Commentary by Annemarie Hunter

The internet governing body ICANN recently announced plans to open up the top level domain system, allowing individuals and companies alike to apply for their own top level domains (TLDs). This paves the way for potentially millions of new domain names from .hotels to .surfing to .whateveryouwant.

There are currently just 21 top level domains available, but with this new announcement, an infinite number of domains could be on the horizon. Brands such as Apple will be able to register .apple, and cities such as Auckland could register .auckland.

But will this have as big of an impact on the online sector as many are speculating? Is it really a big deal?

My initial thought was that this would increase the threat of cyber-squatting exponentially. Would this flood of new domain names force organisations to register all their brands and trademarks to prevent others from obtaining and exploiting them?

This is probably unlikely, as the new domains won’t come cheap. The Wall Street Journal reports that costs could lie anywhere between US$100,000 and $500,000. Also, ICANN will have to approve applications for domain names, and specific brand and company names will only be sold to their registered owners. This will at least provide some sort of quality control. ICANN is also deliberately keeping demand low by strictly limiting purchases to companies and entrepreneurs.

Even so, when this policy comes in to effect next year, generic names are bound to be in hot demand such as .airlines, .holidays, .deals and .jobs - which is likely to lead to some heated bidding wars. The main attraction is that once you purchase a TLD, you could then sell an infinite number of domains to go with it. For example, an entrepreneur could purchase .shoes and then sell any combination of domains from www.womens.shoes to www.sports.shoes to www.leather.shoes.

But how will users react to an influx of new TLDs? Will a specific TLD imply more credibility or authority for specific industries, or quite the opposite? Would you trust a .loans domain over a trusted brand? Or could these provide a means to distinguish actual finance or insurance companies from the phonies?

It will be interesting to see how the big brands respond. They may pass them up altogether, and TLDs could face a similar fate to .biz and .info which have progressively become associated with spammy, low quality sites.

The real value in this change will probably lie in the internationalisation of domains whereby non-English speakers, who account for the majority of internet users, will finally be able to use local language characters in their web addresses.

Which brings us to the search engines, how will they treat the new TLDs? How will language specific domains be treated? And with the more generic terms, how will geotargeting be inferred?

How will the search engines determine which TLDs contain sites of high quality? Will they apply more weight to certain TLDs as they do with .gov and .edu domains? Or will these new breeds struggle in the SERPs? Perhaps the clutter from all the new domains will result in an increase on the premium placed on the originals? Either way, search engines are likely to benefit to some degree as consumers will probably become more reliant on them to find certain sites amidst all the confusion.

It will be interesting to see how this all pans out, but somehow, I just don’t think it’s going to make too much of an impact. The final draft of this new policy is expected in early 2009. If it is approved, ICANN will begin accepting applications later that year.

Over the last few months you more than likely would have heard some of the hype surrounding the Monopoly World Vote. It was hard not to. It spread prolifically through email and word of mouth, was blogged about repeatedly, had huge forum and discussion group involvement and made the news all over the world. It has proven to be a hugely successful and well engineered viral marketing campaign that has spread globally and received an incredible amount of attention and coverage - and it’s not over yet.

Hasbro, the makers of the Monopoly board game, did some incredibly smart marketing with the development of their first ever global edition of the popular game, called ‘Here & Now - The World Edition’. It was a simple idea - replace the iconic properties of the original game with some of the major cities of the world. To do so, they devised an international campaign to involve the global public by allowing them to vote for the 20 cities (out 68 worldwide) to be included in the new edition game.

Within a matter of days, the campaign went viral. Fans the world over urged friends and strangers to vote for their home city or town. Multiple Facebook groups were created and news stories in many countries encouraged their citizens to register and cast their vote.

Here in New Zealand, Queenstown was the only city to make the short list and it too resulted in local news coverage to encourage Kiwis to get on board. The polls closed on February 29th but the buzz continued when a second round vote was carried out for two ‘wildcard’ places. Voters could nominate places, meaning a lot of the smaller, lesser known cities had a chance to make the cut, including Auckland, which made the top 20. Voting for these closed late March.

The microsite where the voting took place (which now redirects to the Hasbro’s site) required an email registration to participate, and allowed for just one vote for one city per person per day. The collection of email addresses was a smart move, as not only did it limit ballot box stuffing, but emails will likely be used to notify voters with campaign updates and of course the release of the new game itself.

