Untangle My Web

Avoiding a web design disaster

Adam Wallace (Host) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:13:00 GMT

We see a lot of website's, some great, others not so much. An enquiry came in just today asking for help with growing their business online. The first thing I did was take a quick look at their website to check they had plenty of relevant quality content which they did. However...

Untanglemyweb's Online Marketing education has moved....

Mel Phillips — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 01:36:00 GMT

For those of you that are frequent readers or workshop attendees you will know that last year we launched MyWebSchool.com our online learning hub. As part of this we have been working on creating tutorials and content addressing all aspects of Online Marketing focused on small to medium businesses and the tourism industry specifically.

While we have been doing this, our content and education elements have been ported over to this new site and as such our blogging focus has shifted as well. Rather than leaving you high and dry on the educational side we want to point you over to the MyWebSchool.com Blog. We will be posting new educational posts each week and along the way will be providing free DIY resources and special offers.

Make sure you keep an eye on MyWebSchool.com over the next few weeks as we will be releasing a new preliminary course to help small businesses assess their current online position. This course will help operators better plan and construct their online marketing strategy.

Join us on Facebook to keep up to date and receive the occasional behind the scenes update.

New website creations from UntangleMyWeb.com

Julia — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 01:11:00 GMT

We have been very busy at UntangleMyWeb.com between delivering our workshops and also going live with several new websites! Check out the portfolio for the details of the new ARTN, Straddie Sales and Rentals and Events Queensland websites.

Over the last three weeks we have released three new sites, they will all be added to the portfolio after Easter:

Women Chiefs of Enterprise International (Australia) which includes membership management, members networking, events listing and registration manager, blogging platform, custom newsletters and even a document exchange module just to name a few
Laparoscopic Urology Australia - Dr Charles Chabert's new site is an nice upgrade to the old site, it now includes a physicians resources library, live e-book, built in testimonials and features Dr Chabert's educational videos
Bright Pine Valley is one of our final deliveries of the Smart Tourism Website in its original form. Featuring all of the original functionality and the great scenes of the tourist park the site is a great adaptation of the product.

Our version 2 of MyWebSchool has also gone live including new interviews from Jim Brody (TripAdvisor) and Stephen Joyce (Rezgo) and a suite of new Facebook Tutorials.

UntangleMyWeb.com are about to embark on a round of Flood Relief workshops organised by Tourism Queensland, so while we have 5 days to rest for Easter, it's all hands on deck as soon as we walk back through the door!

There is no room for lazy Larry's at UntangleMyWeb.com... we look forward to bringing you the next workshops, websites and updates very soon!

Tips for you directly from the mouth of TripAdvisor

fabie (host) — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 04:00:00 GMT

The answers to your TripAdvisor questions!

I was lucky to be invited as a speaker at New Zealand's e-tourism conference last week. I was even more excited when I read that Jim Brody, TripAdvisor's very own Destination Marketing International Sales manager was going to be there and I would be able to hang out with him (and pick his brain to death).

Now, for those of you who have met me you would have experienced the enthusiasm I have for making sure you all reap the benefits of well-managed TripAdvisor reviews! Over the past 3 years I have personally trained over 3,000 of you in online marketing and in every workshop I have held there are always questions on how to best respond to TripAdvisor reviews.

Some of these questions are pretty straight forward to answer but a few required a little more research. Jim Brody was blissfully unaware when I boarded my plane for Auckland that I had a list of TripAdvisor questions with his name on it! These are the questions and his answers:

Question 1: Changing your TripAdvisor sub category

I have often been asked if it is possible to change your sub category (e.g. from Speciality Lodging into Hotel) and if so how to do it? Those who have tried will know that there isn't such functionality in your TripAdvisor management account.

However, it is indeed possible! The best way to do it is not to email TripAdvisor themselves but contact your regional or state tourism organisation's digital marketing department. They will be able to confirm to TripAdvisor that your request is genuine and the change will happen. How good is that?

