These are busy days of awesome web! Tourism Tim’s Marketing Success Course is changing the way I have to build websites - right from the bottom up!

In fact, I looked at my own business web design website and thought

‘WOW! I’m missing all of these core components on my *own* website!’

I now see opportunity to increase the effectiveness of all the top search rankings I have achieved, by including these components on all of the websites that I have created!

When The Student Is Ready, The Teacher Appears.

I feel really lucky that have taken this course right now because I have three or four different projects that I’m working on where I can get the practical experience of directly implement all of his recommendations!

These projects are all in different stages of development – some of them are long-standing websites I’ve been doing for years, and some of them are brand-new redesigns where I’m switching an old website over into the WordPress Publishing Platform.

I’m really keen to review how Tim recommendations can benefit my tourism clients – however, after completing his course, I believe the very same things that work on a tourism website will work on any different website.

Worksheets For Everyone

After completing Tim’s Course, I’ve spent the past week contacting clients, doing a ‘Tourism Tim Worksheet’ on each page of their website, discussing the changes – and starting on the updates to their websites – knowing that Tim will be personally reviewing one or two of these projects!!

I’m very excited with the new learning – and a bit overwhelmed!

Presently I am implementing the step by step plans on adding Tim’s Components to the design and layout of my current projects.  I’m meeting with clients over skype, bringing up the Tourism Tim Worksheet and filling out the form with each client.  Then, after we complete the worksheet, we review their individual websites and start planning the changes to be made that will incorporate Tim’s recommendations – changes in design, graphics, layout and text… even color changes are considered as we reflect on these critical updates.

Next is the phase of doing.

Core concepts have been learned, meetings with clients organized and completed, now the updates are underway on the first sites that will be placed on the Hot Seat for review!

The Tourism Tim Success Hotseat

I just watched the webinar replay that Tim Warren Hosted for the people who are presently taking the course – and it gave me even more clarity about the elements of a page that can be improved to help increase bookings!!  Sorry I missed the Live Event, but completely awesome to watch the replay!

My Next Two Month Goals

• • to update my clients sites
  • have Tim and the crew on the Webinar give it a review and suggestions
  • complete the suggested updates

…And then… complete the case study with a testimonial from some happy Fishing Lodge or Outpost Camp Owner, because their website is getting more contacts, more calls, more enquires, and – more bookings!

Then the Success Cycle will be complete, I will compile my ‘Before-And-After Test Results’ and create a Case Study to share with other seasonal tourism businesses and web designers.

I am super excited to get back to work!! Many thanks Tim!

More updates to follow!

To Your Success,

Doug

Got my coffee ready and I’m digging in to the new course by Tourism Tim for the third day straight. It’s been a marathon to go through all the material he’s presented! Normally the course is presented in bite-sized pieces over several weeks, but I got access to the entire buffet!

These are busy days for me, and it’s hard to drop everything and spend three days focused on something that I hadn’t planned for… but sometimes I discover a new internet marketing strategy that makes me change the way I build my websites, from the ground up, so the changes are incorporated in the very design and engineering of the website.

This is one of those times.

And I want to blog about exactly what my experiences are, while they are happening, with the knowing that my story will only resonate with the small segment of the world who are also trying to improve the sales success of their current website.

Great Sequence Of Teaching

Tim knows his stuff and has the track record of success in helping tourism and travel professionals make their site into a marketing piece that are time-tested and proven to generates sales and bookings.

The sequence of material in the course is brilliant!

For me, the course started out with an aspect of web design that I wasn’t expecting. It felt something like a baseball-bat-whollop out of no where – and it clarified something I had seen before, but didn’t even recognize.

And then, Tim followed up with a clearly organized, masterfully edited, 56 page ebook that, for me, was like a super slow motion replay of the baseball-bat-whollop… from several angles.  (I’ll tell you more about the specifics of exactly what I mean by that, I’m going to create a Case Study of a before-and-after, doing a website make-over with some of the current websites I manage… then Tim will personally review my work… on video!)

