Group getaways and vacation websites to check out!

Group getaways and discounted deals, what wouldn’t you want when you’re planning to travel. In a market that is saturated with people’s desires and the longing of vacation, one might look to save a few bucks here and there. When I travel, I find myself looking to save every penny I can. So what websites can we use to save on money when we travel? After all, once we’re on vacation, a majority of us don’t track how much we are currently spending. It’s not until we get back from vacation where we find that our wallets are a little emptier than when we left. With that being said, what’s the best website to help us find the right flight, car rental and hotel?

Be sure to check out the websites I've listed below before you check in!

Most of us have heard of popular coupon sites, such as Grubhub, Expedia and Stubhub. While these are great sites to check out, what about for the hotels where we want to stay? A great site to check out is HotelCoupon.com. This website is easy to navigate and seems to be a great place to find some of the best rates across the country. The site promotes and guarantees that they can challenge any advertised price - even the walk-in rate.  Look no further as IHG, one of our own hotel clients is featured on the main page!

Another site that may help out is RetailMeNot.com. They pull from the best travel websites, including Expedia.com, Orbitz, Travelocity and Hotels.com. This way you can find airfare, car rental and hotel all at the same time!

With RoomSaver.com you can save on your money and have a printout to give directly to the hotel upon arrival. This eliminates the hassle of checking in and playing the waiting game.

We all want that little sense of relaxation... If only for a short period of time.

These are just a few sites for you to check out. I’ll leave it to you to visit these sites to see which you find the most useful – and let us know if you find any that are top on your “travel deal” lists!

 

Check out how your company can help your SEO!

Last week we examined some of the best destinations to go traveling during the winter season. Yet, how do we determine that those specific destinations are the best to go to? Thousands of computer applications have been created to help you determine this based on the random searches on the internet, blogs and consumer reviews. From Yahoo! Local Listings, Citysearch and Yelp!, these applications have become our critics in selecting where to travel, but sometimes it’s simply word of mouth that leads to the “best kept secret” travel spots.
 

Puerto Rico is a top destination for some, but maybe not for others.

With that said, what is it that makes us use these review sites? Why do these stand out above the rest and how do we find out about them? People may say that finding review sites comes down to a search on theGoogle search engine (after all, it is the 3^rd most popular site on the planet). So how do these review sites become so popular in modern day culture? How do we determine which hotels have the best rates, and are located at the some of the best locations? When I do a search for hotels, why does Hotel.com and Expedia.com show up at the top of the search?  One answer: Google Adwords. 

Located at the top and labeled in red is an example of where a Google Adwords account is placed

What is Google Adwords? It’s another way to help your company rise to the top of Google’s search engine. Go ahead and type in travel rates and see what you get.  You’ll notice that Expedia.com and Cheapflights.com are at the top of your search. But why are these two companies at the top of the list when you type something as generic as “travel rates”?

Google runs its engine on an algorithm that helps other top web sites move ahead of their competitors. Inside of the Adwords tool, you’ll open up what is also known as a “campaign.” A campaign is a tool that is designed to help select certain keywords. After this, you’ll use a tool located at the side of your window that will allow you to choose 2 or 3 other keywords associated with the campaign you’ve chosen. For example for “hotel”, you can select “travel” and “destination” as the two keywords. Choosing these keywords will also allow you to associate other keywords to them. This is where strategy is essential - picking the right keywords that you know people will click on is the key to success. After a couple of adjustments to your campaign, your Adwords account is ready to go live. 

An example of Google Adwords and its mainpage layout.

From here, Adwords will key in on certain phrases people select when they perform a Google search. This is what they call “clickthrough rate.” Clickthrough rate is based on the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions and is then shown as a percentage. Your ad will be based on the number of clicks when they click on your website. Google will receive a percentage based on how many times someone clicks on your site. The trick to the keyword section is to finding those words that are more specific to your site. For example, in searching for Percipia Networks something more specific such as “Chicago hospitality telephone pbx” would yield better results than a generic phrase like “hospitality software”.

The “techy” in us finds adwords and clickthrough rates incredibly useful – how do these play out in your daily routine??