Question 2: For tours and attractions

Here is another tricky one I have been asked over the past 2 years, especially by tour operators:
"I tried to list my business as an attraction but I got rejected because I am also promoting local accommodation providers on my website".
Has this happened to you? If so you would have been listed as a "resource" which doesn't allow you to get reviews. Well, good news on that front as well. TripAdvisor is now more relaxed with this and allows tours with accommodation pages to be listed as attractions and therefore benefit from reviews. Again contact your regional or state tourism organisation's digital marketing team and ask them to put your request forward to Jim and his team.

Question 3: How about the paid business listing?

Fabie: "Jim, what about your Paid option to allow your businesses to list their phone numbers, address and web address? How is that going?".
Jim: "Amazingly well, we have had an overwhelming success".

Now you can interpret that however you like, but this is what we have found.
There are a range of benefits such as:

Put your property one click or call away from 1,000s of potential guests searching your area

Add your contact information (phone, website address, and e-mail) to the top of your listing page

Create a special offer which will be seen on the first page of your local hotel search results and in e-mails to TripAdvisor members

We suggest you consider buying a business listing then using Google Analytics to determine the increased revenue the listing is generating for you business. There is no long-term commitment so you can pay monthly then after you have collected a few months worth of visits in Google Analytics reassess the impact on your bookings. It may seem costly but it can certainly prove beneficial and you can test its value by the goals you set in Google Analytics. If it adds more value than it costs, keep it. If not, scrap it!

Also, don't forget that inbound links from TripAdvisor are NoFollow! So while it is logical to think such a link would be incredibly beneficial, it actually won't help your search rankings! To find out more, check out TripAdvisor defends link policy on Business Listings, not search engine-friendly.

That's it for this TripAdvisor update. Do you think one of your friends in the business might benefit from it? Make sure you let them know about this blog post!

Have you got your pen strategy down pat?

I won't leave you though without reminding you that TripAdvisor reviews appear on your Google Places listing right at the top of Google.

Do you have a strategy in place to ask your clients to review you on TripAdvisor (what I call the Pen strategy) and is it proving to be a good income earner? If not contact me and our team at UntangleMyWeb.com will get it underway for you.

Trust us, we know what works and what doesn't! And we now know Jim ;-)
Until next time (look out for my next email, I have got a really big announcement to make)
- Fabie

Australian Payment Gateway Comparison

fabie (host) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 07:15:00 GMT

Here at UntangleMyWeb.com we are constantly being asked about what are the best, cheapest Payment gateway to use to transfer your online sales dollars into your bank account.

Is it Paypal, Eway or what are the other options? The first thing you need to realise is that you might not be comparing apples with apples as each gateway has a different way of calculating cost. It doesn't make it any easier does it?

For instance, PayPal charges a % and cost per transaction but doesn't require you to have an online merchant account with your bank
Eway on the other hand is a true "payment gateway" and needs to integrate with your bank online's merchant account.

In order to help small businesses in Australia make an educated decision in terms of choosing the right payment gateway for their business we have tried to come up with a precise yet concise chart. We have based our calculation on an average transaction of $400 and an average of 180 transactions per year. This would be a total of $72,000 dollars of online sales.

Comparison of fees and charges for Australian Payment Gatweways and PayPal

UntangleMyWeb.com to deliver online marketing training to over 700 QLD operators in 6 months!

Julia — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 04:51:00 GMT

The “Tourism Industry Online Marketing Education Project” delivered by UntangleMyWeb.com is an Australian Government funded Initiative under the Small Business Online (SBO) program. The project will offer online marketing training to home-based and small Queensland tourism businesses and give them the tools and knowledge to better their online presence.

Tourism marketing training in pictures!

fabie (host) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 01:19:00 GMT

18h of internet marketing training delivered to Central Queensland tourism operators

Over the past 4 days I have been lucky enough to have been hosted by Capricorn Coast tourism in Rockhampton, Emerald and on the Coast as well as by Gladstone tourism and Bundaberg tourism. I am glad to say that we have upskilled over 75 Central Queensland operators who are now all able to setup their businesses on Local Search and most importantly now know how to manage their TripAdvisor listing and encourage their past guests to leave them a review therefore helping promote the region!

I thought I would take a few pics of the training to share with those of you who haven't met us yet, in preparation for the huge training roadshow UntangleMyWeb.com will be devliering in QLD later this year and next year as part of the small business online grant project.