After hitting you with everything up front, then Tim presents a series of detailed case study videos that reveal how these strategies help his clients improve aspects of their website design that, as a result, get more bookings.  I love the client testimonial videos that are included at the start of each section of the course.

Sometimes, it’s hard for me to watch his entire video, I’m so excited that I want to dash off and implement these improvements on a dozen websites all at the same time!!

Today’s Module is Search Engine Optimization

I’m completely stoked about this section of the course and I want to cut this blog post short and get to it, but I set a timer and I must keep writing until it beeps… (thank you Ed Dale).

I think Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a fantastic carreer for anyone who would do well in perpetual university.  SEO used to be focused on the keywords and keyword density of your web page, and then it started to include links in the importance, then the quality of link and anchor text became critical elements and now we have real time search and a focus on the most recent material and the additional weighting that social actions now have on the staying-power of newly gained top rankings…

SEO is now a sophisticated orchestra that includes the social engagement of your customers.

Self Promotion Pitch

Not Blogging?  Not Social-Ready? Not Mobile-Ready?

Not reorganizing your content and marketing message to match Tourism Tim’s Strategies?

Then it’s time for your business to consider an annual marketing plan with specific, step-by-step strategies that change throughout each month of the year – specifically created FOR the small to medium seasonal tourism business.

One of the most fantastic things about Tourism Tim’s Course and the solutions that I provide for my clients is that both strategies and both plans fit together perfectly – and I can’t wait to share more about that as well!

Ok, my timer went off.  Now I’m going to watch the next series of videos in the amazing new Tourism Marketing Success Course by Tourism Tim Warren!

With all the buzz about social media and the Internet for vacation planning, one might forget about the awesome power of meeting people face-to-face when selling trips.

Sports Shows and Trade Shows are sometimes portrayed as being a marketing method from the past – but beware – the people who are telling this story are biased toward online marketing.

I know this from first-hand experience.

You see, I firmly believe that tourism marketing is made far more effective with a website, email list and social media presence – and I used to think the Internet was the answer for all marketing needs… that is, until I attended a 10 day sports show with a Fly-in Fishing client, Kashabowie Outposts, in February 2011.

Should You Still DO Sports Shows?

The simple answer is YES.  And your online marketing should be carefully crafted to boost the effectiveness of the shows you attend.

Plan ahead to use your blog, email and social media – to pre-market your fans to walk past every other booth in the show, and come directly to YOUR booth!

Using The Internet To Market Your Shows

Hubspot recently released a report that should be required reading for all Tourism Business Owners, Managers and Employees who may be involved in working your booth at any sports show or travel, trade, adventure, boat and home show!  I continually scour the net to find gems of information about how to market Tourism businesses from Canada, and I’m very happy to share this powerful report.

Register and Free Download:

http://www.hubspot.com/The-Inbound-Marketing-Tradeshow-Planning-Guide

Use the handy chart that lays out the detailed step-by-step methods and strategies you should use in the months leading up to the show, what you should be doing online while you are at the show, and most importantly, what you can be doing to increase the bookings you get from each show by using a specific follow-up routine after the show is completed.

This year I’m participating in Movember to help raise money for Prostate Cancer research.

I’m delighted to have joined a team with my nephews!  It’s a great way to help out, and a good excuse to connect with members of my family that I don’t get enough time with!

Join Our Movember Team or Check Out My MO!

http://mobro.co/douglampi

This morning over coffee, I read the Hubspot Report The Essential Guide To Internet Marketing.

I highly recommend that your read this report with a pad of paper near by so you can write down the ideas and questions that are sure to flow!

Read it here: The Essential Guide To Internet Marketing

This is a fantastic resource that should serve as a baseline for everyone who owns a tourism business. After reading through with gusto – this one passage stood out to me: I read it several times…

What Should I Write About?

What If I’m Not A Writer?

How Do I Market My Blog?

Private Reviews Of SpyFu Recon Files Reports

Hello and thanks for tuning in to my first video podcast about using SpyFu Recon Files to produce Search Engine Optimization Reports and plan strategies with my clients.

