I’ve been using Ning.com to hook up clients with highly targeted niche social networks and I don’t like their search function. Ning lets anyone setup a social network for free on a subdomain, if you want to use your own you can pay for that. I’ve created this quick and handy little Google powered search to help you quickly find a social network on the Ning.com domain.
Linkscape from SEOmoz has been around a long time now and is one of the biggest private link databases on the market. I’m a huge fan of Linkscape and the new and improved Open Site Explorer so you know that these tools will handle all your backlink analysis needs. I highly recommend signing up with SEOmoz Pro for a month to get a feel for all the tools, not just the link handy backlink explorer. If you’re in the market for tools to make reports for clients then I also highly suggest you get on it…I’m just migrating my clients over to some of the reporting and it’s a really handy feature.
A little off topic but I’m pulling a late night finishing a proposal and some client work so I had to get some handy tools…aka chocolate. Lindt has a wide range of odd chocolates that indulge my sweet tooth from time to time and tonight it’s Sea Salt and Blueberry. We don’t get a lot of crazy chocolate here in Canada except for the these that are at some major grocery stores. If you find yourself working late and need something to keep ya going check out the Sea Salt flavor before anything else.
I’ve been wanting to do more work in the hotel marketing arena so I thought I’d stir up some link building ideas you can use that I’ve found useful in the past. If you’d like to explore these ideas further then consider working with us to expand your hotel’s business both locally and beyond. There are a lot of ways you can build links in this industry and I wanted to show you a few that you may have overlooked.
Marketing a hotel can be a daunting task because no matter where you are, you have active competition that’s always trying to out do you. If you’re a hotel in a small area ranking well can be absolutely crucial to your survival in a local area. I’ve worked with a few hotels before and the one thing I have come to realize is that you need a good mix of link building and social media marketing.
There are a lot of things you can use I’ve already blogged about, or other link building posts that can apply to your hotel’s marketing strategy. While you can use a press release service to get some news out just like everyone else, you can also make use of hotel industry specific news sources. These are links privy to the hotel industry so you know you’re getting targeted links from great news sources.
Hotel PR Services:
These hotel specific PR services are a great way to reach the who’s who in your industry while picking up some links along the way. I’d try and put away the budget to do a press release every time your hotel hosts an event or conference. While some of these wire services may not snag you a link in the release, you may get a link from a site reporting on it. You never know until you try!
http://www.hotelresource.com/Info-net_add_content.html
http://www.hotelnewsresource.com
http://www.hsyndicate.org/news.html
http://www.hotelsmag.com
http://www.hotelmarketing.com/index.php/content/submit-news
Backlink Analysis:
Mulling over backlink data is only fun for those who enjoy perving on websites link portfolios…I still recommend thoroughly going over everyone in the top 20 for your target keywords. Then once you’ve gone over and obtained any goodies from that, do the same for another 20 hotels in another city/country/place. This may yield you some link opportunities that you can use for yourself. If it brings you nothing then blame it all on me and curse the day you ran across this post.
Get Links From Partners:
Almost every business is able to leverage some links from partners it may not even realize it has. Hotels are able to do a lot of things to build links steadily over time. Sometimes these opportunities come along for a certain event so try and keep your mind on the target. You really want to be on the lookout for these link opportunities because these are quality links your competitors most likely cannot copy. Some ways to explore partners for links are;
– get links from conferences or conventions you`re hosting which can lead to bloggers linking to you in most cases
– use weddings as an opportunity to get links from wedding sites, tweets and other social media means
– somehow try and get a celebrity endorsement
– invite local bloggers to come stay and write about their experience at your hotel
– make videos and get links from social video sites
– offer discounts to students and try and get .edu links
– partner with local restaurants for promotions and for links
– partner with real estate agents in your area. They sometimes have out of town clients coming in to see property and they could be recommending your hotel with a link from their site.
– do you outsource your cleaning services and does that company have a website
Hotel Business Directories:
There are a bounty of hotel directories out there with most being not the highest quality, there still is a decent amount of links to be had. So not only are there hotel specific directories, you can cross over and get listed in some of the most authoritative travel directories.
http://www.hotelresource.com/
http://ehotelier.com/directory/addlink.php
http://www.websitesofhotels.com
http://www.hotelandtraveldirectory.com
What type of hotel/motel/B&B/boutique are you? Take that into consideration as well because there are a few great luxury hotel sites out there you can get into.
http://www.directoryofhotels.com
http://www.mrandmrssmith.com
http://www.drakeandcavendish.com/suggest-hotel.php
If you’re a Bed & Breakfast then you also have an angle to work here with tons of niche specific directories such as;
http://www.bedandbreakfastdirectory.org
http://www.globalbedandbreakfastlinks.com
You’ll be able to sniff directories like these for cabin rentals, vacation homes, resorts and the list goes on. Keep in mind a lot of directories you’ll come across will cost some money or require a link back, so don’t expect a whole lot of magic to happen.
Hotel Social Media:
I could write so much on this topic so I’ll try and keep it short, simple and to the point. There are now hundreds of social media/network sites for travel so you are going to be busy for the next year straight. Some of these sites will allow links so keep your eyes peeled. Mainly you’ll want to be active on these sites to reap the rewards of becoming a trusted voice in the online travel community.