Fabie (note the sunnies) helping Capricorn Coast operators with their online action plan.

Showcasing the 4 personality types that assess your business through your website. Have you considered them when writing your content?

In Emerald, QLD we mostly focused on accommodation businesses

Here in Gladstone we had a mix of small tourism and local operators.

In RockhaMpton we had a strong focus on search engine optimisation. There were 3 web development businesses who attended.

Next week I will be delivering one presentation and 2 short workshops at the CRVA National Conference (Caravaning) in Brisbane. Might see you then?

Bad reviews and knowing what John had for breakfast creates tourism web marketing opportunities

fabie (host) — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 05:45:00 GMT

We are on the plane flying home from Samoa where Liz Ward and I attended the TIDES conference. 4 days, 40 degrees, 4 bottles of wine (each, just kidding) and 4 great ideas.

153 delegates from the South Pacific islands, Australia, NZ and a delegation from Germany came together to discuss investment and customer engagement opportunities for the South Pacific Region. Of course web was part of every conversation so Liz and I had plenty to talk about.

Samoa as a tourism destination

Have you ever been to Samoa? Let's say that the Samoans are eager to welcome visitors to their country. At 2am we were welcomed at the airport by the local band and our more important colleagues were greeted by the CEO of the Samoan Tourism Authority when they arrived at 3am. Now that's a warm welcome.

The South Pacific is typical of a developing destination in that it offers unspoiled authentic experiences immersed in incredible natural beauty. The people are heavily reliant on growing tourism as a profitable and sustainable "industry" (correction - "network" according to Futurist guru Anna Pollock). They are faced with real challenges though as they need to grow their infrastructure, attract the right type of investment, develop collaborative marketing strategies and bridge the gap into the online market.

When we actually talked with the tourism operators attending the conference, we found that their questions and challenges around working with the web were very similar to their Australian product contemporaries.

Let's talk about TripAdvisor for instance. Liz and I were asked about the fake reviews that their competitors have left on their accommodation property's TripAdvisor listing. I get this question at every workshop in Australia and it has been topical in online press lately.

What to do if you believe your competitor has left you a bogus review about your product on TripAdvisor

Report it to TripAdvisor using the tool in the Owners section - but don't just do that as they have strict guidelines and removing the review isn't always possible
What you have to do is immediately take action: respond and ask your past 30 customers via email to leave a genuine positive review if they had a positive experience
What this will do is show your potential customers that you care about people's feedback and also importantly, push the negative review to the bottom of the page

The other question is about the engagement with Twitter. It is common to hear:

I don't have enough time
I am not a computer person
Twitter is full of superfluous banter and I don't care about what John in the UK had for breakfast this morning
I don't think I have anything interesting to say on Twitter

You can argue that all of the above are attributes of being active on Twitter but what Liz and I put across is that they are actually requirements to grow a tourism business in 2010.

Twitter is no different than the traditional "networking function" that operators attend once a month at their regional tourism organisation's event. They meet a lot of people they would rather not meet but out of all these hours of conversation arise opportunities to grow their business and find new customers. On Twitter the trick is to be economical with your time and try to cut through the noise.

Tourism success with Twitter

You can have a twitter account for the purpose of blogging interesting things about your business and destination but you can also play a less talkative more listening role on Twitter with the objective of picking up leads for your business and destination.
Here is an example of a missed opportunity while we were in Samoa

Meest is still waiting for a response to her tweet...

You don't have time NOT to engage in Twitter.

Here are some tips to get you started:

Search for your region/business on Twitter: http://search.twitter.com

Follow the interesting people actively tweeting about your destination

Watch, listen, watch, listen, watch, listen

Share an interesting fact e.g. a video of your guest having a great time playing with the dolphins at your place

If you want to learn more about social media for your tourism business business, start by downloading the Tourism Ekit or attend one of our online marketing workshops in Australia near you!

Tofa for now - Liz and Fabie

Australian Government gives $227,000 worth of funding towards online marketing initiatives for Queensland’s tourism operators

alexandra — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 01:39:00 GMT

On Tuesday January 19, 2009 the Minister for Small Business, Dr Craig Emerson announced $250,000 of the Australian Government funded Small Business Online Program will go towards educating Queensland’s tourism operators on how they can leverage their business through online marketing.

