Ski Accommodation Finder - A case study in travel SEO from Netleadz

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Search Engine OptimisationIn Contexthttp//www
.ski-accommodation-finder.co.uk

• A Case Study
• Prepared by xxx
• http//www.netleadz.co.uk
• http//www.twitter.com/netleadz

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Overview

• Ski Accommodation Finder - online objectives
• Some key SEO Principles
• Your Online Competitors
• Keyword Research
• On-page Optimisation
• Site Development
• Site Architecture
• Site Content
• Site Errors
• Off-page Optimisation
• Inbound links
• Social Media

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SEO objectives

• Ski Accommodation Finder
• Make it the most relevant site for ski
  accommodation
• Maximise online visibility for the website
• Make it a recognisable online brand
• Generate significant long-term SEO advantage
  compared to its competitors
• Get more traffic, visitors, users and
  subscriptions

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Key SEO Principles

• SEO is not a stand-alone discipline. It affects
  all aspects of your business including content,
  development and marketing.
• What gets your site to the top
• On-page
• http//www.ski-accommodation-finder.co.uk
• Relevant, Original and Optimised Content
• Fresh Content
• Authority
• Off-page
• Inbound Links from ski accommodation related
  websites
• SEO is great content, site architecture and
  links.

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SEO Elements

• Research Analysis
• Competitors, Market and Niche
• Travel, ski, accommodation
• Keyword research
• What search terms to find, book, rent or let ski
  accommodation
• On-page Optimisation
• The website www.ski-accommodation-finder.co.uk
• Architecture, code, content, keywords, tags,
  cross-links, blog
• Off-page Optimisation
• Your popularity (inbound links)
• Get relevant websites to link to
  ski-accommodation-finder.co.uk

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Your online competitors

• Online search competitors are not necessary your
  direct competitors.
• You have more competitors than you might know
• Who are the competitors
• Direct competitors sites that offer the same
  services
• But also
• Informational (non-commercial) sites, interest
  groups, clubs and associations
• Domain squatters
• Lead generators (referrals, affiliate schemes,
  PPC, leads)
• News sites
• Real-time places, forums, blogs, social media
  sites etc..

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Keyword Research

• Which terms do you need to be found for?
• Research Analysis is critical
• What to look out for
• Searchers intent - browse or buy, informational
  or transactional?
• What best describes your products services?
• What synonyms?
• What do your competitors focus on?
• What is easier to optimise for?
• Which search terms convert?
• Budget, ROI, CPC, CPA etc.

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On-page Optimisation

• Your infrastructure and your website, affecting
  your rankings.
• You are in control of your own website
• On-page elements
• Site Development
• Site Architecture
• Content
• Relevancy
• Significance
• Dilution
• Duplication
• Site Errors
• Site Performance

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Site Development

• You must include SEO principles during site
  planning build
• Some key points
• Optimisation during build phase will save time
  money
• Usability and Findability dont have to be in
  conflict
• Choose consistent and relevant file/folder naming
  conventions
• E.g. ski/accommodation/hotels or
  ski-accommodation-france
• Optimise ALL parts of your website
• Folders, files (URLs alias), page specific copy,
  meta, tags, headers, links
• Use ski accommodation / ski travel long-tail
  keywords where you can
• Find ways to add content easily
• CMS, news feeds, article uploads, SEO pages,
  reviews, user generated content, social media
  integration, tweets, re-tweets etc.

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Site Architecture

• You are in control of your website architecture!
• Some key points
• IA is for users and Search Engines
• Crawlability and Indexation are both important to
  SEO success
• Keep relevant parts of your website open to
  spiders
• Use CSS positioning to define what Google sees
  first
• Link from your home page to your more important
  pages
• Flat site structures are better
• Deep pages have less power
• Links should work without Javascript CSS
• Site Speed is very important
• Keep Javascript, images, CSS etc in external files

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Content - General

• You are in control of your website content!
• Some key points
• Content needs to be highly relevant to
• Your services offered ski accommodation
• Your target audience ski travellers / ski
  accommodation providers
• Your industry, sector and niche ski travel
  market
• Original content only (dont publish other sites
  copy)
• If necessary re-write third party material
• Each page should be relevant to one target
  keyword
• Optimise URL, page title, meta description, Alt
  tags, H1, hx,
• Avoid content dilution dont just publish any
  old copy

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Content - Relevancy
Relevant
Less Relevant
accommodation
weather
chalet
Most Relevant Ski accommodation
Car hire
skiing
winter
ski
Airport transfers
BB
Ski resort
apartments
resort
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Keyword Significance
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Content Dilution

• You are in control of your website content!
• Some key points
• Increase of relevant pages to non-relevant
  pages
• Optimise pages where possible including FAQ,
  Help, Contact etc.
• http//www.ski-accommodation-finder.co.uk/FAQ-chea
  p-ski-holiday.php
• Avoid
• Too many general admin pages
• Too many system pages with no content
• Too many general news stories
• Consider PageRank sculpting
• Nofollow tags to system / admin pages
• Robots exclusions