So just how successful was the campaign?

• As at the time of this post, Google reports 27,900 pages when searching for ‘monopoly world vote’ and 34,200 for ‘www.monopolyworldvote.com‘. Yahoo! returned 11,700,000 pages and MSN 2,600,000 pages for ‘monopoly world vote’.
• According to Technorati, there were 991 blog reactions to www.monopolyworldvote.com in a range of languages from all over the world.
• A whopping 258 Facebook Groups were created to encourage voting among friends and networks in several countries.
• And according to Quantcat the site received 53,424 unique visits each month from the US alone. Alexa reported a peak of close to 19 million page views daily.

And then there was the news. The Monopoly World Vote made headlines the world over, such as here, here, here and here.

So why was this campaign so successful?

• Hasbro have hit the nail on the head with this concept. Monopoly is a a good old family favourite. It’s a universally enjoyed game which embodies nostalgic memories of childhood and youth. It is already one of the world’s best selling board games, so the campaign was an innovative way to revamp and generate interest in an old product.
• The microsite was well-designed, colourful and user-friendly . It engaged the user and included an interactive map showcasing which countries were in the lead.
• The end result is essentially a user-generated product which involved people across the globe, from die-hard monopoly fans, city proud people, to patriotic citizens of smaller, lesser known countries.
• The idea has fantastic viral appeal and is a perfect ’social media’ fit - the numerous blogs and Facebook groups are a testament to this.
• And then there is the multi-phase approach. First there was the vote for the major cities, then the vote on the two wildcard places, and in August the final results will be revealed. Finally there is the release of the game itself which is sure to generate further buzz and word of mouth when it hits the shops - fingers crossed Queenstown makes the cut!

Recently some of the marketing team here at Netconcepts attended SMX Sydney, a two-day search engine marketing expo held at Luna Park overlooking Sydney’s harbour. The conference had an international guest speaker lineup and a range of sessions suited to the industry newbie through to the more seasoned search marketer.

The following are some of the interesting learnings I took away from the event:

• Signals used by the search engines to determine search quality has evolved over time in the following way:

Search 1.0 - On page factors, keywords etc which lead to spamming, keyword stuffing etc.
Search 2.0 - Off page factors, inbound links & click through.
Search 3.0 - Universal/Blended Search (where we’re at now).
Search 4.0 - Personalised and Social Search.
Search 5.0 - Human editors, human refinement.

• Google’s ‘Universal Search’, the blending of results from a range of search verticals such as images, videos, news, maps and blogs, has proven to be successful.

Image Search - Google automatically indexes all images (unless there’s a robots.txt file) and attributes a loose PageRank score. Image rankings are influenced by the ALT tags, descriptive filenames and text surrounding the image. Google News Search - Check out Google’s Help for Publishers for info on submitting your site to Google News.

Google Blog Search - Get a XML site map, use RSS feeds.

Google Maps/Local Search – It is important to claim and optimise meta data on Google Maps for your local business listings as anyone can claim it. You need a physical address to do so, if you don’t have one get a PO Box.

The rate of blended search results will continue with the addition of books, products, patents and scholar search next on the list.

• The future of Search is Personalisation and Social Search.

The aim of Personalised Search, which is already happening, is for search engines to know more about you in order to offer better, more relevant search results. Google will look at context, web search history, previous clicks, location and your previous search query when displaying search results. Google will also use signals from your Google accounts including iGoogle and Google bookmarks.

The discussion on ‘previous search query‘ was particularly interesting, as this will soon affect organic rankings regardless of whether or not you’re signed in to a Google account. Soon, everyone that accepts a cookie will see their search results alter, depending on what their previous search query was. For example, searching for ‘New Zealand’ and then for ‘travel’ will return search results as if you’d searched for ‘New Zealand Travel’.

• Social Search may be on the horizon.

Search engines may eventually look to use your social networks and social influences to refine and personalise your search results further. There are still a lot of unknowns on how they will actually do this, such as determining which people in your networks will be the influencers and who your ‘true’ friends are.

• Google’s recent roll out of the ‘Search within Site’ feature has had mixed reviews from marketers and site owners.

‘Search within Site’ is the addition of a search box within the search results allowing you to search a site while still on the Google search page. The new service is typically evident with large retail based sites such as the following example for Trademe.