The Chief Executive from the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW), Ms Liz Ward said more than 90 per cent of the key players in Queensland’s tourism industry are small and medium enterprises that would benefit greatly from professional support in developing their online marketing strategy.

“With 95% of people using the Internet to plan and research their holidays in Australia it is crucial our tourism operators have the skills and capabilities to capture this online traffic and subsequent sales.

“Travellers have embraced the Internet at an accelerated speed in comparison to other industries and as a result if we’re to maintain and build on Queensland’s tourism 4.5% contribution to our gross state product (GSP) our tourism operators need to be maximising their online marketing potential,” Ms Ward said.

The Australian Government has provided online marketing specialists and co-contributors to the ATDW's Tourism E-Kit, UntangleMyWeb.com (Webbed Feet Pty Ltd) with the funding to develop and implement the Tourism Industry Online Marketing Education Project throughout Queensland, which will commence on February 1, 2010.

The project consists of 26 face-to-face training workshops throughout 13 of Queensland’s key tourism destinations followed by a structured online learning program so the training can be applied and extended to a greater number of operators.

The program will be completed by June 30, 2011.

UntangleMyWeb.com was appointed to develop and lead this project for their experience in having trained over 3,200 tourism operators Australia-wide via one-on-one training, workshops and video and knowledge based tutorials.

The Chief Executive Optimiser and head trainer from UntangleMyWeb.com, Ms Fabienne Rabbiosi said her vision for the Tourism Industry Online Marketing Education Project is to provide the tools and knowledge that will empower tourism businesses to effectively market their products and experiences online.

“To grow the economic impact of tourism in Australia I believe it is important to take a long-term approach of educating operators on how to reach more domestic and international travellers through implementing an effective web strategy,” Ms Rabbiosi said.

For further details on UntangleMyWeb.com and online marketing workshops coming up in your region visit http://www.untanglemyweb.com.

For further information, please contact:
UntangleMyWeb.com Public Relations
Julia Campbell: (07) 31037991 media@untanglemyweb.com

The 2010 online marketing resolutions every Australian tourism business should adopt

fabie (admin) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 04:08:00 GMT

8 Things Every Australian Tourism Businesses Should Do to Boost their Online Sales in 2010

1. Address each one of the 4 steps of the web traveller's journey

It has been established that the majority of any Australian tourism business' clients are coming from the web so spending more time and resources on your online marketing strategy totally makes sense. To give you a headstart make sure that you address these 4 crucial components of your web strategy:

The search process: ensure that your potential customers find you in search engines when entering the keywords they think describes what they are after (e.g. 4 star family-friendly serviced apartments near Caloundra)
The conversion process: ensure your website's copy is written in a friendly yet attention-grabbing manner that will lead your potential customer further down the sales funnel. You need to replicate on your website the excellent sales job that you have been doing on the phone with your customers ever since you have been in business
The purchase process: ensure it is dead easy for your customer to buy there an then. Have you got your phone number on every page (not in the smallest font possible but in nice big bold letters at the top). Have you got an online booking system or at least a contact form that you check 3 times a day? If you don't have any of these it would correspond to you not picking up the phone when it rings.
The social media factor: when the customer leaves your premises this is when you need to direct them to engage with you, your past and future clients and your allies using your online platform. Tell them where and how they can leave a review or post their photos!

2. Setup your local search listing (the little map that appears on top of the search results in Google)

It will take you 10 minutes and drive at least 25% more traffic to your website, each day. Do it, do it now!

3. Become a member of ATDW by contacting your state/territory's tourism organisations

I am not saying this because of my involvement with the Ekit (ATDW produced the tourism Ekit) but simply because I see the stats: tourism operators with an ATDW listing have far more visits to their websites than the ones who don't have an ATDW membership. More visits means more conversions. What are you waiting for?

4. Claim and take control of your TripAdvisor listing

5. Spend the $300 to have your phone number and web address added to your TripAdvisor listing

5. Subscribe to Google alert for "your business name" and "yourwebaddress.com" and address every negative review

6. Request each member of your front line staff to read and implement this 101 guide on how to grow your online reviews

Download it here, right now. Word of mouth has become word of mouth. TripAdvisor is a tourism business' golden nugget. Enough said.

