Not to worry. You just need a little knowledge about SEM. Once you understand it, you can begin to use it in your online marketing campaign.

I know terms like SEM and SEO sound like a foreign language. But I would argue you know more about them than you think. For one, you probably already know more money is spent on travel than any other online service. You also probably know two thirds of people book their travel arrangements online. I mean why else did you create a website for your travel agency?

What you may not know is your travel agency’s website fights a battle every day on the search engines. The entire travel agency industry is battling their way to the top of Mount Google. And as the saying goes, to the victor goes the spoils. The coveted prize is more traffic and more sales. What gives these other websites an edge is a secret weapon called search engine marketing, better known as SEM. The more you know about how SEM works, the better chance you will have to increase your online revenues.

To understand SEM you first need to know a little bit about pay-per-click or PPC campaigns. PPC is how you pay the search engines for the ability for people to click on your travel agency’s website. Travel agencies with websites bid and pay for keywords or adword promotion banners. The trick to making a good PPC campaign is choosing the right keywords to include on your website’s content and ad texts. These keywords will attract higher quality traffic to your website. As you know, more traffic means more sales! Choosing the right keywords is only one of a number of SEM tactics to generate more traffic.

Long tail is a strategy used in PPC campaigns. Instead of targeting the most sought after keywords like “travel” or “travel agency” you can target longer phrases that include the same words. For example, “travel agency in Baltimore” is an example of a long tail phrase. It is less used, but more specific to the searcher. As a result, long tail is cheaper and can help your travel agency target a specific audience.

The Baltimore Travel Center is a travel agency that uses SEM effectively. Do a search on Google for “travel agencies in Baltimore” and you are guaranteed to find them in the top five. This is not an accident. They use SEM in their website’s online marketing campaign. Imagine the traffic they receive because of this!

The great news is Google and the other search engines make it possible for small travel agencies to compete for a high ranking. The key is having an SEM strategy in place. Get SEM for your website, and watch its ranking travel to the top!

5 tips to help your travel agency during the web design process.

1. Keep it Simple

There is something called the “grandma rule.” This web design law states your website should be simple enough that your grandma could use it. Don’t force people to have to click on a hundred tabs to book a trip. Even if your site has the best deal, people will leave for your competitor’s because their site is easier to use.

2. Content is King!

Post valuable information. This gives your site credibility. One way to do this is write a daily or weekly blog. Your company’s blog should offer news on travel and other related information. Quality content will help you become a respected source in the travel community. People will comment on your posts and forward them on their favorite social media networks. Valuable information circulates to new customers and creates word-of-mouth. Plus, it’s FREE MARKETING!

3. 24 Hour Service

You may not be able to work the graveyard shift, but your website can! A good web designer will be able to create a backend to your site. This will handle all the administrative duties you don’t have the time to do. It also allows people to place orders for your services at any time of day.

4. Increase Your Reach

The Internet give you access to millions of people. Traditional advertisement is far too expensive and has a limited amount of viewers. A website, however, gives you the ability to market your travel agency to the entire online world!

5. The Customer is Always Right

Your travel agency’s website can improve your customer service. No one wants to wait for a reply e-mail. By adding a “Live Chat” to your site, people can speak with a travel agent whenever they need. The faster you can tend to an online browser’s needs, the more likely you are to get them as a customer.

So there you have it! You don’t need to know HTML or Java to understand the importance of good web design. I know when I had my website designed for my content marketing business it was helpful to write an outline. This made it easier to collaborate with my web designer. Once we had a shared vision of what I wanted, he built the site I needed in one try.

Remember, your travel agency’s website should be user friendly and offer great content. A good web designer will be able to make this happen. You just need to know where to start!

Related Blog Post:

1) people are hungry, and
2) people are using search engines like Google and Yahoo to find the best steakhouse and family restaurant in their neighborhood.

SEM is a key component to ensuring your restaurant’s Web site is found next time someone does an Internet search. Google, Yahoo, and Bing offer restaurants an affordable way to market themselves to the countless people using the Web. If you are not marketing your restaurant’s Web site, it does not exist to the searcher. To have a presence you need to strategize with a professional on how to market online.

Simply having a company Web site is not enough. Your site competes with hundreds of other sites in your local area. The way to achieve a top ranking in a search is by using specific Internet marketing tools. One platform used by restaurants who market their company online is Google Adwords. Google Adwords is an account you set up with Google, allowing you to compete with other restaurants who advertise in your area. Knowing how to put together an effective Adwords account will get your Web site found by potential customers.

The professionals at Webfrootz are experienced in search engine marketing. They will integrate your restaurant’s site with your SEM account. They know the keywords and phrases to include in your ad text, so you can be sure your restaurant is first on the list when a searcher is looking for your services. Restaurants throughout the Baltimore area are getting unprecedented exposure thanks to using online marketing.

Ways Baltimore Restaurants are Using Search Engine Marketing

A great example of a Baltimore restaurant using search engine marketing for their online advertisements is Davinci’s Market & Bistro. Located at 847 Park Ave, this company’s Web site has a top ranking on Google. Potential customers click on their Adwords text and are automatically brought to their Web site. Once they click on to the site, people can browse the restaurant’s menu, make an order online, and find the phone number.