The concerns surrounding this feature are that when you perform a ’search within a site’, the results are produced along with competitor paid search ads raising issues of brand cannabalisation. Furthermore, affected sites feel they are loosing valuable user data which would have been captured by their internal site search boxes.

Google’s defense is that they have data indicating their users do in fact like the new feature, but it isn’t necessarily permanent and may be discontinued is user dissatisfaction is evident.

• A handy tool - if you want to force Google to display search and PPC results for another country, add &gl=us to the end of your search query for U.S results, &gl=uk for United Kingdom and &gl=au for Australia etc.

SMX Sydney proved to be a successful and worthwhile event. There were numerous insights gleaned and the venue itself made for a memorable experience.

I’ve recently returned from a ski trip to Canada and prior to my departure I spent time researching my options online. Deciding which ski resort to visit was largely based on promotions and deals available, accommodation packages, snow conditions, terrain and accessibility. And a lot of this came down to what was returned in the search results.

It got me thinking, ski resorts have it tough. Not only do they operate in a hugely competitive global industry, but they’re seasonal, operating for skiing and snowboarding for just 4 to 6 months of each year.

For ski resorts, the peak winter months are obviously vital. The weeks leading up to opening day are just as important, as these are the weeks where they must aggressively promote and secure a large chunk of their business. But at the end of each ski season, ski resorts typically experience an extended period of down time and most will close until early autumn.

For some resorts however, this down time signals the push to promote their summer activities. Resorts such as Whistler in North America position themselves as ‘all season’ mountain resorts, catering to both winter and summer mountain pursuits. In winter it’s all about the skiing, snowboarding, snowmobiling, snow-shoeing and dog-sledding, while in summer, the focus turns to mountain biking, hiking, 4WD tours and golf.

So how does this seasonality impact on online marketing efforts and in particular SEO?

Whether they’re all-season or just winter focused, ski resorts have a fairly difficult task in promoting themselves effectively online. Resorts have an endless number of important announcements and updates to communicate, and these change dramatically from season to season. The following are 6 online strategies and tactics ideally suited to the seasonal and competitive nature of the ski resort industry:

• Branding & Positioning

Due to the immense competition among ski resorts, branding is vital. There are numerous ski resorts world wide ranging in size, terrain, facilities and prominence.

Resorts that can identify a point of difference and position themselves against the bigger players will stand out and garner awareness over those that don’t. Fernie in Canada is known for its ‘Legendary Powder’, SilverStar for its ‘Family Friendly Resort’ facilities and Mt Ruapehu has taken advantage of being ‘New Zealand’s largest skiing area’. Such catch phrases help to maintain a strong brand while also serving to achieve better search engine rankings for highly targeted key phrases.

• Search Engine Optimisation

Search engine optimisation (SEO) prepares a website to rank in search results for targeted and relevant keywords, and this takes time and effort.

For a number of ski resorts, these keyword phrases change depending on the time of the year. I’ve found that a handful of resorts feature two homepages on their websites, one for their winter sports and one for summer. Depending on the time of the year, the relevant homepage will display and the keywords communicating content to the search engines change accordingly. A few resorts feature a splash page, offering little or no content except the option to choose which season to visit. These are not good tactics for long term SEO.

Benefits of SEO can take months, it is ineffective to communicate little or conflicting information to the search engines. Optimising a resort website for both summer and winter activities should require developing separate pages or websites to cater to the contrasting seasons, as Whistler has done.

Keywords play a fundamental role in any search optimisation effort, therefore seasonal keyword research is vital. Season specific pages should feature permanent body copy which does not change its keyword focus. Title tags, header tags and meta tags should all contain targeted and relevant keywords to effectively communicate the theme to the search engines.

It is surprising to see a number of the big name ski resorts not implementing fundamental SEO best practice – Vail, Aspen, Copper Mountain and Breckenridge Resorts in Colorado lack the use of keyword rich title tags and h1 tags, and have little or no body copy on their homepages. All rank very poorly for key search phrases ‘colorado ski resorts’ and ‘skiing colorado’, despite being the big players in this region.

Link building is a vital component of any SEO effort, as search engines view a link from one page to another as a kind of endorsement. Keyword rich anchor text helps to theme a page in the eyes of a search engine. Ski Resorts should ensure winter and summer specific inbound links point to the appropriate pages, and not to a page with little or conflicting content.