7. Never (and I say never) sign a contract to have a website entirely developed using the Flash technology

Flash is invisible to search engines and you will have huge challenges to appear on search results. Search engine optimisation is crucial to any web strategy. 90% of your customers start their holiday research online. Don't buy a car with no wheels. You won't get very far. Check what search engines see when they read your website.

8. Check that your website loads properly in an iPhone or other mobile phone

That's it - your 8 tips to successfully grow your tourism business' online marketing profits in Australia in 2010. Much easier to implement than losing the extra kilos gained at xmas.

Now, where was that mango ice-cream?

You must be a web developers worst nightmare

fabie (admin) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 05:49:00 GMT

This is what I have been told, half-way through delivering an online marketing workshop to tourism operators in Airlie Beach, North Queensland, gateway to the magnificent islands of the Whitsundays... And I think she was right - well almost! Indeed, I must be a web developer's worst nightmare, but a LAZY web developer's worst nightmare. One day even one of those web developers rang me up telling me I was putting him out of business and he then went on by asking "what is that SEO stuff you are talking about". No Joke. And he we was still coding in Frames... in 2008.

Web developer qualifications

In our web industry there are very little qualifications required to call yourself a "web developer", "search engine optimiser" or any web professional. Actually you don't need any! And when you think that your accountant goes through 4 years of harsh learning and testing to become a CPA... If I Google for "web developer course" I get Seek.com.au listing:

a course where you will get your - I quote - "foot in the door by learning how to use Dreamweaver, ColdFusion and Flash". Dreamweaver?? Come on, unfortunately Dreamweaver isn't quite what will get you a job and when I did my IT degree we were told Flash was what would get us a job but that was over 10 years ago.
You can also select to do a Bachelor in Information Technologies but last time I checked they were also learning about Dreamweaver.

Your web developer, or web partner today should be a business advisor and not a skilled user of Dreamweaver. There is so much more to a web strategy than technology. Unfortunately as it is a relatively new discipline it has been difficult for the academia to catch up and small business owners are left with having to make an informed decision without being informed. This is why the team at UntangleMyWeb.com work hard to bring the tourism industry up to speed with what they should know to be able to make an informed decision. And they seem to like it so it is a win-win situation. by HeatherMG

Online marketing is common sense not tech central

Small tourism operators are generally positively overwhelmed when they realise that they don't need to be a geek to take their business online and the majority of it is just common sense. I love to watch the ah-ha moments when a small business owner realises that:

Search engine optimisation simply means following key rules to ensure their content gets picked up by search engines. These rules - which I often refer to as the grammar of the web - aren't that complicated to grasp when you replace a page title by the "chapter of a book", a H1 by the main heading of your Word document, when you explain that Google cannot read images therefore you need to give them a little description using an Alt attribute, and that by having your phone number on every page in nice big legible fonts preferably at the top is not going to break your design but make your phone ring more often.
Conversion optimisation is about ensuring your website talks to your customers just the way you would talk to them on the phone. Once a tourism operator understands that they get 40 odd visits a day whereas their phone only rings 8-9 times a day it becomes clearly evident to them that their website content needs to be as in depth as their own phone sales spiel!
Content management system: this one concept I never really need to sell as I am always told by about half of the room at the very beginning of the session that they are here to "understand how to update their content themselves without having to pay their web developer $140 dollars per hour". If you ever find it hard to explain the benefits of a CMS why not use my favourite comparison to a static website - it's similar to buying a new car and always having to rely on hiring a chauffeur to go anywhere.

Positive feedback from web developers in the tourism industry

Many proactive web developers attend our training sessions and they just love how we make their job easier and more enjoyable by educating small tourism operators on how to grow their website. They also love the tourism e-kit which they hand out to their clients. By the time clients contact a web developer they already know about SEO, Content, CMS etc and can really start to maximise their time with their web partner by going into the web strategy planning phase! So, seriously, do I sound like a web developer's worst nightmare or like a trainer with a passion for my industry? I would love to hear what do you think (read: bring it on...) What the team here really believe in is about providing education to small business that will help them understand how to gear their business towards online success. And - between you and I - have been told that our workshops have actually avoided a few web development nightmares from happening!

