Getting the right type of traffic to your Lodge website
Without traffic, your website is useless.
With the wrong traffic, your website is a costly marketing drain.
With the right traffic, your website is a growing asset that generates a steady stream of leads every day of the week.
Is Your Traffic Valuable, Or Costly?
Let’s compare the relative value of the major different traffic sources available today.
Pay per click Traffic
PPC Traffic - Swimming With The Sharks
There are only two ways to make profitable use of pay per click (PPC) traffic: when you are testing a landing page to see if it converts, and when you are sending traffic to a landing page that is proven to be profitable.
If you can’t measure your conversion rates, don’t use PPC. This brief list of detriments of PPC traffic could be expanded ten times this size, buy you only need a small taste of something bad…
- Zero free traffic – all clicks cost money
- Zero SEO benefits from the links
- Marketing budget not converted to content
- No lasting online presence created
- Low trust and low ROI from paid traffic
Organic Search Traffic
Organic Traffic - An Eternal Uphill Climb
Top rankings in the search engines and the anticipated flood of traffic have been the coveted darling of the Internet Marketing World, almost since websites began.
Once top placements are established – many websites experience free ongoing traffic for years! A definite asset to your business.
The increasing drawback of this strategy is the growing competition from new online content that is expanding in volume of production. This problem is getting worse, not better.
Another drawback: organic traffic requires specialized Search Engine Optimization and an endless need to build links from other sites at a faster rate and with better quality than your competition.
Top it all off with the constantly changing rules of the search engines and you can count on ongoing effort or ongoing fees in order to maintain this asset.
Organic search is very important when getting the right type of traffic to your Lodge website – but there is a better source yet.
Social Media Traffic
Social Traffic - A Self-Creating Asset
When your are getting the right type of traffic to your Lodge website, Social Media can provide a lot of momentum to a business that is already successful. Each social media profile represents your business as a lasting, growing online presence that can provide your website with traffic to test and enhance your social credibility.
Established tourism business who now begin to include social media to their marketing mix, can start off with high trust because of connections made possible by the guests who are presently your customers.
With an online word-of-mouth introduction from your guests, you are connected to the entire friends, coworkers and family network of each guest!
The personal introduction through a trusted source can draw the friends of your guests to view activities on your page, where you can give them your pitch with no competition!
Google Gets Tough On Spam
Social Media is the new kid on the SEO Block. With all the spam out there, Google is giving credibility and authority to websites that have people interacting with their site from verified sources. For example, if 30 people use their Facebook profile to ‘like’ your page – Google will rank you higher. YouTube ranks your videos higher if you have more likes and a larger subscriber base.
A measurable asset for any business, the size and responsiveness of your following on Facebook, and other opt-in media sources, will most certainly play into the buying decisions of entrepreneurs who are shopping to buy and operate a Fishing Lodge or Tourism Resort.
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