. This is a
much better strategy than sitting back waiting for marketers to seek you out.

You should keep the number of followers within 20% of the number of people you
follow. For example, if you follow 700 people and you have only 20 followers it doesn’t
look good. You will be mistaken for a spam site.

Hashtags – Twitter has a search function that uses the pound sign ( # ). Using the pound
sign in front of a word creates a searchable term in Twitter known as a hashtag. As you
create your posts, use hashtags to help get your Tweets noticed beyond your followers.
This works because other Twitter followers will follow certain terms that interest them.
A common use is to end your tweets with a appropriate hashtag. A few good hashtags
to use might be #Travel, #Cruises #Mexico, #Honeymoons or #Hawaii or whatever your
destination or niche. Here are a few hashtags you should be aware of that are applicable
to the travel industry. To see live examples simply do a Twitter search with the hashtag.

#MexMonday – Tweets about Mexico beach resorts on Mondays.

#TTOT (Twitter Talk on Travel) – Real‐time Tweeting all things travel on Tuesdays.

#Travel Tuesday and #TT – This is used for travel tweets posted on Tuesdays.

#TNI (Travelers Night In) – Every Thursday a Tweeting question and answer session and
frankly a lot of deals posting.

#FollowFriday and #FF – Friday posts of your follower's Twitter handles. It is generally
reciprocated and appropriate to reply with a thanks for the mention.

#CruiseChat – Discuss all things dealing with cruises on Tuesdays.

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One technique I have used with success is creating a tweet with the term by itself and
the term as a hashtag. For example Cruises and #Cruises in the same Tweet. This allows
search for both terms. However, the functionality of Twitter search is much less
effective without the hashtag.

Add Pictures to Tweets– You can add pictures to your Tweets. There is small camera
image to click that brings up a “browse” dialog box that will pull a picture from your
computer. These images are stored on Twitter and create a photo album for your
Twitter account. While images will post to your stream of Tweets using a third party
service like Hootsuite, they must be added directly from your login at www.Twitter.com
to be added to your stored image gallery.

Retweeting – Forwarding someone else’s Tweet to your followers. Let’s say you see a
cool Tweet from someone you follow and want to pass it on to your followers. Hootsuite
has a “Retweeting” function to make it easy. If this person has lot's of followers and they
thank you for the mention then all their community will be exposed to your Twitter
handle. This is a gift and a great way to build your community of followers.

Tweeting Ideas
You work in a high profile and interesting industry that is always changing. You have a
lot of material to Tweet about. You can create Tweets about a travel experience, trade
news, destination news, new itineraries, a renovated hotel, a new cruise ship or
anything interesting about your travel niche. The morning trade journal newsletters in
your email give you plenty to tweet about. Crank the Tweets out. Don’t spend a whole
lot of time on any one Tweet. Each Tweet must be unique because you cannot post
exact Tweets because Twitter does not allow you to post the same Tweet multiple
times. Here are some examples of travel Tweets and then a weekly schedule.

• Why I like Waikiki: Great restaurants, awesome shopping, climbing Diamond Head,
Hanauma Bay snorkeling, Pearl Harbor, Waikiki Beach #Hawaii

• Why I like Cruises: Warm Caribbean islands, Great food, beautiful new ships, a
different place to see every day, On board Spa #Cruises

• My New Blog Post – weblink to your blog #Travel

Here are some examples of news related Tweets where you found a travel news item in
one of the trade journals or email newsletters:

• New Disney Aulani Resort on Oahu Hawaii to feature beautiful new Spa ‐‐ Weblink to
story. #Hawaii #Spa

• Princess Cruises exciting new Caribbean itinerary featuring a secret island ‐ Web‐link
to story #Cruises #Caribbean

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Here is an example of a weekly Tweeting schedule. This is just a sample schedule. Get
creative and post how and what you see fit for your application.

Monday ‐ Over the weekend or on Monday create a new webpage or blog post. The
content can be repurposed throughout the week and promoted on Twitter for web
traffic.

Example Monday Tweet: My New Blog Post – weblink #Travel

Tuesday ‐ Find an interesting story relevant to your travel niche in the morning e‐
newsletters. Create a tweet or two about it and include a link to the story. Make sure
you add the hashtags #TravelTuesday and #TT to the end of the Tweets.

Example Tuesday Tweet:

Ocean Resort Hawaii to be rebranded as Hyatt Place Waikiki ‐‐ Weblink #TravelTuesday

Wednesday Tweets – Have you come across an interesting travel package or cruise
lately? Create a tweet or two about it for Wednesday. Use the hashtag tool to create
searchable Tweets around your niche. Sample hashtags might be: #Travel, #Cruises,
#Hawaii, #Mexico, #Honeymoons or whatever search stream you want to target.

Example Wednesday Tweet:

Caribbean Cruise Group focused on Caribbean Mountain Biking ‐‐ Weblink #Travel
#Cruises #MountainBiking

Thursday Retweets ‐ Set up a couple of Retweets. This is a method of promoting a

Twitter follower to your other followers. If this person takes notice and says thank you
via a tweet, then your Twitter handle is now sent to a bunch of people who don’t know
you but now may follow you. Naturally, the tweeters with more followers offer the
greatest opportunity to expose your Twitter handle to more people.

Follow Friday – There is a Friday tradition in Twitter to create #FollowFriday tweets to

both promote your followers and get additional people following your account.
Everyone on Twitter faces the same issue of attracting as many quality followers as
possible.

Follow Friday provides an opportunity to increase your followers. On Fridays we create

Tweets that include #FollowFriday or #FF then list a few of your favorite tweeters. I
have included both #FollowFriday and #FF so these tweets will be found searching for
either term. Here are a couple examples:

Great Tweeps to Follow: @bonstravel @ShipsNTrips @MargieTravels @jgarciatravel

@JeniTravels @kimsaltertm #Follow Friday #FF

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#Follow Friday @adventuregirl @cruisepro1 @Dreamsofjamaica @travellivelaugh
@MyVacationLady @seaquesttravel @JourneysBySteve #FF

Cool #Follow Friday Tweeps: @JohnnyJet @ShipTripzTravel @Yourvegasway

@FergysTravel @TylandTravel @ItalyTravel @justhoneymoons #FF

What you have done is use your followers to gain access to more followers. If one of
these people says thank you for the #FF via a tweet, it is sent to everyone who follows
them exposing these new “Tweeps” to YOU. This is why it is customary to tweet a
"thanks" to whoever mentions you in a Tweet. Reciprocating Tweets is common and
expected. If you don't engage and reciprocate, people will no longer work with you.

As with everything, there is a strategy. What would happen if our friend @AdventureGirl
tweets a thanks back to you? That’s right it goes to all 1.5 million of her followers. You
get instant exposure. It is not easy to get a marketing machine like Adventure Girl to
notice you (How many men have said that?) but there are many Tweeps that have
three, four or five thousand followers that may notice and say thanks.

Twitter Lists – You can create lists of your favorite Tweeters. Promote your list by
tweeting about it including the individual Twitter handles of your list members. If they
thank you back, your Twitter handle is exposed to all of their followers. If you stay
dedicated to your posting you may have the honor of being listed on another Tweeter’s
list. If so, you can create Tweets thanking them for including you in their lists. Again, if
they thank you back they expose your Twitter handle to all of their followers.

