On Wednesday evening, I get the honor of presenting on the topic of Search Engine Optimization with WordPress – to The WordPress Winnipeg Meetup Group at SkullSpace (Floor 3, 125 Adelaide Street, Winnipeg, MB)!

WordPress, As Part Of Your Balanced SEO Plan.

Wordpress Winnipeg Meetup Group

In some ways I feel that promoting SEO to this crowd is like I’m selling ice to Eskimos.

It’s not that I’m preaching to the converted, but rather, I use the analogy of how Climate Change is occurring faster than many Eskimos are adapting!

And it’s kind of the same with SEO Change on the Internet – fundamental shifts are occurring faster than many business owners are adapting!

Good news is, WordPress can and does adapt – no matter how SEO might change!

Organized by Ian Stewart and Matt Weibe, and including such Winnipeg WordPress Masters as Krista Stevens, David Pensato, Brent Toderash, Dan Bernardic and my sister, Jill Lampi.

I’m glad Sharon Evans will be in attendance, and I hope I can provide some helpful information to SEO Skeptics like Carl Seier. I’m keen to connect up with Anthony Ramos, Gordon Johnson, Anna Matthes, Syndi Cannon, Duane McLennan and Donald McKenzie.

And, it’s rumored that the Marketing Director for The World Famous Palomino Club, Tina Lussier will be attending, making more nervous than ever!

Three Take-Aways From This Talk

1. A Way To Measure Your Success And Progress
2. A Way To Improve Your On-The-Page Ranking Factors
3. The Unrealized Importance Of Social Media To SEO in 2012

My talk will be interactive, and I’ll be looking forward to participation from the crowd as I cover these three key areas.

A Way To Measure Your Success And Progress

Douglas Lampi, January 2012

First, I’ll introduce Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics. I feel these are core basics to helping measure and improve the success of any website online. It’s important to register your site and verify ownership within Webmaster Tools so you gain access to much more information that Google already has about your site. And it’s important to cross-link your Google Analytics with your Google Webmaster Tools to enable real time visitor stats and additional features for monitoring the activity on your site.

When using a WordPress site, I recommend you add the Google Sitemap Generator Plugin to your site, and then register this sitemap within Google Webmaster Tools.

Once these setup stages are complete, it’s a good idea to review this data at least monthly, and strive to adjust and improve your site content and layout etc., to get more of the actions you want from your visitors.

A Way To Improve Your On-The-Page Ranking Factors

A two phase process – first, selecting your keywords and second, tuning your page for that keyword phrase.

I recommend using the WordPress search engine optimization plugin called SEOPressor when creating blog posts and pages. This plugin gives you a numerical score – a percentage score – of exactly how well-tuned your page is for your target keyword phrase. It’s like having an SEO professional looking over your shoulder and telling you what to adjust in your page elements so that you have the best chance of ranking well.

Another essential WordPress SEO tool, for so many reasons, was recommended at our last meeting by Brent Toderash – WordPress SEO by Yoast

The Unrealized Importance Of Social Media To SEO in 2012

All the traditional White Hat Search Engine Optimization strategies still work today, and will continue to be important – but it’s vital to realize that top search rankings established by the best SEO – is trumped by the power of a Social Media connection.

Here’s a real-time example, and a personal experience of mine, as I first began to find Google Plus Connections and Twitter Shares turning up in place of top search rankings when I was doing searches in Google – a 3 minute video on YouTube: Google Goes Social – Twitter Shares Turn Up In SERPS

WordPress Helps You Adapt

How does WordPress help you adapt to the fact that Social Media Likes, Tweets and Shares are becoming an important component to top rankings in all the major search engines? Namely through the flexibility of plugins that give your site visitors an easy way to share each page and blog post individually, while also displaying the number of people who have liked, tweeted or shared the content.

Slick Social Share Buttons

Trackable Social Share Icons

Add Twitter, Facebook Like, Google plus one Social share

As the Internet Changes – it’s easy to simply switch plugins!

So Much To Say – So Little Time!

I’d be delighted if you shared your tips and plugins for Search Engine Optimization! If it was an item shared during our meetup, or an item that one of our Virtual Attendies would like to share, please leave your comments below!!

Post-Talk Follow-up – What Are People Saying

Other Speakers – Matt Weibe on Typography and Fonts

Every year at this time, we all stop and reflect on the busy activities of the past year.

As my business passed it’s tenth year, there was new growth and vigor and development in my company like I have never seen in any one single year previously! It’s been a great deal of fun and very satisfying as well!

Running my mind over each month of the past year, six highlights stand out as the reasons my business has grown so much in 2011. The first five of those highlights are people, and the sixth is a technology.

First Highlight: Gary From iMarket.ca

Gary is a great guy to work with and an outstanding designer who specializes in creating stunning websites for Fishing and Hunting Lodges throughout Canada, that are red hot in the search engines. After years of comradery and sharing tips and experiences, recently we have formalized a working partnership that has encouraged new development and growth for both of our companies.

Second Highlight: Eric from TheTechnologicalEdge.com

Eric is an awesome web designer for the outdoor travel industry with a calm, open personality and a solid understanding of business and marketing. I met Eric at a Sport Show in Indianapolis in February of 2011 – and he introduced me to elements of his Web Design Business Plan that were so simple, yet profound, that I’ve worked the rest of 2011 to incorporate them into the fundamentals of my own business. As a result, I provide better service to my clients – and improved my bottom line as well.

