How to use social media for travel SEO

Kevin Gibbons, Director of Strategy - twitter.com/kevgibbo Kevin Gibbons, Director of Strategy - @kevgibbo

“Social media is changing the face of travel”

Social Media vs Search – who to trust?

90% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know…

70% still trust online consumer opinions from people they don’t know!

* Nielsen – July, 2009

41% trust search engine results

Here’s some ideas on how to use social media to impact your search strategy…

But how does this influence SEO?

Twitter – find journalists/bloggers

Action: Use relevant hashtags & Jounalisted

Video – universal search results

Action: Distribute to multiple channels

Facebook – search isn’t just Google

Action: Build great/shareable content

Images – universal/image search

Action: encourage users to credit you = links!

Reviews – Improve Seller Extension Ratings

Action: Incentivize users to leave reviews

e.g. Offer 10% discount to returning hotel customers

who leave a review

Blogging – become an authority = links!

Action: Build relationships online

Connect with authority bloggers by:

• Interacting on Twitter – sharing content, @replies, #followfriday’s etc…

• Linking out – get there attention by linking to them – and use their name/brand, they’ll probably spot it in Google Alerts.

• Commenting on relevant blogs – adding value to a discussion of course!

Social media bookmarking – traffic & links

Action: Use great images/infographics

Forums – targeted links & traffic

Action: Don’t spam – build a trusted profile

Flowtown – find customers social profiles

Action: turn customers into brand advocates

Social signals – boost topical/QDF rankings?

Action: Being first is very important

Catch users early in buying cycle via social

Action: Give users a reason to return to influence personalised search via brand queries

Recap – so how does this impact SEO?

• Search isn’t just Google organic - changing search trends/habits means you can’t ignore social, e.g. Facebook, YouTube, Tripadvisor searches

• Universal search – travel generates high volume of video/images results

• Target users at earlier research stage in buying cycle – so that they return via brand query, this is likely to impact personalised search results

• Links! Great potential to strengthen backlink profile with targeted/relevant links

• Social signals – more social buzz = better search rankings?

Thank you

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