The lessons learned to make Twitter work for you.

1) Use www.Hootsuite.com to schedule your tweets in advance for time management.

2) Be engaged by scheduling between four to ten Tweets a day.

3) Stay on topic. You are branding yourself as a travel expert. Create Tweets only about
your travel niche.

4) Follow other people. It's a numbers game. If someone follows you, follow them back.
That’s the price you pay for followers.

5) Comment on and Retweet your followers Tweets on a regular basis.

6) Use Hashtags (#) to enable the Twitter search function to index your Tweets to a
larger audience

7) Try to keep your Tweets around 130 characters so others can Retweet your messages
with enough room to add their Twitter handle.

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Chapter 8
Press Releases
In the past, sending out a press release was quite expensive. Today, you can craft and
send out your own releases at no cost via one of the many FREE press release sites.
Sending out a press release is an opportunity to tell your message to the press. If a
reporter or press‐blogger picks up your story it can be a huge source of web traffic and
buzz. There are three (3) critical areas for a press release to be successful.

1) Position your message so that you are promoting something special. You cannot
market the “common” in a press release. Put a twist on your message like once in a
lifetime, limited time offer, special itinerary, escorted by a celebrity, special theme
group, new, last time or any other way to position this as a unique travel experience.
The more unique you position your travel experience, the more exciting and
newsworthy it is.

2) Press releases are found by reporters using an online search function. Use your
targeted keyword phrases in your press release title and repeated within the body to
help it be found in search.

3) You must follow the press release format. Press releases are crafted in a certain
format that you should follow. The format is really pretty simple:

• The top of your release should be ALL CAPS and underlined:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
• The next line is the title of your release and should be one‐line and ALL CAPS.
• The line below that should be in italics and add some detail about the release.
• Separate your header and body copy with two break‐lines.
• At the end of your press release should be three # # # (pound signs).
• The footer should be about you, your travel practice and contact information.
• It should all fit on one page.

Here are a few sites I have used to submit FREE press releases.

1) www.TravPR.com
2) www.Free‐Press‐Release.com
3) www.i‐NewsWire.com
4) www.PressReleaseCirculation.com
5) Here is a site with 50 more free press release sites! ‐‐ www.Avangate.com

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Example of a press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

THE TRAVEL BLOG PROJECT IS NOW LIVE!

100 TRAVEL AGENTS BLOGGING & SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING FOR 100 DAYS

The Travel Blog Project is now live and looking for 100 or more travel agents to participate in a
100 day blogging and social media marketing effort. Agents that participate in the Travel Blog
Project will brand themselves online as travel experts in their niche through blogging, social
media posting, email campaigns and search engine optimization of their websites.

Each weekday participating agents will receive "The Daily Post" which will provide the theme of
the day to create four or five sentences around and then post on their Blog, Facebook or
Twitter. We will individually and collectively develop travel agent best practices to generate
sales using the Internet and social media. Success will be measured by number of leads, new
email addresses and web traffic to the agent’s blog and website.

George Oberle, founder of the Travel Blog Project stated “The travel agent industry is once again
at a turning point. Suppliers are questioning the power of travel agents to adapt to new online
marketing channels in the effort to generate sales. Yet, travel agents have an incredible
opportunity to sell ‘better travel’ simply by telling their story consistently through posting on
their blogs, social media sites and sending bi‐monthly email campaigns.”

Many travel agents are either unsure how to get started branding themselves online or lack the
discipline or creativity to post on a regular basis. The Travel Blog Project will provide the
structure, consistency, posting ideas and themes to help travel agents become better online
marketers.

Oberle further said “Travel Agents are not insignificant! They are the most powerful marketing
force in travel. Yet, the game has changed and agents know it. Marketing travel is now a multi‐
channel online effort including blogging, social media posting, websites and email. The key to
building a thriving travel practice is communicating the unique value YOU provide on a
consistent basis to as many people as you can by methodically increasing your online footprint.”

Participation in the Travel Agent Blog Project is FREE! Travel Agents must have or be willing to
create a Blog, Facebook business fan page, Twitter account and spend at least 15 minutes per
day posting to them. To sign up for the Travel Blog Project, visit www.TravelBlogProject.com

###

About The Travel Blog Project:

The Travel Blog Project will be a collaborative 100 day marketing effort to help travel agents
individually and the participants collectively, develop best practices generating sales using the
Internet. We will share knowledge and learning among ourselves in the Blog Project Knowledge
Bank created on the website. We will all benefit from each others’ experience. While no one can
guarantee you will make money, we do think agents will become better online marketers as a
result of participating.

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Chapter 9
SWOT Analysis
Beginning with day 31 (week 7) of the Travel Blog Project we began a four week self‐
analysis to find our Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. This is known as
a SWOT analysis. We blogged about these categories one at a time for four weeks to
help us understand where we stand, the threats upon us and the value we add for our
clients. With so much doom and gloom in the news and especially the trade news about
travel agents, it’s easy to forget the value we bring to the vacation planning process. In
conducting an honest SWOT analysis we would find ways to capitalize on our strengths
and turn adversity and weakness into positives.

Strengths

Most industry experts tell you that you should charge clients a fee for your service,
however many agents are hesitant. I believe that if travel agents are going to feel
comfortable charging for their service they must fully recognize the value they add for
clients. Value may come in many different forms. It may be knowledge, opinion, advice,
convenience, sources, contacts, price or whatever else YOU can provide that others
cannot.

Your strength is found in the value you bring to your clients. The value you provide may
be either tangible or intangible. Being able to secure space in sold out conditions,
securing upgrades or having access to better prices are examples of tangible value.
While these are clearly significant, intangible value can be just as important. Your inside
knowledge may allow you to create custom itineraries, book more convenient hotels or
recommend things to do that will enhance their vacation experience and provide
greater client satisfaction. In the tangible and intangible examples above there is no
debate they are both clearly valuable to your clients. These are strengths you bring to
the table and why you can fully justify charging a fee for your knowledge, experience
and connections.

Each time you seek out training in your travel niche you increase the value you provide
your clients. Each time you travel to your niche destination you gain inside knowledge
which is a benefit to the clients you book. When you select a preferred vendor you have
done so because from your experience the product they provide is better for your
clients. These are strengths.

Do you advise clients your favorite places to shop, which beaches to visit, great
restaurants and fun things to do? Do you provide your clients with a personalize
itinerary and resource guide they can use once they arrive at their destination? A
destination guide written by YOU with inside information, key contacts, advice and your
opinion about things to do can be a deal maker and a great tool to help brand YOU as an
expert.

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Each of you bring “strengths” to the vacation booking process. For example, one of
the participants emailed me saying she wasn’t sure what strength she brought because
she was a relatively new travel agent. Then she went on to say she got into the travel
business because their family had traveled to the Orlando, Florida amusement parks
over 20 times. Clearly, her inside knowledge of the destination and the amusement
parks was a definite strength she could capitalize on to build a travel practice. Use your
knowledge, experience, advice and opinion as strengths to build your brand on.

Creating a post about your strengths:

Candidly, writing and publishing a blog post blowing your own horn is difficult. However,
consider it more like a professional resume in paragraph format to make it easier. As
you answer the questions, it is extremely important that you only write two paragraphs
maximum. If you write more, the value you provide will be diluted. Refine your thoughts
so you drill‐down the value you provide to a clear and concise message.