I am Doug Lampi from Quetico Internet Marketing, a web design company and SEO Firm in Canada. I started using the Internet, then called bulletin boards, back on the Commodore Pet in 1982, and now I’m on Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and others!

The Youtube Cosmic Panda update just happened so have no idea how to set this up – so bear with me as I change my YouTube channel around.

Video Series On Using SpyFu Recon Files

I have started a video series to share my experiences working with a new tool that I just signed up – Spyfu Recon Files for search engine optimization.

SpyFu Recon looks very powerful and has knocked my socks off!

I want to make Private SEO Video Reports for my clients, so I upgraded to the business version of Screenr.com. Now I can create private videos to personally review the SEO Reports with each of my clients.

I will share the data with everyone in my client group so everybody benefits from all of the data to collect.

A Deeper Look Into Keywords and Competitors

I’m taking a deeper look with Spy Fu Classic to find out details of the organic keywords positions that everybody holds, organized into spreadsheets. I’m collecting all on organic keywords for each of my clients and creating videos for them to review successes and opportunities.

In addition, I’m going to create blog report videos for other people who are running business website.

Maybe you are in the same position as me – you’re working on building your community and followers on Social Media.

We will get more successful together!

Thanks again for watching I will continue these videos as I’m learning more about SpyFu Classic and SpyFu Recon Files.

Do SpyFu Recon Files Reports Help?

Search Engine Optimization Reports created with SpyFu Recon – Private video reports for each client so you can understand what the reports – and comparative data so you can see how your numbers compare to others in your industry. Highlight the financial value of organic traffic and keywords with SpyFu Recon Files.

All Canada Show - An Online Marketing Leader

Website Grader and The Website Redesign Kit

Website Grader

I returned to http://www.websitegrader.com to check out a new WordPress site I recently redesigned for a client.

I was also delighted to see a new feature called Blog Grader  http://blog.grader.com

Raising The Bar For Internet Success

The Internet is growing at an amazing rate and evolving at an increasing speed. It has become very hard to keep up with the changes — and the shear volume of content being produced these days is making it very hard to stand out on the Internet and be noticed.

Making a website successful involves a redesign using the WordPress Publishing Platform nowadays, as WordPress includes a lot of small components all put together in the right way. Much like a racing car – there’s a lot of preparation that goes into website redesign. Therefore, I like to be sure that I am not missing any of the components when I’m putting together a new website or redesigning and improving a current website, so I use outside services to scan my work and to see how it ranks and compares against the other content on the Internet.

This morning I went to websitegrader.com and I entered the address of a new website that I’ve recently redesigned for a client and I wanted to double check to be sure that I had all of the components that meet specifications and that all the components were in place. I found we got a great score, and at the same time, I noticed two new things while I was there: first I noticed blog.grader.com, and, I noticed a link to a website redesign kit webinar on how to improve your website Grader score.

Website Redesign Different From Blog Redesign?

So I went and checked out blog.grader.com and put the same website address in because the new website also has a blog with it – and I found I got a pretty good score there too.  I certainly have to figure out and see how things stack up against other blogs – because my clients score beat the score that I got for my own business website! That was interesting to learn!

It is very interesting to find such drastic difference between your websitegrader score and your blog.grader score – even if your website is also a blog!

After checking out the scores for a few additional websites, I clicked on the link that leads to answers on how to improve your website score and it led me to this webinar announcement for “The Science of Website Redesign”.

I’ve been a big and growing fan of everything that Hubspot is doing for helping any business that has a website and finds that their web presence is an important, or a critical part of their marketing these days.

Great Idea For A Blog Post

I registered for the webinar straight away, and I got to thinking ‘hey this would a good blog post’!

I took a screenshot of websitegrader.com, and I took a screenshot of blog.grader.com and took a screen shot of the announcement for the webinar on The Science Of Website Redesign – and I thought this would be great to send out to all my clients and invite them to come along to this webinar as well.

It’s on June 9 is just next week. I thought this webinar by Hubspot on Website Redesign would be a great announcement do a blog post and get this information out, so I took screenshots, I resized them and got them already. The the difficulty set in…

Blogger’s Blog – Content Logjam

I started typing my thoughts into a wordprocessor and… I found myself… going… very slowly… at creating my blog post.