Kali’s Mezze Restaurant also takes advantage of search engine marketing. Kali’s uses their Web site to advertise about Baltimore Restaurant Week going on from January 20-29. You can click on the tab for Restaurant Week and even make a reservation online! Their Internet presence gives them a big advantage over their competitors who are not using SEM.

SEM is a key component to any successful online marketing campaign. Restaurants like Davinci’s Market and Bistro and Kali’s are using search engine marketing to increase their sales to new customers. They know the only way to assure their small business Web site is going to be found, is to market it on all the search engines. This brings them new business and a low cost

People use social media to find out information about restaurants to help them decide where to go eat. A Pew Research study found 55% of adults seek out this information through the Internet. 38% of people rely on search engines, 17% on Web sites, and 3% on social media sites like Twitter. What is unique about social media is it allows people to read customer testimonials about a restaurant’s food and customer service. Research also shows people do not trust traditional advertisement, so the unfiltered feedback they get through social media helps them make confident choices on where they want to go eat.

How Restaurants Use Social Media

Restaurants can build a social media presence in a number of ways. Some restaurants have begun to build brand awareness by placing large flat screen televisions in the middle of their dining rooms with live Facebook and Twitter feeds. The TVs allow people to read comments from fellow diners about the food they are eating and share what is on their minds.

Another option some restaurants are doing is creating a Facebook fanpage. Restaurants all around the country have created fanpages as way to get responses from customers who have went to their stores. Patrons can comment about certain foods they enjoyed, or aspects about their dining experience they found pleasant. This helps restaurants because they can use this feedback to improve on things people are enjoying, as well as modify certain things customers may not like so much. This direct engagement with customers through social media provides free marketing information companies once had to pay large amounts of money to obtain.

Ways Baltimore Restaurants Leverage Social Media

The Cazbar is a hip Turkish restaurant in Baltimore that uses social media in their online marketing campaign. Their Facebook fanpage shares photos of employees partying with patrons, and their wall is full of comments from customers who enjoyed their dining experience and want to share it with others. The wall also allows them to post upcoming events like their New Year’s Eve party.

Sotto Sopra is another Baltimore restaurant using social media. Their Twitter feed shows allows them to share information about their menu and wine. It also is an outlet for them to share fun comments with potential customers. Remember, social media is about building a brand. You develop this perception based on how you express your thoughts and feelings. Sotto Sopra understands this concept and uses it in their online interaction with customers. In one recent tweet they wrote “Way To Go Ravens” congratulating their hometown team on its recent victory in the NFL playoffs. This is a great example of a restaurant using social media to connect with their community while building brand awareness.

Important of SEO for Restaurants

Having an online presence has never been more important for restaurants than it is in today’s competitive market. However, it is not sufficient to have a website that serves to merely represent an extension of your restaurant’s brand. Consumers are using search engines more than ever before to search for businesses either in their area, or in the surrounding areas of their travel destination. As such, the best online marketing campaigns of restaurants are now targeting search engines as the most effective way to bring in new paying customers.

Research studies have shown that 89% of consumers use the Internet to search for local restaurants. Another 43% of consumers will use search engines to find restaurants in which they will likely eat when traveling away from home. With restaurants now considered to be one of the top five most searched categories on the Internet, having a strong ranking for target terms is vital for maximizing revenue.

While being well ranked for the business name of the restaurant used to be deemed incredibly important, most search marketing campaigns are now instead focusing on terms that will bring new in customers. For example, the SEO campaign of Sabatino’s, a highly successful Italian restaurant in Baltimore, would stand to benefit most by using SEO to target the keyword “Baltimore Italian restaurant” in order to perform best for that term in the search engine rankings. By ranking well for those terms through SEO, Sabatino’s will attract a wealth of new customers and, in turn, increase revenue.

By using the most effective SEO tactics in their search marketing campaigns, restaurants will be able to identify the most widely searched keywords that are pertinent to their restaurant brand, and then implement strategies to increase their visibility in relation to the targeted keywords. These SEO tactics may include the optimization of content on their website, using an adequate number of keywords in page titles, and identifying and targeting long tail keywords that are commonly searched by potential consumers. With the SEO focus of its online marketing campaign, the restaurant will perform better in the search engine rankings, attract new customers that search for the targeted terms, and thus, significantly increase their revenue.

In case of Sabatino’s, the restaurant has used SEO to target customers looking for an Italian restaurant in the Baltimore, Maryland area. Those customers that are either new to the Baltimore area, traveling in the Baltimore area, or simply want to try a new Italian restaurant in Baltimore will be more likely to visit Sabatino’s website and eat at the restaurant due to its top ranking in Google’s search engine for the term “Baltimore Italian restaurant“. Due to the restaurant’s online marking campaign, it has seen its business and revenue grow at a substantial rate.

Search engine optimization, or SEO, has become one of the most important and powerful components to the online marketing campaign of restaurants. By improving search engine performance, restaurants will be able to generate targeted organic traffic to their website, and thus gain more new customers than ever before possible. By bringing in more new customers to the restaurant, online marketing campaigns that focus on SEO have the potential to drive revenue up to unprecedented levels.