Paragraph 1:

1. How long have you been a ________ specialist?

(I have been a Hawaii vacation specialist for five years. I decided to…)

2. Do you have industry certifications?

If not, move on to question #3.

3. What training have you completed specific to your travel niche?

This may be ongoing training such as seminars, in‐house vendor training, visitor’s bureau
training, consortium training courses or any other professional training that provided
knowledge to make you a better travel specialist.

4. How many times have you traveled to your preferred destination or taken a cruise?

Paragraph 2:

5. Do you have the support of industry contacts or special sources to help with client
bookings? How do they help your clients?

6. In your opinion what are the most important benefits you provide clients who book
with you?

Close with some form of an invitation to contact you:

If you are considering traveling to __________, please feel free to send me an email or
call me so we can discuss your vacation plans in detail.

Agent Name
[email protected]
(Your Travel Niche) Specialist

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Weaknesses

We examined weaknesses and turned them into a positive. Agents were encouraged to
be honest and truly assess their weaknesses. No holds barred. The issue isn’t your
weakness, but the action taken to turn it into a positive. To address weaknesses, we
created a blog post about a positive improvement made to increase the quality of the
service the agent provides. Below are some weaknesses and ideas how to turn a
negative into a positive outcome.

Weakness: Lack of critical knowledge about your existing clients

Dilemma: No system in place to maintain a client database.

Possible Solution: How can you provide concierge level service if you lack a system of
keeping track of clients? Find or develop a customer relationship management (CRM)
program. It could be as simple as setting up an Excel spreadsheet, as inexpensive as
purchasing Sage ACT Software from your local office supply store or as complex as
TRAMS, Client Base or Salesforce. These computer programs help you keep track of your
client’s important information. Knowing details like how old their children are,
anniversary date, prior trips and future travel desires is old school sales technique.
Nothing new here, but having it computer accessible and manageable is cutting edge.
This information allows you to provide the high level personalized service that will make
your clients feel important to you.

Positive Posting Idea: Post about how your way of doing business is to provide
concierge level service. You provide personalized service by getting to know your clients
so you can design custom travel experiences just for them. You make people feel like
they are your most important client. You know about them, where they are in life, what
trips they want to take and the style they like to travel. Armed with this information you
can keep them advised of trips and specials that may interest them. You are able to
custom design your marketing efforts because you take the time to get to know your
clients. You can makes these boasts online because you are now using a customer
relationship management program to help keep track of your clients.

Weakness: Keeping your name and business in front of your clients.

Dilemma: You do not have a consistent marketing program to keep your name in front
of your clients.

Possible Solution: Develop a list of client email addresses and send out a monthly email
newsletter. Your blog posts provide great articles that you can quickly copy, paste and
adapt for your newsletter.

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Positive posting idea: Create a bit of anticipation. Post your excitement about
launching an email newsletter to keep clients informed of your great travel experiences.
Detail the type of information you intend to include. Remember the "so what" test! So
what’s in it for me? So what’s the big deal? Make sure you address the “so what” as you
create your posts and newsletter. Your clients are ONLY interested in what's in it for
them. They really won't care about your newsletter unless the information brings them
value in the form of inside knowledge or best deals.

Weakness: Knowledge of your travel niche

Dilemma: Let's say this niche is new to you and your inside knowledge is not quite as
extensive as you would like.

Solution: Contact your preferred vendor's sales department to see if they offer any
training programs. Attend vendor seminars. Look up the visitor bureau's website for
agent training programs. Consider taking Travel Institute training to become a
Destination Specialist. If you are a cruise specialist visit the CLIA website to enroll in a
class to become a Master Cruise Counselor.

Positive posting idea: This one is easy. Create a post about how proud you are of
achieving your professional training certifications. Discuss some of the interesting
information you discovered from your training. Discussing interesting statistics will help
establish you as an expert in your travel niche. You are a certified travel professional. Let
the world know!

Weakness: You have trouble closing sales

Dilemma: You speak with lots of people, pass out quotes and never hear back?

Solution 1: Be honest with yourself and try to understand why. Is price the factor? If you
are locked into your preferred vendor that doesn’t offer the lowest price, then develop
a sales strategy with more emphasis on selling the travel experience. There are probably
major differences in the quality of the experience your preferred vendor provides that
your customers are simply not aware. Develop a strategy of differentiating average trips
from the custom and deluxe travel experiences you are providing.

Solution 2: Develop a destination guide that can be used as a resource for your clients.
Use this destination guide as a carrot to dangle if your clients book with you. You will
have written the guide on your computer so it will be easy to personalize it special for
each client. Your guide might include destination information, typical weather, key
contacts like local medical facilities and the local U.S. embassy. What to wear, how to
get around, your recommended optional tours, things to do, list of popular restaurants,
best beaches and any other tips or inside information you can provide.

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Positive posting idea: Create some energy about your new destination guide. Maybe
detail the table of contents along with a brief sentence to let people know what type of
information they will find. Make sure you let people know that your clients all receive
this destination guide when they book with you. Additionally, this will help validate your
expertise and position in the marketplace as a travel expert.

Weakness: Website does not have enough traffic

Dilemma: Your website has duplicate content and is not being found on the search
engines. Another possibility might be that the site is not search engine friendly.

Duplicate Content Solution: Template sites from the major host agencies and
consortiums are loaded with the same content as provided to the hundreds of other
affiliated travel agent’s websites. The search engines will not include pages with
duplicate content in the search returns. However, most of the template sites have a
mechanism to add your own custom pages. You should consider loading the blog posts
you created about the hotel and cruise ship critiques. These are perfect to load onto
your website because they are unique. You wrote them. You also crafted them around
your targeted keyword phrases so they have a good chance of placing on the search
engines.

Your website is not Search Engine Friendly Solution: The most important item on a web
page with regards to search engines is the title tag. Each of your web pages must have a
unique title tag loaded with your page’s targeted keyword phrase. This targeted
keyword phrase must be repeated four to five times in the body copy of the page. Use
Anchor‐text links loaded with a keyword phrase in the copy on one page to back‐link to
other web page on your site creating your own little mini‐web. In‐site links should
always be coded as absolute links ( http://www.mysite.com/mypage.html ). These three
things should help give your site greater visibility in the search engine return listings.

Positive Posting Idea: Post about all the new content you have on your website. Let
people know you created new modules packed with destination information and hotel
or cruise ship critiques. Create a post about each new page, one at a time. Tell people to
keep checking your website for updates.

Another really important benefit of creating blog posts that include links to pages on
your website is that you build the site’s search engine page rank with more incoming
links.

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Opportunities

We continued our SWOT Analysis by spending a week examining opportunities. I truly

believe social media offers small business owners a competitive advantage over their
corporate competition. Corporate social media staffs tend to fake it. They are quite
removed from the booking process. While YOU have first hand knowledge of the
destination or niche and a greater understanding of your client’s wants and needs. This
keen knowledge is the basis we will use to examine business opportunities.