Hasta la vista

The missing link - Clever brand positioning starts with competitive keyword research

alexandra — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 06:08:00 GMT

We've noticed a key component missing from many web strategies we look at every day is effective online brand positioning. The missing link! It is a crucial part of any web strategy and should be the first thing you identify before you go online. This post will be talking about how to effectively take your brand position into the online world.

How do I transfer my brand position online?

Firstly, you need to assess whether your current off-line brand strategy can be transferred online. You may ask why would it be different? Often your online competitors are completely different to your off-line competitors. You should be positioning your brand using unique attributes that your competitors are yet to discover. This is what will differentiate you online.

How to identify your online brand position?

Conduct a thorough competitive analysis of your online environment. For example if you are Aussie Outback Tours you need to find out who your online competitors are and how you are going to compete.

To structure this analysis you need to identify your competitors for each of your top ranking keywords that you have optimised your website for. Using Aussie Outback Tours as our example this is where you would type your keywords into Google and analyse what businesses are appearing ahead of you in the search results.
Remember your online competitors may be different to your offline competitors. This means if Aussie Outback Tours are located in close physical proximity to Uluru Tours they are considered an offline competitor. Aussie Outback Tours need to assess whether Uluru Tours will be an online competitor. If Uluru Tours optimise their website for different keywords they will not appear in the same search results as Aussie Outback Tours and therefore are not a competitor in the online environment for Aussie Outback Tours.

Assess how well optimised each competitor's website is for each keyword to establish whether you will be able to compete on this keyword with these competitors. Aussie Outback Tours will then need to look at why their competitors are appearing ahead of them in search results for various keywords.

For example if Ayers Rock Tours is always appearing ahead of Aussie Outback Toursin search engine results for the keyword term 'bushwalking Australia', Aussie Outback Tours need to asses why this is and identify ways you get ahead of their competition.

But how do you assess a competitors SEO strength?

There are many ways to assess how optimised your competitor's website is. What we find works really well here at UntangleMyWeb.com is the SEO Book toolbar. It is straight to the point and easy to use. Download the SEO Toolbar from http://tools.seobook.com/seo-toolbar/ which is a plugin to the Firefox Browser. This toolbar will tell you:

Each competitor's number of inbound links
The age of their site
Their website's page rank

Important Note: The higher the number of relevant inbound links, the higher the PageRank and the older the website, the more value and relevancy search engines will assign to a website.

How to identify the right keywords?

Now comes the tricky part. You are not always able to compete on every keyword. This happens when the competition is too strong for a particular keyword or phrase. It is then a skill in itself to recognise when you can't compete and reassess your choice of keywords. Select a more niche keyword where you know it's within your capabilities to compete effectively and dominate your competition in search.

For example, if you enter one of your competitive keywords into Google and websites with 3,000 inbound links appear ahead of you because you currently only have 250 inbound links;you need to reassess your choice of keywords. You will not achieve a page one organic ranking for that keyword if your competitors have thousands more relevant inbound links. This strongly suggests their overall optimisation is better than yours. It is important to identify keywords that you can compete on to achieve page one organic listings. To do so you can use the Google AdWords keyword tool. It is free. Also make sure you check your Google Analytics keyword report if you have that set-up for your website and any AdWord campaign you may have been running. This information can fast track your keyword research.

Tip - If you don't have Google Analytics installed, drop everything and get onto it, it's free and fast to install!

Time for a GAP analysis

Once you have identified your keywords you can compete on and as a result compiled a list of competitors for each of your keywords (excel is your friend) look at what your competitors are not doing. This will tell you how you should position your brand to online searchers. Identify 2 qualities that your business has to offer consumers that your competitors don't. For example Aussie Outback Tours might choose to position themselves as providing a 'True outback experience' and as providing 'Educational Tours'. This may mean their accommodation is camping and swag style and they only have extremely experienced operators who are well versed in Australian history and culture. You want to position your business in the minds of your consumers as offering these 2 qualities. This is what differentiates you from competitors.