• Pay Per Click Advertising

Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is ideally suited to the seasonality of ski resorts. Its flexibility enables them to quickly respond to any changes within the season, whether from sudden increased snowfall, last minute specials or late availabilities. PPC campaigns can be changed in response to winter or summer operations, or switched on or off at will.

Again, seasonal keyword research is vital. Online searches pre ski season will be different to those conducted mid season. Once summer activities kick in, the keyword targets will be different again.

 

 

• Email Marketing

Email campaigns enable ski resorts to create a long term dialog with a customer base while encouraging loyalty and customer relationships.

Emails are ideal for communicating during the down time when customers aren’t frequenting the websites. An email campaign in the weeks before opening day can generate excitement for the impending season while encouraging advanced season pass sales.

Email marketing is also useful in communicating seasonal changes and updates in response to scheduled opening days, early bird specials, changes in snow fall/conditions, mid to late season deals, accommodation availability, promotions, upcoming events and last minute deals if bookings are down.

• Videos, Widgets and more

When email marketing no longer garners consumer attention or site traffic stabilises or drops off altogether, videos, podcasts, widgets, RSS feeds and mashups are an ideal alternative to other forms of online marketing.

Due to declining email open rates, Vail Resorts developed a ‘SnowMate’ desktop application that supplies special offers, entertainment and information to its users daily. Features such as a weather feed, snow conditions update, resort video clips and travel offers were successful in attracting users and creating a positive brand experience for the resorts.

Videos can effectively promote a ski destination as well as provide entertainment showcasing skiers/snowboarders performing tricks. A number of ski resorts have developed videos for their websites and uploaded them to video sharing sites.

Podcasts, like videos, are marketing tactics which can be matched with the lifestyle of the desired target audience. Killington Resort in the U.S developed regular podcasts aimed at young urban professionals using a ‘snow reporter’ sharing the same demographics.

• Social Media and Online PR

Developing blogs, online articles and press releases provide a ski resort with brand exposure as well as the opportunity to use seasonal keywords to communicate different season offerings. They also provide a means of generating quality inbound links.

Participating in social media and networking sites are ideal in reaching target demographics while offering dynamic and interactive content. Deer Valley in Utah created short video podcasts for YouTube to reach generation Xer’s and Y’s to market the 2007 FIS World Cup. The podcasts were then linked to blogs, MySpace pages, and web sites where their target audience hang out. Canada’s Silver Star has developed a Facebook Group to better connect with customers while Sugar Bowl in the U.S has created a MySpace profile.

Heavenly Resort in Lake Tahoe is perhaps the best example of a ski resort with an effective online marketing strategy. They are relatively well optimised for search and have good visibility in the search results. They have developed a MySpace profile and their website offers a range of initiatives including videos, daily podcasts and RSS feeds for their interactive blog, mountain condition updates and their own TV show.

 

 

The first World Internet Project New Zealand (WIPNZ) survey was conducted in September/October last year by the Auckland University of Technology (AUT).

The WIPNZ surveyed a sample of 1,529 New Zealanders about their usage of and attitudes towards the Internet. The questionnaire focused on areas such as online buying habits, e-commerce, identity, socialising and content creation on the web.

The findings revealed that New Zealanders are changing as a nation as a result of the Internet. In particular, New Zealanders are becoming more sociable with friends and family online, with most believing the Internet is considerably enhancing their social contacts rather than diminishing them.

Also revealed was that Internet access, usage, capability and attitudes are all strongly graded by New Zealanders’ age, income and area of residence. The younger, wealthier and more urban respondents were, the more connected they were, and the higher a household’s combined income, the more important the internet was rated in daily life.

The key findings identified in the WIPNZ survey are:

• 81% of New Zealanders surveyed use the internet.

• 55% of respondents and 66% of internet users say the internet is important or very important to their every day life.

• 61% say it would be a problem if they lost internet connection.

• 76% of internet users search for travel information, 63% use the internet to find health information and 57% search for news at least weekly.

• 83% access information about products online.

• 60% buy things online.

• 62% book travel online.

• 77% check their email every day.

• 71% rate the internet higher as an information source than traditional media.

• 81% of users browse the internet at least weekly for entertainment purposes.

• 20% download or watch videos and 26% download or listen to music online at least weekly.

• 13% of all users have their own website, 10% have their own blog, 27% have posted messages on discussion/message boards and 33% have posted photos or videos on the web. Those who create content tend to be under 30.

• 33% of users say their use of the Internet has increased their sense of identification with New Zealand.