Opportunity: Turn the ordinary into something special

There was an article by Richard Earls of Travel Research Online that caught my eye.
Earls was very pointed in his assessment of the current travel market:

“Everyone more or less does things the same way. As the markets become more
crowded, competition increases, prices are cut and margins fall. Costs go up. Soon, the
only differentiator is price. Well educated consumers no longer need the expertise that
distinguished the early markets.”

The cruise market is a prime example, but the same can be said of air and hotel
packages. “Instead of an attempt to ‘beat’ the competition at the price game, make the
competition irrelevant by creating a value for the market that is a leap out of the
ordinary. This is not mere "added value" – we are not discussing a small, incremental
value. We are looking for a leap radical enough to make your travel practice stand out in
the marketplace.”

The value proposition practically applied: Earls went of to speak about a 7‐night
Caribbean cruise as an example. He asked “How’s the market look right now for that 7‐
night cruise? Are you trying to ‘beat out’ any number of online discounters? Trying to
convince your clients that you are the expert in the field? Matching the rebates and the
discounts and the onboard credits everyone else is offering? Market to the conventional
market for this cruise and may the best travel agent win. How does that sound for a
good time? Is it any wonder so many travel agents are frustrated with ‘selling’ cruises?”

Earls goes on to say “look for a market other than the conventional one. So I’m going to
do some homework. I personally like to bike. I’m a mountain biker and a lot of my
friends like road racing. There are three or four clubs right here at home. I look at
Celebrity Cruise lines:

Celebrity Summit • 7 Night Southern Caribbean Cruise

Cruise Ports: San Juan, Puerto Rico, Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, Philipsburg, St.
Maarten, St. Johns, Antigua, Castries, St. Lucia, Bridgetown, Barbados, San Juan, Puerto
Rico

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I Google ‘Biking in Antigua’, ‘Biking in Puerto Rico’, ‘Biking in St. Lucia’, etc.
Hey, we might be onto something. What do I know about bikers? They love to bike in
new locations! They will travel across country to bike new terrain. Here is an
opportunity for them to bike in a string of new countries on a single trip, with all of the
amenities of a cruise thrown in to boot!

Naturally, there is some work to be done. I would need to contact various biking
companies in each locale, get references, learn about the terrain, the equipment
provided, etc. I would have to put together a program. My business plan calls for me to
achieve wholesale rates with the local bike outfitters.

My package is not a cruise; it’s a biking vacation using cruise transportation. The
elements I put together will not be easy to duplicate on a casual basis. My package will
be appropriately priced and highly profitable. I have re‐constructed the market.

Hey, look around. Where’s my competition? – There isn’t any, and I have a great big
blue ocean of bike clubs across the country to fish.

Here are some basic principles this example bears out:

• I created a new market – I didn’t market to conventional cruisers where everyone

else was. In fact, I went to bikers – people who would probably otherwise despise
cruising as "Not active enough."

• I have created new value – I’m appealing to the clients’ desire to bike in new
locations, new destinations in an economical manner. Yet, I’m putting an entirely new
“spin” on cruise economics. It’s now great, economical, transportation between exotic
biking destinations with nightlife and food thrown in to boot.

• I’ve eliminated some business costs (discounting and rebating).

• I’ve increase my profits by increasing value substantially over the mere cruise.

• I’ve eliminated competition. Try to find another company that even offers biking
cruises, has set up contacts in ports of call, who has vetted the outfitters and put
together the great plans I offer.

• Also note that this is not merely ‘niche marketing.’ I have created true differentiation,
not in the cruise product, but in the market to which I am appealing and in the value I
am offering. This is no small incremental value – it is a leap, a new offering in a new
market – cruise biking.

This same exercise can be accomplished time and again, not just with cruising but in
many areas of travel.” View the complete article by Richard Earls online:
Travel Research Online

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So you don’t like mountain biking or cruises? What about creating a “foodie travel
experience” in Hawaii with all the great fusion restaurants? A health and wellness trip to
one of the Caribbean islands? How about a line‐dancing experience to Nashville? Maybe
an art appreciation experience to Paris and Rome? Your creativity and imagination are
the only limiting factors.

Creating buzz as a Travel Evangelist

Earlier I wrote about being a travel evangelist. You don’t sell travel, you create buzz
around the extraordinary. This is your opportunity. Selling commodities is an end game
that no one wins. Selling unique travel experiences is where the real money is made.
Social media along with your website and blog are the perfect venues to communicate
your unique travel experiences. You get to tell the story. You can include pictures and
show how this travel experience is one of a kind. Seize the day, take advantage of the
opportunities. Don’t settle. Go for it.

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity
in every difficulty." – Sir Winston Churchill, British Statesman, 1874‐1965

Taking advantage of free marketing opportunities on the Internet

The main premise of the Travel Blog Project was to increase your online footprint as
wide as possible. This includes utilizing many more opportunities than just your blog,
website, Facebook and Twitter. The internet has leveled the playing field by providing
some awesome free marketing opportunities. Let's examine a few:

Post hotel reviews on travel review sites – Have you considered posting hotel reviews
on Trip Advisor? Each reviewer must complete a profile that is accessed from a link on
each review posted. Additionally, there is a link for people to send direct messages to
you through the Trip Advisor email system. In the "about me" area provide a brief
professional description of what you do and your business contact information.

I also run a resort review website called: www.ReviewResorts.com. I encourage travel

agents to post reviews. Take a look at this hotel review posted by Mindy
@MyVacationLady about the Grand Xcaret Resort in the Riviera Maya area of Mexico.
Notice that she immediately established herself as a professional travel agent and
provided a methodical assessment of the facilities. She paints a picture of the resort
condition and the experience along with her personal opinion. Mindy’s review ends with
her contact information and a soft‐sell asking for the business. After reading her review,
did you come away with the feeling that Mindy could do a pretty darn good job of
planning your vacation?

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Post Vacation Classifieds:
Classified ad sites provide another way to get your message out. Most classified sites
provide free ad posting. I know many of you are thinking “I hate selling price!” While
price is an important factor to get a person to take action, it really doesn't have to be
the focus. Take a look at this Vacation Classified posted by Sharon about the European
small group tours she puts together: European Small Group Tours. Feel free to post
your Vacation Classifieds on www.ReviewResorts.com/classified

Comment on Travel Forums – There are hundreds of travel forums where people
discuss vacations. Do a Google search for “cruise vacation forums” or “Hawaii travel
forums” and you will find quite a few sites to post comments. Commenting on travel
forums along with leaving your web link as a part of your signature is a great way
engage travelers, build inbound links and increase your online footprint. You cannot
hard‐sell on forums. Make sure you post intelligent comments. If you cross the line of
appropriateness you will know it clearly as some people can be pretty harsh. The Trip
Advisor Travel Forum is one of the most active on the web. For all you cruise agents take
a look at Cruise Critic Message Boards.

Create a YouTube Channel – Do you have a video camera which you use on fam trips
and vacations? If so, then create your own You Tube Channel to post your videos. Once
you post the video on YouTube, they provide the code to access the video on your blog,
Facebook page and other areas. For examples of YouTube videos travel agents have
posted: Hawaii Travel Agent Specialist.

Threats

We continued with the final segment of our SWOT Analysis by examining threats to your
travel practice. Threats can be external such as heavy weight competition from the
Internet or commission cuts by suppliers. They may also be internal such as inefficient
business processes, a lack of staff or resources. However you can turn almost any threat
into one of your greatest strengths with the right strategy. Developing a business
strategy is like planning warfare. You intelligently plan to attack a weakness in order to
achieve the greatest gain. But how do you spot a weakness?