A visual map will help you

Plot your brand position on a perceptual map in comparison to your competitors. Do you want to position yourself in the minds of your consumers as providing quality products and services and as a company that values a strong sense of community? Or is your point of difference being 'green focused' and all your processes are refined to have minimal impact on the environment? Choose your points of difference and place them on the graph axes below, then place your competitors' based on the same qualities. Be sure to place your brand position on the perceptual map as currently what's being portrayed to your online customers; not where you would like to be. You will get a realistic visual snapshot of where you are, which will enable you to identify where you want to be and create website content that will get you there.

Next time you're stuck in traffic think about:

How do you want customers to perceive your business?
Have you got an established 'brand position',
Where would you place yourself on a perceptual map in relation to your competitors and
What attributes would you use to position yourself?
Is your current brand position going to differentiate you from your online competition?

It is important to have a strong understanding of your brand position as this is what shapes your website content. Your brand position will provide you with the tools to create website content that turns clicks into conversions.

One for the road

True or False? You don't know who your competitors are until you've done your keyword research. Stay tuned for the next step, which is how to write optimised copy that illustrates your brand position.

Cheers, Alexandra at UntangleMyWeb.com

Social media and online reviews for your tourism and destination management organisation

fabie (admin) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 07:31:00 GMT

I am on the delayed 7.30am from Brisbane to cosy Launceston, Tasmania to deliver an online marketing workshop to North Tasmanian tourism associations and organisations and I cannot wait. No, not only to get off the plane but to help passionate tourism stakeholders go one step further with their online strategies.

Twitter, Flickr, TripAdvisor? Where are you hiding?

Whilst the majority of tourism organisations have a "Visit us we say we are great" portal-like website, few of them have developed an interactive, user-enriched social media strategy. Could it be because they only want to push the "positive" about their region and user generated content risks revealing not only the good but also the "not so good"? Is giving control of their brand to their users against their policy? Most probably. My opinion on this is that if people cannot see or leave reviews next to the product they will go away and look for them. Wouldn't you? Thing is, they may not remember how to get back to your site and book! Wouldn't it be wiser to offer the user a one-stop shop experience and get the booking there and then? After all, social media is the number one activity that takes place on the web for a reason. So, if you were to implement a social media strategy for your tourism association and you were very time poor, where would you start? Where would you get the biggest bang for your buck? Read on...

What key aspects of social media should tourism organisations implement in their online strategies?

Those of you who know me are aware of my Italian passion for the web and that asking a short one-line question during a casual dinner generally throws me into a whiteboard-enhanced 5h hands-on training session. However, tomorrow I only have 1h to touch 50 destination managers so I will be brief and to the point and focus on 2 areas:

Online reputation management
Photo and video sharing (in the next blog post)

Online reputation management for tourism organisations

Out of the hundreds of tourism destination websites that I have gone through over the past fortnight none offered user generated reviews (or access to them). Let's not dwell on the reasons but focus on the solution. Knowing that 80% of consumers trust peer recommendations imagine how many visits to your site you could have converted into sales if they had a structured social media strategy in place. Don't look back but forward remember... The nice thing with the web is that it is sticky. Those positive reviews and testimonials about Launceston are sill there for you to get a hold of, sift through and leverage to socialise your online presence. Phew. Ok, ready? This is what you need to do to get started:

setup your Twitter account to hear what is being said about your destination (download Tweet Deck and set up a search). 80% of Twitter usage is done via mobile devices.... imagine how quickly a bad experience could ruin one of your member's reputation. Setup time: 30 minutes
subscribe to search engine and blog RSS feeds to also know what is being said on your destination. Research time: 30 min, setup time 30 min (refer to the tourism ekit on how to setup RSS feeds)
subscribe to Google Alerts for your destination. Use keywords such as "Launceston", "Launceston Holiday", "Launceston travel", "Launceston reviews". Setup time 30 min (refer to the tourism ekit on how to setup Google Alerts)
get a hold of your web developer and add your organisation's Twitter feed to your website, not only will it add a touch of social media glam but most importantly it will give your readers a place to engage via your destination portal (they will know who to follow!) Setup time for your web developer 30 min to 1h.
set up your destination's page on TripAdvisor (www.tripadvisor.com/owners) - you will get notified on new actions on your page and new comments. This is a good guide which should help. Setup time: 1h

Total time for phase one setup: approx. 3.5 to 4 hours.

