The eighthTop Tip: SEO / Search Engine Marketing states:-

“One of the best ways to grow your online presence is to track and retain visitors. Having a way to easily capture contact information from visitors to add them to your contact list is vital. Writing a regularly newsletter (2-4 times per month) to communicate directly with your clients/customers about recent news, events, and to stay in front of your audience helps with growth. Newsletter distribution with links back to your site can also lead directly to increased traffic from recipients.”

Lets elaborate.

You’ve spent a lot of time and money ensuring that your online presence is good and you are getting some decent traffic - now you need to ensure that people continue to come to your site.

Writing a regular newsletter about what you are doing and when you are doing is newsworthy to your customers. They want to know about the latest tour or the latest service offering. They want to know that you have recieved an award for excellent service from somewhere. They want to know how they can communicate with you in the future and they want to know what other products and services that may be interested in.

Your newsletter doesnt have to be long or have been written by a professional writer - but it does need to look and sound professional.

You dont have to be a big business to take advantage of this either - small one man bands can just as easily use this type of marketing effort quickly and cheaply if they have the inclination and the right tools. Done right - it will only take an hour or two of your time each month and over time can reap dividends.

Include photo’s if you have any, include links so they can get to the detailed information quickly and effortlessly.

Keep a log of all of the newsletters you have sent, post them on your website so that new customers can see previous informaiton and the search engines can pick up on “what you are saying”. Remember, the Internet is a conversation and you need to be in the conversation in order to maximise the benefit from it.

If you would like more information on how to get a newsletter off the ground for your business then contact me for more information or guidance on where to start.

Regards

Mike

The first Top Tip: SEO / Search Engine Marketing states:-

“Having a brilliant website does not always lead to traffic and conversion success. Search engine optimization (SEO) is a collection of techniques that help sites achieve strong search engine rankings through Google, Yahoo, and other search engines. The difference in traffic count from one site to another is multiplied tremendously by attaining first page position in common Google searches, and preferably a top 5 position. New research suggests nearly half of online consumers use search engine to search for products.”

Let me elaborate.

Search Engines only show ‘relevant‘ results for the text that the user entered. So if you have spent a lot of time and money getting a website built which has no ‘real world’ text on it then it is unlikely to be well presented in the results.  For Example:

If you offer coach tours in the lake district then make sure that all of the city / place names are somewhere in your site and that they sit well with the terms that people are most likely to search for. eg. Tours in the Lake District, Coach Tours around Windemere, Coach Tours around the beautiful lakes etc.. and make sure that those terms are used fairly liberally.

Also make sure the titles of the webpage reflects those terms - Don’t have the title on every page the same when they obviously try to convey different information. Make sure the titles are unique and relevant.

Then make sure your keywords on the page reflect the content.

Also make sure you have at least oone page for every search term you want to ensure a good listing for. This could be as little as one or two and grow over time.

Effort placed in doing this well will pay dividends in the future - and you are in the business for the long haul aren’t you?

If you would like more information on how to maximise your web ranking in the search engines - call us and we will be glad to provide you with more information / resources.

Regards

Mike

If you operator tours in the North American marketplace and are interested in featuring on this site then contact us as we are running and advertisement campaign starting next week and you will be able to take advantage of this for Free!

We will be launching a european version of this site in the next couple of weeks.

Regards

Mike

Ever read the Notices & Proceedings,  found it useful but then thought this could be so much better?

Well we will soon have a FREE tool available on our main website www.travel-manager.co.uk which will enable you to search on ANY  piece of data that we have inlcuding by area, by N & P issue number, by Operators License, by Company Name, by date range etc… and find out who is doing what and when

Who released a contract, who gained a contract, who has increased their O Licenses etc..

We have data for the whole of England, Scotland and Wales - so keep an eye out for it - it will be going live in the next week or two

As always - feedback appreciated.

Regards

Mike

We have commissioned an article on the Top 10 things to do to improve customer satisfaction in the Internet age.

Some of the salient points to note is that its important to ensure customer satisfaction is a priority in your organisation, to always communicate and to exceed expectations at all possible communication points.

We have developed a number of tools such as the online quoting widget and the customer feedback widget which improve your “touch point” experiences for both you and your customer. Take a look at them now and take advantage of whats available - its free with your subscription.

Regards

Mike

We know your interested in seeing what it looks like so here are a couple of screenshots

As always - click on the images to see a full screen version.

The tours can be searched on by numerous different search terms. ie. A user can search by date, location, type of tour (Day Trip, Weekend Break etc.) and by Price - so the site is easily accessible and allows you to get maximum exposure for your tours.

The Tour Details Page can include photographs and videos

You can also include tour highlights and a full itinerary of the tour.

The user can pre-book seats based on availability and the information pops straight into your TravelManager account. It couldnt be easier.

We already have a number of operators in the USA trialling the solution and look forward to driving sales to their tours very soon

Oh and we have some “really” interesting features turning up in a couple of weeks time - but I’ll keep you guessing as to what they might be

Regards

Mike

We will also start advertising your tours on your behalf through our aggregator site during July at no additional cost.

We anticipate that this site will be the largest online coach tours aggregator site by the end of the year - if you want to be one of the first operatorsto take advantage of this unique opportunity of free advertising and increase customer traffic from Google etc.. then we recommend that you enter your tour information into the tours module before 5th July.

Regards

Mike

However, we also believe in sharing - so from today we are opening up our software with a number of API’s that developers or businesses can use to enhance their use of TravelManager or to build their own functionality within TravelManager.

If you would like to utilise these API’s then please contact me Mike Sadler on 01452 417 567 or email me on mike@travel-manager.co.uk and I will be more than happy to help.

Regards

Mike

The widget opens up all sorts of possibilties for you to increase revenue.

You will be able to publish your complete tours list online from within your website and allow customers to see full tour details including but not limited to:-

• Tour itinary
• Tour photos
• Tour pricing and availability

You will be able to categorise your tours. eg. Day Trips, Weekend Breaks, Eurpoean Travel etc.. and choose whether you would like the tour published or not.

We will then be working on additional features such as allowing you to show tour feedback from previous customers etc..

Any operator taking advantage of this widget will also be listed in the independent site www.coachtourstoday.com for FREE which will be launched during July 2008.

If you are interested in taking advantage of the tours online widget then contact me Mike Sadler on 01452 417 567 to discuss further.

Regards

Mike

- You shouldnt just be looking to the local market for work. With the advent of the Internet your customers can be literally thousands of miles away.

[2] Capture more sales leads and leverage Direct Marketing tools

- Every time someone fills in the online quote form, TravelManager captures all of their details, so you can contact them again in the future. You can target specific information and packages are people who you know are interested in your services.

[3]  Increase customer satisfaction and service levels

- By using TravelManager, your showing that you care about quality and service. You are showing that you are with the times and you are showing that you are contactable.

- By using TravelManager, you also get real-time SMS alerts when a quote arrives so you can respond in real-time, offering industry leading service levels.

[4] Competitive Advantage

- There are over 20,000 operators in the UK alone.  Stand out from the crowd and be counted. Get a real competitive advantage by be one of the first in the industry using the latest technology.

[5]  Its inexpensive and easy to implement.

- From only £50 per month for the ability to take online quotes and ensure that you are at the top of the search engines you’ll soon be increase revenue and profits.

- TravelManager online quoting takes no more than 20mins to set up and start taking quotes online.

Regards

Mike