"Look at your enemy's strength to find their weakness"

Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian General & Warfare Strategist

Carl von Clausewitz changed modern war strategy by examining how opposite factors
interact. This is truly an age old concept. It has been articulated as the Ying and the
Yang, strong versus weak, the good and the bad, right and wrong and in business the
forces of competition. Business strategy is your tool to counteract an opposing
competitive force. With your business strategy as a roadmap for planning and
implementation you can successfully beat the competition. Will it be easy? No. It will
take thought, cunning, creativity and a lot of effort. Nothing worthwhile comes without
pain. So let’s look at a few threats.

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THREAT: Competing with Online Travel Portals

To illustrate the concept of looking at your enemy’s strength to find their weakness, let’s
consider the competition you face from the big online travel agents. We have all lost
business to them. However, their sheer size is also their weakness. They rely on
commodity type packages and their programming code to put air travel together with a
hotel. This programming strength also means they don’t offer personal assistance from
a specialist like YOU with your knowledge, experience, opinion and advice to create that
unique travel experience. Your market as a travel expert is planning a custom travel
experience for each individual client.

Just about every client who comes to you has researched the Internet to see what’s
available. Your advantage: The client has researched the Internet but still made contact
with YOU. This is your booking to loose because the client did not have a high enough
comfort level to input their credit card. Maybe the reason was that big OTA did not have
a true specialist who could give them the advice, knowledge and insight they were
searching for. The type of consultation you provide! How about if you were able to tell
this client that if they book with YOU they will receive a destination handbook you
wrote filled with your travel tips, advice, key local contacts, places to eat, things to do
and situations to be careful? It establishes you as a travel expert in your niche and builds
a level of confidence that will help close more sales.

Posting Opportunity:
Discuss the custom travel experiences you assemble for clients. Use a client case study
about how you solved an issue they had by creating a custom travel experience.
Mention how your travel experiences are custom designed as opposed to canned air
and hotel packages. Mention your destination handbook as a hook to get bookings.

THREAT: Commission Cuts & Rebating

Have you ever had a client tell you they found the same package for less? How would
you react if your main supplier cut your commission? If this happens, I recommend you
look at your competition’s strength to find their weakness and fill that niche. Your
suppliers are travel packagers with little specialization. Rebaters are order‐takers with
little insight, knowledge or advice. You need a USP (Unique Selling Position) to negate
their competition. Take the example we discussed when Richard Earls turned a
commodity 7‐day cruise into a Caribbean mountain biking experience. If you have
established yourself as a niche travel specialist, you would simply add the lost
commission to the price of your specialized trips.

Posting Opportunity: Create a promotional campaign about your custom travel

experiences. Make it a game to see how much you can change a commodity package
into a custom travel experience. Talk about the differences between the base package
and your custom travel experience. Break it down and discuss bits and pieces of your
packages in separate posts.

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THREAT: Efficiency

What about the internal threat of workflow issues in a small business? A small business
must run at high efficiency to provide great service. Issues such as inefficient processes
can kill your reputation quickly. How do you get back to your clients in a timely manner
and still run the business? The only way is to establish a set of processes that allow your
travel practice to run at maximum efficiency. Do you hire a student part‐time to input
client invoices? Do you purchase technology to streamline business processes?

The greatest impact you may make would be to simply allocate your time spent each
week or day to certain categories of the business. Dedicate an hour each morning
promoting your travel practice online by updating your blog, website or social media
sites. Spend five hours each day methodically booking travel. Then spend an hour of the
day calling back clients. The last hour of the day spent on client invoices. If you allocate
time slots for certain business processes you will become more efficient. Obviously you
must be available for clients and respond immediately to inquiries, so create a schedule
that works for your travel practice.

How do you keep track of client booking requests? Do you have a CRM package to keep
track of client requests? Maybe you can create or revise a simple word processing form
to more efficiently keep track of client requests.

It is much more efficient and more profitable book to existing clients than market for
new clients. Do you have a system to request client emails to build your list? If you have
no other means, simply keep an Excel spread sheet of your clients first name, last name,
email, address, trip destinations, last trip date and any other information you feel
important. You can use this to blast emails through an email sending service.

Maybe your business is already operating efficiently. You can also look at this situation
from the perspective of the strength being too much business that is overwhelming you.
The weakness may be that you failed to “cull” your client list eliminating less profitable
clients so you are getting bogged down with high maintenance customers.

Posting Opportunity:
Your efficient business processes will allow you to book more travel. Post about how
you are a top producing agent for your preferred vendors. If have won a vendor award,
call it award winning service! Post about how you get back to clients in a timely manner.
Post about your dedication to getting to know how your clients travel is a key to
providing exceptional service.

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Chapter 10
Putting it all Together
“The Action Plan”

You have let your creativity and entrepreneurial spirit flow. You have crafted a special
and unique travel experience to sell. You have worked hard at building your online
footprint. People follow you on Twitter. You have Facebook fans. You have built a fair
amount of web traffic to your sites and blogs. You may be wondering how do I put all
this together to sell travel?

The answer is an “Action Plan” to make all of the above work holistically to feed each
other and funnel web traffic to your main online property. The “Action Plan” is a multi‐
channel marketing effort that compliments and feeds each other. Your social media
presence, blog and website are not isolated outposts living and dying on their own
merit. They must be linked together as a multi‐channel marketing campaign, promoting
the same focused message while funneling web traffic to your main online asset which
is more than likely your website.

The Action Plan

A Multi‐Channel Marketing Effort

Monday: Create a blog post about your special travel or cruise experience.
Tuesday: Create a page on your website out of your blog post about this package.
Wednesday: Create a Twitter campaign. Update Your Facebook fan page.
Thursday: Send out a press release.
Friday: Send an e‐mail newsletter to past clients about this travel experience.

Here is an example of a focused, multi‐channel marketing plan below. Let's say you are
promoting a culinary cruise group. Here's how I would approach selling this cruise
group.

• Go to Google Keyword External to research and discover four or five keyword

phrases about culinary cruises or culinary travel to target for your marketing campaign.

• MONDAY: Create a blog post about this special culinary cruise experience. Make
sure your main targeted keyword phrase is in the post title and repeated at least three
times in the body copy. Write about what makes this culinary cruise such a special
experience. Remember to address the AIDA in the post title to get their attention and
their interest in the body copy. As you create your blog post, write to the persona you
created of your typical marketing target. Put your travel evangelist hat on and build
some excitement! Add a cool picture or two. Create a sense of urgency about this cruise.
Make people want to go!

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• TUESDAY: Create a landing page on your website about this culinary cruise
experience. You can use snippets of copy from your blog post for the web page and add
a couple pictures. This web landing page should have response mechanisms like a reply
form or email address and prominently displayed business phone number so people can
contact you. Make sure your main keyword phrase is included in the page title and
repeated in the body copy at least three or four times. Create a link on your home page
to this new landing page using your main targeted keyword phrase as the anchor text.