Third Highlight: Tina from PalominoClub.ca

Tina is the Marketing Director of The World Famous Palomino Club – and working with her is always a highlight of my week! Tina is a spitfire who has embraced all aspects of blogging and social media! Her enthusiasm, attention to detail and consistent day-by-day efforts have given her the skill to use the Palomino Club website and social media to target and gain top rankings for almost any local keyword phrase. Tina’s belief in the value of social media and her regular work at building the online connections have created fantastic results for several Social Media Development Projects that Tina has managed recently. Tina has moved from being a client/student to being a respected colleague and friend.

Fourth Highlight: Tim from Travelbusinesssuccess.com

Tim is a Tourism Marketing Professional that I have followed and admired for a number of years, and this fall when Tim offered to teach his strategies for marketing Tour and Adventure Businesses, I started to know, like and respect Tim a great deal more! When I took the recent course on Tourism Marketing Success by Tim Warren – I thought he knocked it out of the park! Tim did a great job with the layout of the information and did a great job with the technology of the website, but more than that, the content of the course was a game-changer for the way I create websites for my tourism clients. In fact, the changes are so far-reaching, that I’m sure I’ll be blogging or making videos about Case Studies every month or so for the next year. I’m looking forward to working with Tim on a number of projects that I cannot announce yet!

Fifth Highlight: Jill from Webgrrl-enterprises.com

Jill is my sister! She is smart. And has technical knowledge in all areas of social media, blogging and areas of the internet that surpass my own. In 2011 we began working together in a slightly different way than before, that has turned into a synergistic, cooperative effort to each build our own individual businesses offering roughly similar services to our own set of clients. Among other things, over this past year, Jill and I have been taking all the strategies, case studies and business plans we have been implementing for clients, and writing a book on Tourism Internet Marketing, due to be released in the fall of 2012.

Sixth Reason My Business Grew So Much – is Skype

Skype has revolutionized the way I work with my clients. It has improved our communications and increased the ease of sharing information and teaching strategies about blogging and social media. The most powerful feature is that we can share screens, so it’s really easy to *show* my clients details as we work on the same web page together in real time. Thank you Skype!

2011 – Mature Company Hits Growth Curve

I can trace almost all of my increased success this year… new clients, better services, more effective solutions and reaching a wider audience, and, having a great deal of fun at the same time… directly to these key people that influenced me in 2011. And I’d like to thank each of you – just for being awesome – you are the six reasons my business grew so much in 2011!

I’d also like to express my gratitude to the support and effect these groups and people have had on my success in 2011:  Social Media Manitoba Meetup Group, The WordPress Winnipeg Meetup Group, my training partner Max and the awesome clients that I had the good fortune to assist, or that I get to work with on an monthly or weekly basis; Brian, Gord, Cary, Linda, Paul, Mike, Bary, Faron, Len, Cheryl, Carolyn, Darlyss,  Carol, Fern, Quent, Jeremy, Cindy, Mark, Rob, Urs, Michael, Don, Josh, Joerg, Carl, Cathy, Dan, John, Tom, Judy, Drake, Chad, Ross and Daryl. (hope I didn’t miss anyone)

This is the first video to Case Study improvements I make to websites I manage, based on the recommendations in Tourism Tim’s Marketing Success Course  and the feedback from the close group of International Tourism business owners!

The most exciting aspect of Tim’s Course is the way he quantifies the elements of your marketing message that lead people to trust you enough to take action and book a trip online. I have a plan for blogging, for social media and for SEO – but my plans were lacking this critical element! Like cake without the icing!

As you see by the video below, the stats tell the story of how we are already doing better with the same website traffic.

Here’s The Brief:

Decreased Bounce Rate and Increased Page Views Per Visit after initial changes to incorporate some of Tourism Tim’s Marketing Strategies into my first of several case study websites.

And I also show Google Analytics close up to review incoming traffic around a target geographic location in the Upper Midwest USA as I monitor the website traffic that is generated during a real-time sport show event.

More Short Case Study Videos To Follow.

Do you have a question?  I’d be happy to answer!

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

The Rise And Fall Of Klout

I can see the headlines now as web historians tell the tail of booming web projects that went bust.

There was a day that I regarded Klout with some credibility – and even focused my efforts to conform my online actions to support the assumptions that Klout purported in their online influence algorithm.

However, after closely monitoring my actual Klout score vs my actual online activities and replies – I find no basis to believe that the two have any correlation.

Today I disconnected all of my social media profiles from Klout.

And I recommend you do the same.

How to delete your Klout Account 

“Lies, damned lies, and statistics” – Mark Twain

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.

Twylah

I just learned about an amazing new Twitter service called Twylah – that may help you get more value out of Twitter for your Travel and Tourism business.

My friend @tinalussier told me about a blog post by @adamdince that shows all the steps required to Optimize Your Twitter Feed with Twylah

You can see an example of my trending tweets here:

http://tweets.queticointernetmarketing.com/

Shaping Your Twitter Content With Twylah

Once my trending tweets were live, I was surprised to learn that my top topics were the following:

winnipeg
social media
wordpress
business
video
tourism
facebook

This is a great insight into how I’ve been using Twitter in the past while, and provides me both with feedback about my recent content, and a way to start selecting my twitter content more deliberately so that I’m correctly focused on my Niche.

Shmap.it

My friend @tinalussier also told me about Shmap.it, a free service that will analyze your followers on Twitter – and tell you some pretty amazing things about them!  Here is a screenshot of the report I received:

Click To Enlarge

Get your own Twitter Follower Analysis and let me know what you discover!

How Twitter Could Help Your Tourism Business?

Twitter is an excellent way to connect with people – specifically, your customers.  These two tools will help you create a better content strategy for your twitter feed, while helping you see more about the audience of people who follow you, and even target sub-sets of your twitter followers by interest or geographic locations!

Social Media for Marketing Tourism.

What Social Media Tools do you find the most effective for marketing your travel destination?

Do you know of a Twitter Tool that should be shared here?

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