My thoughts were racing way far ahead passed my fingers – and I can type fairly well. I had lots to say, but I found typing was too slow and I was having a hard time getting my thoughts ‘onto paper’, you might say.

Creating Blog Content The Conversational Way

Then I thought well you know I’m just going to go and get my iPhone and put on this Dragon dictation device and I’m going to speak out my blog post to my phone and have my words converted to text and then I’ll e-mail that text myself I’ll edit it a little bit and then format the text nicely into the blog post add those three screenshot pictures and links to the good resources and format this to this speech to be my blog post.

And now, in just minutes, I’ve completed all the content I need for this blog post!

The pictures were easy to grab and the links and resources I think will be really helpful for my readership!

In addition, I hope that the quick example here of an easy way to make a blog post will also be helpful for my clients who now have a blog, but don’t seem to get post published!

A blog post that is easy to create and a post that is helpful for your readers – that’s going to attract new people to learn more about your business.

I would like to hear some examples of other people who find this Dragon Dictation method of creating content.  Share your example of how it is helpful, easy or useful to your business.

Back To The Reason For Writing This Blog Post To Begin With!!

‘Website Redesign Kit’ Webinar

The Science of Website Redesign

This is your invitation to join me in attending this webinar:

The Science Of Website Redesign – Webinar Snippet:

The Internet has made apparent that a business’ website is an increasingly important asset, and many companies are now embarking on website redesign projects to “improve” their websites. However, in order to really get the most out of a website redesign, companies need to construct their website in the context of a greater Internet marketing strategy.

During this webinar you will learn:

* The Wrong and Right Reasons for a Redesign
* The 3 Keys to a Successful Website
* What Metrics Drive Website Redesign
* Common Pitfalls to Avoid

Who should attend?
Marketing professionals and business owners doing or thinking about doing a web site redesign, or generally optimizing their website and developing an Internet marketing strategy. No technical experience required.

Webinar Details:

http://www.hubspot.com/website-redesign-kit/

Date/Time: Thursday, June 9 at 2pm ET (local time)

Duration: 60min

Presenter: Mike Volpe, CMO at HubSpot

I really like the statement about redesigning your website in the context of a greater Internet marketing strategy.  This greater strategy ties together and coordinates your WordPress website with your social media, your email list and with your offline marketing strategies to make your website a growing asset for your business with better lead generation, higher customer conversion and longer customer retention.

It would be great to hear your success stories about Dragon Dictation Application – I hope you attend this webinar with me, and, I look forward to chatting about how WordPress might meet all the requirements described in the upcoming ‘website redesign kit’ webinar!

I’m going to describe the process I’m using to create this blog post.

I’m standing in my office using the Dragon Dictation Application – talking out loud to my iPhone and the words that I’m saying are being translated to text – and this text, the words I’m saying, will be e-mailed to my wordpress website and published as a blog post. That is, the e-mail sent from my iPhone will automatically be turned into a post on my blog.

Here’s how I have connected my WordPress blog to my social media network.

Our blog post is sent out to Google feedburner and feedburner lets us set up easy ways for people to subscribe to our site, and, it’ll also send out automatic tweets about our blog post to Twitter.

The post from the WordPress blog is also automatically imported into the Notes Section of my business page on Facebook – and so all of the people who liked my business page will get an opportunity to see an announcement about this blog post.

In addition, this e-mail – about half an hour later – is also sent out as an e-mail to all of my a Weber e-mail newsletter subscribers.

So, this information about the blog post is available any format that you’re currently used to using – so if you follow me on Twitter you’ll get a notice about this blog post; if you’re a friend of mine or you like my page on Facebook, you’ll get a chance to see that I’ve made a new blog post; if you are a subscriber of mine… you all get a notification about this blog post. And this is just recorded from my iPhone as I stand here in my office and the Dragon Dictation Application turns it into text and my set up sends it out to all of those places.

Try to imagine how this information sharing could be beneficial for your business!