Restaurant Website Design

It should come as no surprise that the most successful restaurant marketing has evolved to be heavily centered on the Internet visibility of the dining establishment. No longer are the majority consumers using the Yellow Pages and other phone directories to search for local restaurants. In fact, the most recent data regarding restaurant marketing shows that nearly 90% of consumers will, instead, use the Internet to search for local restaurants. More than half of consumers will actually visit the official website of a restaurant with the intentions of viewing menus, directions and hours, photographs, and reviews from previous customers.

As if those statistics aren’t telling enough, further research data indicates that the majority of new customers will have visited a restaurant’s website before stepping foot into the dining establishment. More than 60% of restaurant-goers stated that it is absolutely necessary that they first view a restaurant’s website before eating there. In addition, more than 40% stated that, prior to traveling, they research restaurants in the area to determine where they will eat.

It is clear that consumers are now using the Internet to search for, and ultimately choose the restaurant in which they will dine. In fact, restaurants are now one of the top five most searched categories on the Internet. As such, one of the major keys to ensure restaurant marketing success is to have a website, increasing the dining establishment’s visibility in the exact place that the majority of potential customers are looking.

With that said, simply having a website is not enough to drive new customers to your restaurant’s front doors. The quality of the website, particularly with respect to its web design, will have a major influence on how potential customers perceive your restaurant. It will thus play a decisive factor in determining the true success of your online restaurant marketing campaign.

Those restaurants that have had great success on the Internet have all benefited from various characteristics of their web design. These characteristics, which range from providing pertinent details to staying true to the brand concept of the restaurant, have helped restaurants to capture the interest of potential clients and to convince them that they will have the ultimate dining experience there.

Restaurant Web Marketing Success Story

Superb web design has played a significant role in the success of the online marking campaign of Baltimore, Maryland restaurant Sotto Sopra. Through its display of photos and authentic artwork, the website carries the restaurant brand by truly capturing the Italian essence that defines the dining experience that is to be had at their restaurant. The restaurant’s website includes their contact number to make reservations, and even offers the option of making an online reservation. Customers can sign up for the restaurant mailing list, thus enabling the restaurant owners to communicate with their customer base to keep them informed of special events that they may not want to miss. Like all other restaurants that have had success with their website, Sotto Sopra also provides their dinner and wine menus for viewing. With each of these elements, the website for the Baltimore restaurant serves to increase the customer base, and in turn, increase revenue.

With the majority of potential customers using the Internet to find their next restaurant of choice, it only makes sense for dining establishments to focus on web design as an integral part of the online marketing campaign. For restaurants like Sotto Sopra in Baltimore, Maryland, the design of their website has helped drive business and increase revenue by bringing in new customers, and building loyalty among current ones through website-initiated communication.

Many small business owners admit they know the online resources are out there; however, they do not know how to leverage them. In this 25 part article series, you will read about how to take advantage of the Internet to grow your small business. You will also read about small businesses in the Baltimore area that have already begun to see success via the Internet.

Before we can go in depth on how small businesses can leverage the Internet, we need to have a general understanding of the four components of an online marketing campaign.

These include web design; search engine marketing (SEM); search engine optimization (SEO); and social media.

Web Design

A great Web site grabs potential clients. It becomes the first point of contact for sales. It establishes your credibility in your industry.

What makes a Web site unique from traditional small business advertising is it offers you a chance to make a deeper connection with a much larger amount of potential customers. For example, it allows you to display accomplishments such as positive reviews from prestigious clients, or post photos or bios on employees.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search Engine Marketing increases your small business Web site’s visibility in search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. Pay-Per-Click, or PPC, is the payment structure an online marketing campaign is based on. Every time someone clicks on your company’s Web-site, a small service is paid to the search engine provider. This service fee can range to a few cents to a few dollars. The payment depends on things like the keywords used in your online advertisement and whether the browsing customer purchased an item.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization is another essential component to help increase your Web-sites ranking in the search engine. Ranking is the term used to describe where your advertisement places in the search results. Obviously, you want your Web site to place as high in the search results as possible, and SEO helps make this possible.

Search engines like Google have what are known as algorithms. An algorithm is the “formula” or “rules” a search engine uses to decide which Web sites and advertisements will place higher than others will. SEO is a niche area in online marketing that makes sure your site is following the rules to the best of its ability. As a result, you rank higher.

Social Media

Social Media is the newest component to online marketing. Although it is still in the relative early stages of its development, social media will only have a stronger influence on your online strategy. The best part is, it is free!

Social media encompasses Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Skype, etc. These networking sites offer small businesses a way to connect with potential new customers. They help you meet people in your industry and allow you to focus in on certain demographics.

The SPN is the perfect place to find a job, employee, or project collaborator. Members can catch up on the latest industry news, list and advertise companies, create user profiles, exchange ideas, talk shop, or brag about recent projects.

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Strategy Development & Consulting, Web Design, Website Development, Social Engine Integration.