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Duplicate Content

• You are in control of your website content!
• Some key points
• Duplicate content attracts ranking penalties
• More like a filter, not allowing your site to
  reach top rankings
• Google tells you what they consider duplicate /
  low quality
• Google webmaster duplicate title tags,
  duplicate descriptions
• Webpages not indexed in Google
• Google considers pages duplicate if titles and
  tags are the same
• Avoid same titles, descriptions for two different
  pages
• Ski Accommodation Ski Chalets Self Catering
  Ski Accommodation Ski Apartments Listing
• /accomodations/newuser.php
• /site/login.php

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Content Gap

• You are in control of your websites content!
• . but competition can be high in the ski travel
  market

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Site Errors

• You are in control of your website !
• Some key points
• Google penalises websites with too many crawl
  errors
• Google penalises slow partially inaccessible
  websites
• Google deletes unreachable pages from their index
• Rankings can drop by 100 positions within day
  one
• Your brand name will disappear from search
  results within a few days
• Google does not offer any support or explanation
• It is down to website owners to comply with
  Googles rules
• Naturally, Search Engines do not like to show
  pages with errors in their search results this
  is solely to shield their users!

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Site Performance
www.ski-accommodation-finder.co.uk
Site load speed should be in the blue zone (or as
fast as possible). However ranking penalties
depend on you how you compare to your
competitors not all websites. Google site speed
tool is not accurate either! Keep an eye on
speed slower sites will rank relatively less
well
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Off-page Optimisation

• All the elements outside your website, affecting
  your rankings.
• You are not in control of most of your inbound
  links and what effect they may have on your
  rankings.
• Some key points
• PPC you can control
• SEO you can only affect mainly because you
  cant control Google algorithm , neither all your
  inbound links
• You dont get banned for spam links otherwise
  your competitors could spam you

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Inbound Links - 1

• Link building is the most difficult part of SEO
• Some key points
• Inbound links still key to achieve high search
  engine rankings
• Volume, quality, relevancy, frequency, age etc.
• Link building needs to be organic and ideally
  synchronised with on-page content development to
  achieve best results
• Quality inbound links are hard to come by (for
  commercial sites)
• Most relevant sites are you competitors they
  are not going to link to you
• Link exchanges do not help SEO
• Link buying is penalised by Google
• Get quick inbound link building schemes dont
  work
• Google makes 400 algorithm changes per year you
  get caught eventually

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Inbound Links - 2

• Some more key points
• Typical link sources
• Articles, reviews, blog posts, directories,
  social media, forums etc.
• Always pick the low hanging fruits
• Suppliers, partners, sponsors, staff, friends,
  family will link to you naturally
• Quality links will get you referral traffic, not
  just link equity
• Ski resorts, ski travel, ski hire, budget
  flights, ski news
• Brand links are important
• Regular Web PR is a great way to get brand links
• Brand Link www.ski-accommodation-finder.co.uk
  no link text!!
• The better (more creative) the content, the more
  links you attract
• Think advice how to, top tips, best practice,
  ask the expert etc.
• http//www.ski-accommodation-finder.co.uk/cheap-sk
  i-deals-here-to-stay.php
• Think tools currency conversion, mortgage
  calculator, games
• Think downloads research, whitepapers, tools,
  guides

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Social Media

• Fast moving space but social media activity has
  already an effect on SEO Search Engines are
  still working out real-time search!
• Some key points
• Engaging, fresh blog still the best social media
  to start with
• Blog posts are shown in real-time search
• Social media posts are shown in real-time search
  results
• What is shown is keyword driven
• Social media takes time choose the ones that
  work for you
• What do you want to achieve?
• What topics will excite your target community?
• Google rewards sites which are
• liked (Facebook)
• re-tweeted.(Twitter) http//www.twitter.com/skiacc
  ommodatio

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Finally...

• In SEO everything is relative and nothing will
  ever be perfect
• Some key points
• SEO is long-term, on going and never really
  complete
• Best to do some SEO every day activity spikes
  are not good
• Everything you do is relative to your niche, not
  to all the websites on the Web
• Search Engines look at SEO metrics compared to
  similar ski travel sites
• You cant replicate exactly what your competitors
  do
• You will be for ever second best
• You will always be reactive to Search Engine
  changes
• Search Engines dont disclose their algorithms
• What is the ROI on SEO? What is the ROI on not
  optimising your site?

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The Results - everything
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The Results real-time
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The Results - blog
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The Results - everything
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Contact

• For further information or to discuss this
• document please contact
• Netleadz Web Business Incubation
• P 44 (0)20 7734 2385
• E contact_at_netleadz.co.uk
• W http//www.netleadz.co.uk
• T http//www.twitter.com/netleadz
• Case Study http//www.ski-accommodation-finder.co
  .uk