So you’re fishing Lodge owner – and ‘Joe’ just comes in off the lake excited with a great catch of fish – you can turn on the recording, make a few notes, interview him – quickly take a picture of the Fish and your smartphone sends notice of your angler as an e-mail to your WordPress blog and it automatically goes up to twitter into Facebook out your e-mail newsletter subscribers!!!

This is really powerful for social sharing, wouldn’t ya say?

Your information-sharing ready-to-go *as* your guests are experiencing their trip.

This is very powerful for social sharing – when cousins and friends and aunts and uncles and people who actually know the person who was fishing at your lodge – they’ll see this activity on Facebook, Like it and comment on it, see it on Twitter and they may sign up for your e-mail newsletter so they get continuing updates what’s going on – and it’s your chance to establish a relationship through online word-of-mouth marketing – this is powerful! …and easy to do – once everything is set up correctly.

And, while it’s fantastic to get your website and all of your social media up and running with a smooth plan, it’s important that everything that people are accessing nowadays be mobile-friendly. Most people need a mobile friendly version their website – and while we are talking about mobile phones – it’s a good idea to start thinking about doing text message marketing where people can subscribe to your text messaging service and they get notifications about your blog posts through text messages.

e-mail are great! You can get 27% to 50% open rate – and Facebook is fantastic because so many people in the States are on Facebook; Twitter is specialized – and you can get people who are using that service if you just automatically set up a tweet to go out each time do a blog post. But text messages get an astonishing 90% plus open rate within minutes!

So as you are planning your marketing strategy over the next year – imagine how Internet technologies make it really easy connect your WordPress blog to your social media network…. to say a few words into your iPhone, snap a picture, and send it on the quick blog post.

The immediacy of it, and the fact that you are sharing specific people – is going to gain exposure for your business by providing nice, gentle recognition of their friends and family and coworkers fishing trip experience – almost first hand! It’s the best time to share the excitement!

Sent from my iPhone

edited for formatting and minor changes – the Dragon Dictation App works great!

More Businesses Choose WordPress For Tourism Marketing

In it’s early days, WordPress was almost exclusively used for Blogging. Over years of continual development, WordPress is released as a publishing platform, not as a blogging platform. More and more small businesses like fishing lodges, outfitters and hunting camp owners are benefiting from the unmatched SEO and Social Media integration provided by WordPress For Tourism Marketing.

Wikipedia reports that, in 2009, WordPress won the best Open Source CMS Award, and in 2010, WordPress has won the Hall of Fame CMS category.

Web Technology Surveys reports that WordPress is used by 14.0% of all the websites they surveyed, that is a content management system (CMS) market share of 54.6%.

Social Media and WordPress For Tourism Marketing

Social Media works seamlessly with WordPress For Tourism Marketing. Why is this important? Because Social Media has created a changed consumer-scape for all business sectors, not just travel and tourism.

National Tourism Week Social Media Seminar

“Visit Bucks County has been embracing the revolutionary changes that have impacted the tourism and hospitality industry by speaking directly and interacting with the people that fuel our economy,” said Jerry Lepping, executive director of Visit Bucks County. “Hosting this seminar during National Travel & Tourism Week was the perfect time to encourage the importance of this transition as well as the impact travel has on our economy.”

Watch This Slide Show – Interesting Social Media Data For Business

Rural Tourism Marketing Recommends

The Wharton Internet Marketing Blog sums up the benefits of WordPress for Tourism Marketing: At a recent workshop, Joanne Steele from Rural Tourism Marketing recommended that business owners make sure their websites are built using WordPress.

Using WordPress As A Content Management System (CMS)

Evoke Design writes “As WordPress has developed into version 3, it is slowly becoming a top choice for CMS solutions for designers and developers. It provides great flexibility and it’s easy to work with. This means that WordPress has moved on a long way from being heavily biased on a personal blogging system.”

9 Great Reasons to Use WordPress as a CMS

Today, WordPress is released as a publishing platform, not as blogging software – which means it’s even better to use as a CMS. In this article WordPress Ninja explains why WordPress is such a good choice to use as a CMS.

WordPress For Tourism Marketing