Yes, as you can see from the timing above it does take time and yes staff will need to be trained. But it is worth it. Social media is not a fad - it is the number one activity on the web.

Once that you know what is being said about your regions by past and future guests it is time to engage and inform. Don't sell your destination via social media though - imagine how annoying it would be to have a salesman forcing his product on you whilst you were having a nice casual conversation over dinner with friends at a restaurant. This is what selling via social media feels like. Instead of selling information and advise.

Next time on UntangleMyWeb.com's blog, Photo and Video sharing for tourism organisations!

South East Brisbane Chamber of Commerce - Online Marketing Workshop

fabie (admin) — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 06:46:00 GMT

You really realise it is winter in Brisbane when it is still dark at 6.30 am! I can’t complain though, thank god I don’t live in Norway…

Adam and I delivered a fast-paced 30min online marketing workshops to the members of the South East Brisbane Chamber of Commerce this morning… Thanks Penny, Jennifer and Heather for inviting us to present.

Link Building: What Tourism Operators should watch out for!

fabie (admin) — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 07:54:00 GMT

Good evening tourism world….

I was delivering a 6h online marketing workshop for tourism in the Scenic Rim near Brisbane today and we briefly touched on the importance of link building....

Graphics and web project manager in web company in Brisbane

fabie (admin) — Thu, 07 May 2009 23:24:00 GMT

We are after a web graphics professional who will not be employed to design websites.

What??? Yes that’s right, we would like to use your arty skills in a business sense. We want you to be a conductor: provide direction and guidance to our graphic designers and web developer on one side and to our clients on the other side

Equathon Horse Riding and tours on the Sunsine Coast

fabie (admin) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 04:36:00 GMT

When Alex from Equathon contacted us he told us he had to be live within 2 weeks with his new website as he was going on TV on March 7th!

We had 2 weeks to create a brand new website....

Video for your Tourism Website

fabie (admin) — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 04:56:00 GMT

What infuriates me in the online industry is that it is really easy for ill-intentioned businesses to take advantage of smaller businesses who don’t know what they don’t know.

Stay away from tourism rip-off sites....

Local search engine optimisation Australia

fabie (admin) — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 05:44:00 GMT

Optimising your tourism website for search engines is one thing, but optimising your website for local search needs a slightly different approach.

Where are local tourists coming from?

Using a Wiki to organise an event

fabie (admin) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 06:11:00 GMT

A wiki is the online version of a whiteboard. It will avoid you send emails left right and centre and will save about 10h of your time.

Imagine you are in a meeting with your colleagues, peers and managers. Can you see that whiteboard everyone scribbles on? Right. Now take this whiteboard online (set up a wiki), let your peers know what the address is and voila. Everyone is now able to remotely contribute, and changes are tracked....

Brisbane Web Developers Meetup

fabie (admin) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 06:19:00 GMT

Last night, the little geek in me decided to ditch the iMac and battle the elements (aka finding a parking spot in the city) to attend my first ever web developer Meetup......

Online booking systems for small tourism businesses

fabie (admin) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 06:30:00 GMT

A great piece of technology is defined by its ease of use… and how up-to-date the technology is with the needs of its target market.

Well, let me tell you, over the past 10 years I have seen many online booking systems for the tourism industry. From the simple online contact form that lands in the wrong mailbox, to the $20,000 “now obsolete” custom-built system.....

Writing new content for tourism websites

fabie (admin) — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 06:27:00 GMT

If you don’t already know this, please make a mental note and seek professional advice :

There is no point to have a website that is never updated
Updating a website doesn’t mean changing a couple of words or prices on a page....

Swiss Organiser

fabie (admin) — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 06:33:00 GMT

Some of you might know that UntangleMyWeb.com’s chief optimiser’s background is Swiss, Italian and Australia… The Swiss are, by definition, very organised.....

VIPhotographer.com

fabie (admin) — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 03:11:00 GMT

Virginia had built her website herself using Dreamweaver but we never got to see it as her hosting company was hacked and the website was redirecting to Russia!

At UntangleMyweb.com we ensure you are set up with a system that works and is sustainable.