• WEDNESDAY: Create a series of Tweets on Twitter to promote this culinary cruise

experience. If you are lucky and someone Retweets one of your posts, you will get
exposure to an even larger audience. Create a few of the Tweets with an image
attached. Make the Tweets exciting and enticing. Make sure you include the web‐link to
the special landing page on your website for this culinary cruise experience.

• Update Facebook with a shortened version of your blog post along with some
pictures. Make sure you add a link to the special landing page on your website or blog
for this cruise group.

• THURSDAY: Create and send a press release about this special culinary cruise
experience you are promoting. You must position your message so that you are
promoting something special. You will get no publicity from the “common” (i.e. Low
price is about as common as it gets). You must position your special travel package as
once in a lifetime, limited time offer, special itinerary, escorted by a celebrity, special
theme group or any other way to position this as a unique travel experience. Remember
the example about taking a common 7‐day cruise and creating a Caribbean mountain
biking experience? The more you position your travel experience as unique, the more
exciting and newsworthy it is.

Use your targeted keyword phrases. Press releases are found by reporters using a
search function. Use your targeted keyword phrases in the press release title and
repeated within the body will help it be found.

• FRIDAY: Send an email newsletter to your clients using your Monday blog post as the
lead story. Make sure you add a link to the special landing page on your website for this
cruise group. Add a few other special offers and send this newsletter to your client email
list.

So let’s examine what we have done in one week’s time. You created one blog post and
re‐purposed it over and over in a modern, multi‐channel marketing campaign that
funneled all traffic to your main online asset which is your website. You did not spend a
dime of cash. Your only cost was time. Once you find the formula that works best for
your application you will be able to use it multiple times to create a nice revenue
stream.

Good luck.

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Chapter 11
Measurement
As we implement any marketing campaign we must ask ourselves if the effort was
worthwhile. Obviously, the bottom line is the sales generated. However, to find the true
answer to this question we must measure. The Travel Blog Project focused on multiple
platforms that each have unique types of measurements. Together they create a picture
of the size of your online footprint. Increasing your online footprint was one of the
primary goals of this project.

Have you ever looked at the web stats for your site? Almost all web hosts have a
comprehensive site stat package that provides in‐depth information. Better yet, Google
Analytics is a free program that allows you to have access to an incredible amount of
information and insight about your web traffic. When you sign up for Google Analytics
they provide you with a small snippet of code that you must put at the bottom of each
web page. Every time the page is displayed it sends back information to Google which
you can view from the dashboard. My recommendation is to sign up for the Google
Analytics program and install the snippet on all your web pages. It is free and provides
the most in‐depth web analytic information available.

For those of you who have your own blog domain and installed the Wordpress software,
you can download a Wordpress plugins for Google Analytics. Here is the link:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google‐analytics‐for‐wordpress/.

For those who created your blog free on www.wordpress.com or www.blogger.com

they each provide a stats package your can access for a bunch of information about the
performance of your blog.

Backlinks ‐ Let’s begin measuring your online footprint by examining the number of
other sites that link to your website and blog. Open a new browser and go to Google.
Now type in link: www.yourwebsite.com or link: www.yourblog.com to find all the
sites that link to, or mention your website. On the Google results page just below the
search box, you will find the number of sites that have a reference or link to your site.
You will probably be amazed at how many sites link to yours. While most are legitimate
sites, be careful as you page through the listings as there are spammer and virus sites
that load a bunch of links to get people to click. My recommendation is to simply peruse
the listings in Google and don’t click on any of the links.

Page Views ‐ Page views tell how many times each page is displayed. This stat will tell
you the popularity of each specific page. This is a very useful measurement that you will
find invaluable in your SEO efforts to rank each page higher.

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Bounce Rate ‐ The bounce rate is the number of people who land on your page and
do not click around to other pages. The bounce rate is found by dividing the number of
single page views by the total page views. The resulting decimal will be your bounce
rate. Web Analytic guru Avinash Kaushik describes bounce rate as “I came, I puked, I
left.” This pretty well sums it up. Don’t be surprised if your bounce rate hovers
somewhere around 65%. If your bounce rate is higher than this you may want to look at
your pages to determine what’s driving web surfers away. If your bounce rate is around
50% or less then you have done an excellent job at providing valuable content.

Time on site – Measuring the average time on your website per visitor indicates the
perceived value of your information. Anything above 1 minute is good.

Referring sites ‐ This will show other websites that provide web traffic to your site. The
number one referring site will probably be Google from search. However you may find
you are receiving a fair amount of traffic from another website or blog. Maybe you
posted on a blog and left your web‐link or maybe they commented about your site in a
blog post. Referring sites can be a very important source of web traffic. Inbound links
also have the added benefit of increasing your ranking with the search engines.

Keyword Phrases Sources ‐ These reports generally break down the keyword phrases by
search engine that someone searched with and clicked on your site. You will find that
different search engines provide web traffic for different sets of keyword phrases. This is
a clear measurement of your efforts to target a specific keyword phrases.

New Visitors vs. Repeat Visitors – Indicates the success of your web promotion efforts.

Hits – A useless stat that has no relevance.

Facebook ‐ The obvious measurement is how many “likes” you have. Did you have a
Facebook Fan page before you started the Travel Blog Project? If so divide the number
of likes you had when we started by the number you have now. This will give you the
growth percentage. Facebook also sends you a weekly update of how popular your site
is with the number of active users, likes and visits. You can see how many impressions
you have for each picture and update when you log in as the admin for your fan page.

Twitter – How many followers do you have? How many do you follow? Another
measurement is to craft a Tweet that has a link to one of the pages on your website and
then measure the number of page views it generates that day. My experience is about
20‐35 page views for every 1,000 followers.

Hootsuite ‐ Most of you are using Hootsuite to schedule posts. Did you know that
Hootsuite also provides analytics? In the gray vertical tab along the left of your browser,
you will see an icon of a bar graph to launch the Hootsuite analytics.

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Chapter 12
Quote of the Day
One of the most popular items on The Daily Post was the Quote of the Day. Each quote
was meant to compliment the meaning of the marketing concept of the day. The thing I
noticed is that these great leaders all carried a certain work ethic, determination and
believed in themselves. As you read through these quotes of these great men and
women see if you notice a trend.

Day 1:
"Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there's a good
chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction."
– Sam Walton, Founder of Wal‐Mart

Day 2:
"Strength lies in differences, not in similarities." – Stephen Covey, Motivational Speaker

Day 3:
"Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going."
– Jim Ryun, former U.S. Congressman

Day 4:
"Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have." –
Unknown Author

Day 5:
"It was a risk. But I don't look at risk the way other people do. When you're an
entrepreneur, you have to go in feeling like you're going to be successful."
– Lilian Vernon, Businesswoman

Day 6:
"If you're not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business."
– Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonalds

Day 7:
"Do something. Either lead; follow or get out of the way."
– Ted Turner, Founder of Turner Broadcasting Network TBS

Day 8:
"Taking smart risks can be very gratifying."– Reed Hastings, Founder & CEO of Netflix

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Day 9:
"You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best
develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are
the things around you helping you towards success? Or are they holding you back?"
– W. Clement Stone, Originator of the PMA (Positive Mental Attitude)

Day 10:
"Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose."
– Bill Gates, Founder of Microsoft

Day 11:
"It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others
waste."
– Henry Ford, Founder of Ford Motor Company

