The internet continues to be an important marketing tool.  As competition on the internet increases, innkeepers need to be concerned with their website's positioning on the web.  The next time you are on the internet, spend some time investigating your website’s positioning by utilizing some of the resources outlined below.

Research Your Keywords

In order for your website to perform well in search engines, you must target the best keywords.  Find the keyword phrases people use most at http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion  For instance, we plugged in the phrase "Marthas Vineyard" and found that ferry, vacation rental, hotel, lodging, chamber of commerce and MA were used frequently used.   Use this tool to ferret out the keywords you should focus on.  Pay attention to misspelled words, abbreviations and proper nouns.  Try to use them - they can be easy victories!

Research Your Search Engine Standings

The best way to begin researching is to examine your own website’s referrer-tracking statistics.  These will tell you what search engines people used to find your site, as well as the keyword phrases they were searching for.  If you don’t have these statistics available to you, make it your highest priority to get them.  Consult with your webmaster. 
We recommend WebTrends  Live www.webtrendslive.com which is free, password protected, and can be used on every page of your website.

If you want to find out more about succeeding in search engines, visit www.bruceclay.com for a dizzying array of information and tools.   The "SEO Tool Set" has great information on how each search engine works and how you can improve your rankings.  The SEO Tool Set also contains  many tools, but we especially like:

• Search Engine Relationship Chart: A handy graphical chart shows how search engines feed results to each other - this is updated periodically

• Search Engine Ranking Monitor: Rank your site with given keyword phrases

• Meta Search Tool: Shows the top sites for a given keyword

Research Your Competitors

While search engines are important, there are also many other websites that will link to yours and send more visitors than search engines will!  It is important to have links from online lodging directories, your local chamber of commerce, and other sites with travel information for your city or state.

Check out the Marketleap Visibility Index www.marketleap.com/publinkpop  for another neat way to measure your website's link popularity.  This site will measure your visibility in seven different search engines, compare it to up to three of your competitors and lots of other popular sites on the Internet.  This is a great way to find out where your competitors get their traffic from.  Investigate each of the results and see if you can find one that you want to be in as well.  It is important to note that increasing the number of links to your own website will help you achieve higher rankings in search engines.  

Some people use referrer-tracking stats software that is available to the public.  Visit each of your competitor's websites and look for a little icon at the bottom of the page that looks like it is related to a hit counter or statistics – then click on it!  Sometimes it will take you to a complete list of every website that sends them traffic.  By all means, stand on their shoulders if you can.

Do you want to get lots more information on each search engine and the low-down on what makes each one tick??  Sign up for the invaluable newsletter offered by www.searchenginehelp.com for only $97 a year.   Also, view the Search Engine Relationship Chart at www.bruceclay.com for a neat visual representation of the relationships between search engines

Researching your area's best keyword phrases, analyzing your website's performance with those keywords, and comparing your results to those of your competitors are fundamental first steps for developing a strong internet marketing plan. This analysis, combined with an adequate statistics tracking software, will enable you to make informed decisions about how best to allocate your online marketing budget and optimize your site's performance on the web.