A River Bed is a self-contained retreat at Airey’s Inlet on the Great Ocean Road.

Already doing well domestically, Wendy Deighton is looking at ways to get the message out to potential visitors from overseas.

Given that the Great Ocean Road is a highly popular destination, we believe Wendy’s best bet is to have a presence on dynamic destination-focused sites, and this reflects her own plans to forge strong online links.

She is already listed on OzStayz, GreatOceanRoadHolidays.com.au and we have just put her in touch with Tim Kottek and Yvonne Hunter at GreatOceanRoad-Torquay.com.au.

These sites will certainly help to bring her attention from an overseas audience.

She is also keenly aware of the need for thorough keyword research to attract more visitors, and recognises something that we have also recently discovered – ‘kangaroo’ is one of the most highly searched wildlife terms!

Kangaroos have been seen on the front lawn and often on the other side of the river which guests can view from the studio – something that will definitely help her to get the attention of overseas visitors wanting a truly Australian experience.

Wendy also points to the difficulty some small operators face when clients want them to arrange every aspect of their trip for them.

Tourism operators aren’t travel agents, and you don’t want to spend time organising a complete holiday when you only benefit from one small part of the package.

Creative packaging with other tour operators in the same region can give overseas visitors exactly what they’re looking for though. Then all they have to do is book transport – very easy to do online.

In addition, each operator involved in the package promotes the whole deal, which brings more attention to you.

Beyond this, linking into the best destination sites and relevant online travel agencies means even if you get a direct enquiry from a high-maintenance client who wants more than you are able to offer, you can refer them to your affiliate site.

By funnelling destination searches into an effective site with recommended tours and accommodation neatly packaged – we believe operators such as Tim, Yvonne and Wendy could be onto a winner.

Profile: Forging links that bring traffic

Live History is an example of a site that we have converted to our platform, giving the business owners, Judith and Chris Cornish, more opportunities to get their story out to their target audience.

The new site has the same look and feel of the old one, and the content has been transferred to the new structure. So why is this one better?

Because it has all the online marketing tools that are vital for positioning the business, bringing in traffic, encouraging conversation, increasing conversion and boosting bookings. For example:

• Keyword analysis told us to put Hobart into the domain name to attract more searchers wanting things to do when they visit the city, helping to put Live History on the Internet highway instead of the backstreets.
• Like all OM4Tourism sites, this one is designed to be highly visible to search engines, bringing more traffic to Judith and Chris’s door.
• A blog with email subscription enables Judith and Chris to post regular news and updates to keep visitors engaged and enrich their site content.
• Clearer testimonials and accreditation are important conversion tools – they tell site visitors that this is a good quality experience.
• Easy access to booking and travel information with a prominent contact form helps visitors to incorporate the tour into their holiday and encourages them to enquire and book online.

In addition, Judith and Chris now have access to Google Analytics to help them track where their site visitors are coming from and what terms they key into Google to get to the site. They can then incorporate these search terms into their content to attract even more attention.

Here’s Judith’s response to the site set-up process:

Thank you so much to both you and Glenn for getting us set up with this new site. I know that it won’t be long before I am blogging with the best of them and our testimonials are flowing in from satisfied clients!

As Live History develops, Judith and Chris will be blogging their news regularly and uploading more images and testimonials. As they develop new performances, they can add new pages to the site very easily – if you can manage Word, you can create a page in an OM4Tourism website. And as the content builds over time, so will the authority and PageRank of the site, turning it into an online magnet for Hobart visitors.

Converting your existing site for better online marketing