Day 12:
"You either do or you don't. You either will or you won't."
– Ron Washington, Manager of the Texas Rangers Baseball Club

Day 13:
"Anything is possible if you've got enough nerve."– J. K. Rowling, Author

Day 14:
"The most life destroying word of all is the word tomorrow."– Robert Kiyosaki, Author

Day 15:
"I have not failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work."– Thomas Edison

Day 16:
"Greatness is not achieved by never falling but by rising each time we fall." – Confucius

Day 17:
"Start small and dream big." – Rich Dad Robert Kiyosaki

Day 18:
"Sheer persistence is the difference between success and failure." – Donald Trump

Day 19:
"Be the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second
time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire.
This is your moment, own it." – Oprah Winfrey

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Day 20:
"Good enough never is. Set your standards so high that even the flaws are considered
excellent." – Debbi Fields, American Busineswoman

Day 21:
"A Travel Agent's unique selling position is using knowledge and experience to turn
information into insight in helping clients make smarter buying decisions."
– George Oberle, The Travel Blog Project

Day 22:
"The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an
opportunity." – Peter Drucker, Business Consultant and Author

Day 23:
"I've never felt like I was in the cookie business. I've always been in a good feeling
business. My job is to sell joy. My job is to sell happiness. My job is to sell an
experience."
– Debbi Fields, Entrepreneur

Day 24:
"Determine never to be idle. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always
doing."
– Thomas Jefferson

Day 25:
"Believe you can and you're halfway there."
– Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States

Day 26:
"You can have anything you want in life if you just help enough other people get what
they want." – Zig Ziglar, American author, salesperson and motivational speaker

Day 27:
"Always desire to learn something useful." – Sophocles, Greek Philosopher

Day 28:
"A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem."
– Albert Einstein

Day 29:
"He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which
rejects progress is the cemetery. "
– Harold Wilson, English Statesman, 1916‐1995

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Day 30:
"Things do not happen. Things are made to happen."
– John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States of America

Day 31:
"Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you."
– Henry Ward Beecher, American Author and Clergyman

Day 32:
"Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does."
– William James, American Philosopher, 1842 – 1910

Day 33:
"Don't be afraid to give up good to go for great." – John D. Rockefeller, American
Industrialist

Day 34:
"Change before you have to." – Jack Welch, Former CEO of General Electric Corporation

Day 35:
"When you are through changing, you are through!"
– Bruce Barton, American Author, 1886 – 1967

Day 36:
"A fool flatters himself, a wise man flatters the fool."
– Robert Bulwer‐Lytton, English Statesman, 1803 ‐ 1873

Day 37:
"Always continue the climb. It is possible for you to do whatever you choose, if you
first get to know who you are, and are willing to work with a power that is greater
than ourselves to do it."
– Ella Wheeler Wilcox, American Writer, 1850 ‐ 1919

Day 38:
"I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the
greatest."
– Muhammad Ali, Legendary Boxer and Philosophical Icon

Day 39:
"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a
single bit of talent left, and could say, I used everything you gave me."
– Erma Bombeck, American Journalist, 1927‐1996

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Day 40:
"What you do today can improve all your tomorrows."
– Ralph Marsten, Pro Football Player on the 1929 Boston Bulldogs

Day 41:
"Business is a combination of war and sport."– Andre Maurois, French Author, 1885‐
1967

Day 42:
"Be as smart as you can, but remember that it is always better to be wise than to be
smart."
– Alan Alda, American Actor

Day 43:
"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity
in every difficulty." – Sir Winston Churchill, British Statesman, 1874‐1965

Day 44:
"Hell, there are no rules here ‐ we're trying to accomplish something."
– Thomas A. Edison, American Inventor, 1847‐1931

Day 45:
"Be careful the environment you choose for it will shape you; be careful the friends
you choose for you will become like them." – W. Clement Stone, American
Businessman, 1902‐2002

Day 46:
"Look at your enemy's strength to find their weakness."
– Carl von Clausewitz, Prussian General & Warfare Strategist, 1780‐1831

Day 47:
"Either you run the day, or the day runs you." – Jim Rohn, American Businessman

Day 48:
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and
reflect." – Mark Twain, American Author, 1835‐1910

Day 49:
"If you don't drive your business, you will be driven out of business."
– B. C. Forbes, Scottish Journalist, 1880‐1954

Day 50:
"Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later."
– Og Mandino, American Author, 1923‐1996

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Day 51:
"I think they outworked us the entire game. They wanted it, they had the motivation
and it showed." – Mo Williams, NBA Basketball Player

Day 52:
"You don't value the house, until each brick is placed by you. So you don't value a
business, until it's made by you." – Saurav Kalra, Indian Artist

Day 53:
"A lot of people get impatient with the pace of change."
– James Levine, American Musician, Born 1943

Day 54:
"Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value."
– Albert Einstein, 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics, 1879‐1955

Day 55:
"Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline &
carrying it out." – Stephen Covey, American Author, Born 1932

Day 56:
"Action is the foundational key to all success." – Pablo Picaso, Spanish Artist, 1881‐
1973

Day 57:
"Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable
confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy." – Norman Vincent
Peale, American Clergyman, 1898‐1993

Day 58:
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It
was here first." – Mark Twain, American Author, 1835‐1910

Day 59:
"If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the
worn paths of accepted success." – John D. Rockefeller, American Businessman, 1839‐
1937

Day 60:
"You can never quit. Winners never quit, and quitters never win."
– Ted Turner, American Businessman, Born 1938

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Day 61:
"All things are difficult before they are easy."
– Thomas Fuller, English Clergyman, 1608‐1661

Day 62:
"A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old
dimensions."
– Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. ‐ Supreme Court Justice, 1841‐1935

Day 63:
"When marrying, ask yourself this question: Do you believe that you will be able to
converse well with this person into your old age? Everything else in marriage is
transitory."
– Friedrich Nietzsche, German Philosopher, 1844‐1900

Day 64:
"Wherever you are, be all there." – Jim Elliott, American Clergyman, 1927‐1956

Day 65:
"Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe."
– Votaire, French Writer & Philospher, 1694‐1778

Day 66:
"Ignorance is no excuse, it's the real thing." – Irene Peter, American Writer, Born 1938

Day 67:
"The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a man's
determination."
– Tommy Lasorda, Former Los Angeles Dodgers Manager

Day 68:
"Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world."
– Jean‐Luc Godard, French Filmmaker, Born 1930

Day 69:
"Experience enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again."
– Franklin P. Jones, American Journalist, 1908‐1980

Day 70:
"When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on."
– Thomas Jefferson, American President, 1743‐1826

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Day 71:
"Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not
understanding, understanding is not wisdom."
– Clifford Stoll, American Author, Born 1951

Day 72:
"A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams."
– John Barrymore ‐ American Actor, 1882‐1942

Day 73:
"Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well."
– Jack London, American Author, 1876‐1916

Day 74:
"Even if you fall on your face, you're still moving forward."
– Victor Kiam, American Businessman, 1926‐2001

Day 75: "Happy Easter!" – Posted on Good Friday

Day 76:
"Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair."
– Gilbert K. Chesterton, English Author, 1874‐1936

Day 77:
"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan.
And guess what they have planned for you? Not much." – Jim Rohn, Philosopher,
1930‐2010