• 64% of users report the web has increased the amount of contact they have with their friends, and 58% report an increase in contact with family members.

• New Zealanders have a strong participation in social networking online with 32% instant messaging and 28% participating in social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook or Bebo at least weekly.

The results of the survey will contribute to an international collaborative project, the World Internet Project, which investigates the social, political and economic impact of the internet in nearly 30 countries.

Further research based on this New Zealand data is to be carried out later this year to investigate further detail and explanation behind the findings.

 

Travel is a fiercely competitive industry and this couldn’t be more evident than when searching for travel online. The web has become inundated with travel related services and aggregators all vying for our attention and competing for traffic and top rankings in both organic and paid search for highly competitive key terms.

For the saturated travel industry, it has become increasingly important to look beyond traditional online marketing efforts in order to stand out from the masses and reach us, the increasingly sophisticated and web-savvy consumers. It is now essential that travel companies embrace new technologies if they’re serious about developing a strong brand, engaging with consumers and growing business online.

Travel2.0 is the Travel Industry’s collective acknowledgment of Web2.0 and embodies how travel companies are using emergent trends online to differentiate themselves in such a vast, competitive and dynamic space.

So what is Travel2.0 exactly? It’s all about empowering us, the users, and encouraging us to participate, create and share travel content with other users on the web. It’s about building communities and enabling a rich, interactive, user-friendly online experience.

We are no longer just looking for the lowest airfare prices or destination information. Instead we’re more interested in finding the opinions and reviews of our fellow travelers over professional travel advice. We want control to create our perfect trip, interact with other travelers and share our own experiences and stories. In response, the travel industry has seen a proliferation of Travel2.0 sites which encourage users to contribute and share opinions, reviews, travelogues, itineraries, photos and videos about places they’ve been to all over the world.

In using and reviewing a number of Travel2.0 sites, the following are among my favourites in terms of offering original, creative and compelling content. Their use of wiki’s, mashups, tagging, blogging and networking provide an experience far out-shining the earlier, stale, booking-oriented travel sites:

TripAdvisor is the original Travel2.0 site with over five million hotel, destination and attraction reviews written by travelers for travelers. This site is great because you can share videos and photos, ‘rant and rave’ about anything you want, or plan and book your next trip with trusted advice and great deals. The site includes a wikis section - material written by a user that can be corrected, altered, or added to by others. TripAdivsor has also recently added a social networking component, basically a mini-Facebook for travelers, enabling you to invite friends to join your network, offer advice on future trips and pinpoint places you’ve visited on Google-powered maps.

Gusto is a travel social networking site which basically combines elements of Facebook/Myspace and del.icio.us. Along with the usual stuff like travel guides, travel deals, maps and a blog, members can bookmark their favourite travel places with a feature called the ‘Grabber’ which allows you to gather, store and share information from any page on the web and save it back to your ‘MyGusto’ profile page.

Rrove is a social bookmarking site for places with a pin map creation tool that mashes up with Google or Yahoo Maps. With Rrove, you can share new places by bookmarking and tagging any destination on the planet, write reviews and create and embed maps on your own blogs, web pages or MySpace profiles.

Flagr is a similar travel bookmarking tool where you’re able to ‘flag’ popular destinations around the world on Google Maps, then add tags, addresses, descriptions, photos and even embed videos for other users to see. You can, for example, create a map to a certain theme such as top ski resorts in North America or favourite New York cafes. You can create private or public maps, ‘flag’ online or from your mobile phone and then send picture or text messages to your friends.

Simpatigo is an attraction mapping site which generates a personalised trip itinerary that includes driving directions as well as short descriptions on attractions that you will pass enroute. Their catch phrase sums it up nicely: ‘We don’t tell you where to go - we just tell you how to get there and what you’ll see along the way’. Great for planning road trips in foreign countries.

Flight Club goes a step further. It’s an air travel social networking community where you can search for the perfect seat mate on your next flight, a travel companion on an upcoming trip, or for those with a painfully lengthy airport transit wait, you can even make a friend who is waiting at any airport at the same time.

This is just a small sampling of the growing number of Travel2.0 sites now available online. New Travel2.0 sites are emerging weekly and offer new and improved forms of interactive content. Travel companies embracing Travel2.0 are engaging with us, joining our conversations, building communities, and leaving those that aren’t missing an important opportunity to reach potential customers in new and exciting ways.