Most of these sites are review sites that are backed by your affiliates so you’re mostly only going to be able to interact with customers. If you’re skeptical about devoting someone to social media for your hotel give it a try for 2-3 months and see what kind of results come out of it. It takes a little while to get the ball rolling but once it does you can start to streamline certain aspects of it.
http://www.igougo.com
http://www.likeme.net
http://www.geckogo.com
Hotel Coupons:
If you have an online booking engine of sorts or feel like running a coupon the good ole fashioned way then you have plenty of link building options. Coupons can be a big hit if you’re on some of the bigger sites, so getting a link is just a bonus really. There are dozens of coupon sites and forums and you can find lists already made by other people through Google Blog Search. Be sure to get on these though;
http://www.retailmenot.com
http://www.savings.com
http://www.couponchief.com
http://www.couponshare.com
Widgets & Apps:
If you have a programming budget that’s big enough to tackle an iPhone/Blackberry/Android/Wordpress/Facebook app then I say go for it. If you can get something cool and unique done you’ll be able to grab links from all sorts of places. App review sites are a good place to start and you could also drum up some business via the mobile web.
I’ve seen a few hotel booking widgets that would just list the lowest price or best deal with no ties to an affiliate program. The boutique hotel wasn’t big enough to have its own affiliate program so they were just straight up marketing with a widget on local blogs. The links they gained from it did all the good little things they’re supposed to, rank you higher.
Hotel Link Building Resources:
– Link Building Case Study for Luxury Hotels
– 5 Link Building Strategies For Hoteliers
– Link Marketing For Travel & Tourism Businesses
– Travel SEO Internet Marketing Guide
The fine folks over at SEOmoz have just released access to a new and sexy (I know I have a problem) backlink analysis and reporting tool powered by Linkscape. If you don’t already know about the SEOmoz Pro Tools then let me give you a piece of information that should make your mouth water. Linkscape now contains over 700 billion links from nearly 65 billion pages on the web, so that’s a no brainer for any link builder.
Open Site Explorer is a clean and easy to use interface much like Link Diagnosis except it has so much data I nearly had to change my underpants. For the next 33 hours it is fully open to the public for usage so I suggest you get on it and start playing with it. The best part I think is so far from what I’ve seen are the filtering options which is going to make my life a whole lot easier.
Rand just finished up a meaty post on Open Site Explorer which sums up pretty much everything I’d comment on, so go read his post on it. This is definitely going to be worth the purchase if you’re serious about your link profile, and of course that of your competitor’s!
Hey folks! This is just a quick update to let you know they’re running another coupon for 20% off over at Best Of The Web Directory. If you’re still wanting to get in on BOTW then now is the time to get the deals while they’re hot. I got a lot of on the fence people with last month’s coupon, so here’s even more 5% more off the list prices.
BOTW still is one of the most important links you can have in your profile because of the age and the quality they keep up there. If you have a quality site I wouldn’t worry about not getting accepted for the most part from what I’ve personally seen on my end from clients and my own sites. All you need to do to get the discount is use coupon code NEWYR when you’re checking out any of their marketing products.
what a lot of people who are just getting into the world of link building must understand that it’s the domain’s overall stance that gives out a certain power of link juice. So why do people obsess about getting .edu and .gov links? Well that’s mainly because of the hype, but for the most part those .edu/gov pages have been indexed and around for years and years. Most websites don’t really deserve links from sites like these, and the spam to obtain them is going to do nothing but bring it all down.
What do you think?
You and I both know that there are a lot of excessive link spammers out there, especially when it comes to blogs. If you like at programs like Xrumor, they target weak guestbook scripts, insecure forums and out of date blog comment systems. I’m not sure why I haven’t heard of Bad Behavior until now, but it is definitely worth tinkering around with. There is a wordpress plugin for the likes of me and the other millions of users, but there is also some code to easily integrate into your PHP framework.
I’m planning on getting a forum of sorts going on here soon and the last one was overrun with link spam. Bad Behavior analyzes incoming HTTP headers, the IP address, and other data to determine if it is coming up rotten. Since it is mostly acting at the TCP level you don’t have to worry about the site loading slowly. They’ve tested it successfully on a site with over 100,000 unique visitors a day. There is actually quite a lot to the inner workings of Bad Behavior and they graciously have provided a wealth of information on how it works.
Bad Behavior complements other link spam solutions by acting as a gatekeeper, preventing spammers from ever delivering their junk, and in many cases, from ever reading your site in the first place. This keeps your site’s load down, makes your site logs cleaner, and can help prevent denial of service conditions caused by spammers.
This plugin is of course free and done out of hate for spam, so if you too hate spam as much, make sure to donate to their efforts. I’m going to be testing the plugin out over the next month so I’ll update this thread with any notes on how it performs. If you have any questions ask away in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them.
Download Link: Get Bad Behavior Here
Blocked Googlebot Warning: http://expressionengine.com/forums/viewthread/63850/
Thanks to Alex from Application Developer who pointed out this to me.