Day 78:
"If you don't see yourself as a winner, then you cannot perform as a winner."
– Zig Ziglar, American Author and motivational speaker, Born 1926

Day 79:
"Success is dependent on effort." – Sophocles, Greek Playwright, 496‐406 BC

Day 80:
"Nothing is work unless you'd rather be doing something else."
– George Halas, American Football Coach, 1895‐1983

Day 81:
"A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing
within him the image of a cathedral." – Antoine de Saint‐Exupery, French Author, 1900‐
1944

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Day 82:
"Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest
stepping stones to success." – Dale Carnegie ‐ American Author & Motivational
Speaker, 1888‐1955

Day 83:
"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any
other."
– Abraham Lincoln, 16th American President, 1809‐1865

Day 84:
"The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success."
– Irving Berlin, American Musician, 1888‐1989

Day 85:
"Those who have succeeded at anything and don't mention luck are kidding
themselves."
– Larry King, American TV Host, Born 1933

Day 86:
"Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why."
– Bernard Baruch, American Businessman, 1870‐1965

Day 87:
"If you want to be loved, be lovable." – Ovid, Roman Poet, 43 BC ‐ 17 AD

Day 88:
"The wise musicians are those who play what they can master."
– Duke Ellington, American Musician & Composer, 1899‐1974

Day 89:
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without
accepting it."
– Aristotle, Greek Philosopher, 384‐322 BC

Day 90:
"Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other."
–Walter Elliot, Scottish Politician, 1888‐1958

Day 91:
"I have a simple philosophy: Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it
itches."
– Alice Roosevelt Longworth, American Author, 1884‐1980

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Day 92:
"A fool flatters himself, a wise man flatters the fool."
– Robert Bulwer‐Lytton ‐ English Statesman, 1803‐1873

Day 93:
"In motivating people, you've got to engage their minds and their hearts. I motivate
people, I hope, by example ‐ and perhaps by excitement, by having productive ideas to
make others feel involved." – Rupert Murdoch, American Publisher, Born 1931a

Day 94:
"Experience teaches only the teachable." – Aldous Huxley, English Author, 1894‐1963

Day 95:
"Who seeks, shall find." –Sophocles, Greek Philosopher, 496‐406 BC

Day 96:
"I tell people I'm too stupid to know what's impossible. I have ridiculously large
dreams, and half the time they come true." – Debi Thomas MD., American Olympic
Athlete, Born 1967

Day 97:
"A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have
thrown at them." – David Brinkley, American Journalist & Broadcaster, 1920‐2003

Day 98:
A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a someone contemplates it, bearing
within them the image of a cathedral." – Antoine de Saint‐Exupery, French Novelist,
1900‐1944

Day 99:
"A #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere."
– Joyce A. Myers, American Author, Born 1943

Day 100:
"My philosophy is that not only are you responsible for your life, but doing the best at
this moment puts you I the best place for the next moment." – Oprah Winfrey,
American Entertainer, Born 1954

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Conclusion
The goal from the very beginning was to cut through the smoke and mirrors so travel
agents could take control of their online marketing. I wanted to provide a step‐by‐step
knowledge base about the free online marketing opportunities that travel agents could
use to build their travel practice. I also wanted show a practical application of how to
create a multi‐channel online marketing campaign without spending one dollar.

Over the course of the project you were exposed to concepts, techniques and
opportunities that you can use to develop future marketing campaigns. You will be
amazed how far you will be able to take this web knowledge along with your
entrepreneurial creativity. I hope you continue to take advantage of the free web
marketing opportunities available and increase your online footprint as wide as possible.

If travel agents take advantage of the online marketing opportunities available, then I
repeat my opening statement: “Travel agents are the powerful force in travel
marketing.”

Enjoy the Journey,

George

Closing comments from participants:

From Lenneice at 3 Ways Travel:

“Thank you, Thank you, and Thank you. Before The Travel Blog Project I knew absolutely
knowing about Tweeting and Blogging. Now I have over 500 followers with 4 to 7 followers
joining me everyday and I in turn follow back. And I'm committed to blogging at lease once to
twice a week. I'm learning to use my travels as a medium for marketing my business and this
project has opened avenues and created friendships and relationships I did not know was
possible. So again I say ‐ Thank you and I hope every Travel Agent takes advantage of this
project. We all can learn something no matter how long we've been in the business. It's been a
pleasure.”

From Scooter at Tasteful Journeys:

“George, I want to add to the many accolades that I am sure you have received for your expert
leadership on the Travel Blog Project. It's proved to be a road map, an insiders guide, and step‐
by‐step marketing plan for branding travel specialists in their travel niche. The Daily Post emails
kept participants focused on the importance of clearing the decks to find time each day for
marketing by using a blog to build an effective internet presence. There could be no whining that
I don't know how to do that, because we were given specific instructions for optimizing our blogs
with keyword research, linking to social media, getting people to comment, linking to other
blogs, use of imagery and/or videos, press releases and more. Powerful "Aha" moments came
when we were asked to identify our client personas ‐ these customers get great results from
working with us, will tell others about us, and future clients will want the same things our past
clients raved about. We want to have a reputation as being able to provide a particular solution
for a particular type of client; when we do, we will be a client magnet. Many thanks for charting
a pathway to online marketing success.”

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From Julie at Reef & Rain Forest:
“The best thing I've learned from the Blog Project is repurposing. You can spend time writing one
good blog post and get miles and miles of marketing. Make it a press release, facebook post,
newsletter, website content etc. There have been many other gems, but that's my favorite.”

From Kerry at KJ Get‐a‐ways:

“This project has been great and really taught me a lot! I loved it all, even the projects I haven't
done yet. I plan to keep trying to increase my online footprint and this has given me tons of ideas
that I will be using even after this week. Thank you so much and Happy Travels! :)”

From Leila at LR Travel:

“This has been a wonderful experience. Even I haven't done all the days especially because I
started this project a month after it began. Ive been trying to keep the pace, and gladly I can say
I have learned a LOT! Please keep the website open for me to finish this race and proudly I can
say you've been one of many mentors. My blog is running (slowly, but in it's way) My fan page
on Facebook has been growing as my followers on twitter. Today I'm working with my first
Group Cruise to sail on November. Thank you for this opportunity has been a pleasure. And for
my coleagues reading, I will keep doing all suggestions, visiting your blogs, fan pages and
commenting supporting you the same way you have supported me.”

From: Kimbra at Jade Travel:

“After 26 years in the travel industry, this project was a wonderful way to gradually bring me
into the social media age. I am very computer literate, but didn't necessarily understand the
relevance and target for each element (TWITTER, FACEBOOK,LINKED IN, blogs...) Each of our
professional roles are different, so the exercise will leave a different imprint with us. I have
developed the elements that fit our company and I am grateful for the opportunity to participate
and to have a new network of travel agency neighbors! Many thanks.”

From Francine at Travel Harmony:

“It's been a good experience during a very busy time in our business. Have not had time to follow
and do everything but tried to save most of the posts. Learned a lot. Lots of new stuff to still
learn and try out. Hope you will keep the website up for us to return and revisit.”

From Greg at Your Cruise Your Way:

“Thanks for all the education, and the introduction to a bunch of fine travel industry
professionals who share my love of travel. Were never too old to learn.”

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