* How Strong Is Your Website? *

Posted on May 17, 2017 by traveljunkies

This is Website Grader’s analysis of traveljunkies.com

How strong is your website?

Your website is the window to your business and like everything, first impressions count. Without a website, you don’t exist, and it’s the same if nobody can find your site.

But it’s more than that.

We help by sending traffic to your website using your free advert, but it’s your website that actually does your selling, and your success is down to three main factors.

1. Performance.

An optimized website’s is crucial to its performance, increasing traffic, improving conversion rates, generating more leads, and increasing revenue.

Page Size. The heavier the site page, the slower it loads. For optimal performance, page sizes should be below 3MB
Page Requests. The more HTTP requests your website makes, the slower it becomes.
Page Speed. Webpages should load within 3 seconds. Any slower and visitors will abandon your site, reducing conversions and sales.

2. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Your website must be easy for users to discover—and easy for search bots to understand—with better page titles, headings, and descriptions.

This might sound technical but can be broken down into four simple parts.

Page Titles. Page titles should be no longer than 70 characters in length and not repeat keywords.
Heading tags distinguish headings from core page content.
Meta Descriptions. Meta descriptions should be no longer than 155 characters in length and should be relevant to the page.
Site Map. Site maps help users navigate your site quickly and easily.

3. Mobile

In today’s world this is the most important factor.

Various reports give varying percentages of searches made by mobile devices but the simple fact is more than half of all searches are made on mobile devices and growing fast.

For some time now Google penalises websites that aren’t optimised for mobile.

What Does Website Grader Do?

Hubspots Website Grader analyses your website and gives you an overall score out of 100, plus individual scores for each of the above factors plus a score for Security.

It makes recommendations on what to do next to increase your sites ratings and improve your website’s performance.

It’s completely free, takes just a few minutes and doesn’t require you to enter your email address or any personal information.

Go to http://websitegrader.com and enter your website URL and in a few minutes your results will be displayed on the screen.

What you decide to do next is entirely up to you and will obviously depend on the rating your site gets and the recommendations the report makes.

A side bonus is that you can enter any website URL even to see how your competitor’s sites are performing.

Please contact us and drop us a quick reply if you have found this useful.

Thank you

Cliff & Alison
Traveljunkies

PS. Get your website graded here

Please pass this on to any colleagues, friends or even competitors.

* How To Get Found On The Internet *

Posted on January 30, 2017 by traveljunkies

Getting found on the Internet is often a matter of luck that someone happens to search for a word you have on your site that few others use.

It’s a fact that the more popular relevant words are used by most sites and those with the deepest pockets dominate.

And the same applies to advertising.

So how do small business owners compete? How do you get found on the Internet?

We have owned the domain traveljunkies.com since 2002 which is why a Google search for traveljunkies or travel junkies produces a quarter of a million results and we are at the top of page 1. And the same applies for searches on Bing, Yahoo and even the top Chinese site Baidu.com.

When we advertise we use this tactic to get more people interested.

Imagine Being Found Even When People Aren’t Looking For You

For Example: If you run a hostel, B&B or Hotel and there are activities in your area, your advert could look something like this.

Friendly quality hostel accommodation, 10 mins beach, 20 mins city centre, dorm, single and double rooms, pool, transport, full facilities, great value hostel. Prices from $20 per night. Water Sports and many other Outdoor Activities can be arranged nearby Tel: xxxxxxxxxx

ooo

It’s all about using the keywords people search for.

Adding a short sentence in your advert (see Italics) that has some connection to your business, greatly increases the range of your advert at no extra cost.

Just make sure it’s relevant for the people making the search.

You don’t want to be a spammer.

And finally – don’t advertise where you are just listed with everybody else.
Advertise where a search will find all your key words in your advert.

Please note – Premium Adverts in Traveljunkies are suspended due to Coronavirus

——————————————————————————————–

It’s A Visual World.

Posted on December 14, 2016 by traveljunkies

Why You Should Use Pinterest For Your Business

The brain processes pictures 60,000 times faster than it processes text.

FACT: The life of a Pinterest pin is 1600 times longer than a Facebook post.

FACT: The average Pinterest user spends 14.2 minutes every time they log in.

FACT: Pinterest was the fastest growing social network in 2014, growing by a whopping 97 percent!

With numbers like this, you can see what a powerhouse Pinterest has become.

Things you may have heard about Pinterest:

Only women use Pinterest.

Not true any more, but not a bad thing for the travel business. It’s a well known fact that women are more involved than men in planning holidays and often make the final decision.

People only pin pictures about food, fashion, weddings & lifestyle.

Again this isn’t true, but aren’t holidays part of lifestyle anyway.

Your target audience isn’t on Pinterest

Oh yes they are because almost everybody is your target audience.

It’s too time consuming and you don’t have time for another social network.

But shouldn’t you be spending your time on where your customers are looking for what you sell.

If you have a business to advertise and want to reach out to a whole new audience, then Pinterest must be for you.

Compared with a Facebook Post that might only be seen for a day or two by your Likers, or a Tweet that will flash by in seconds, pictures on Pinterest get pinned and repinned often for months afterwards to an ever increasing audience, because every repin is somebody helping to promote your business.

AND ANOTHER FACT: 80% of all pictures on Pinterest are Repins.

There are thousands of articles on the Internet about Pinterest tips and techniques but it’s very important to know how Pinterest works otherwise you will spend time posting pictures and wondering why nothing is happening.

There are many beginners guides but the one we used and I highly recommend is Melanie Duncan’s excellent program, Power of Pinning, which takes you through the steps to be very successful using Pinterest.

Click on this banner to see how Pinterest can help grow your business.

There’s a full 60 Days Money Back Guarantee with no questions asked so you really have nothing to lose.

Make the most of your pictures to grow your business.

Please leave a reply & tell me what you think, thanks

Best wishes.

Cliff Chapman
traveljunkies

* HOW TO CREATE A PODCAST *

Posted on September 14, 2016 by traveljunkies

Why Create a Podcast?

For some very compelling reasons including:

The proliferation of smartphones
All-pervading bluetooth technology in cars and homes
And the powerful ability to start a conversation with an audience that’s keen to hear what you have to say or are interested in buying what you are selling.

Listeners can hear you on their morning jog or daily commute, time often spent listening to music, and you have your audience tuned in to what you have to say or promote or sell, even if they only have a few minutes to listen.

Here’s a simple road map for creating a podcast

It can be a bit daunting to get started for the first time which is why the team at Copyblogger have produced this road map for creating a podcast.

Creating great audio content involves many steps and these are the simplest and most effective ways when starting from scratch.

Even if you’re just writing and recording a script and letting someone else do all the production work, this road map will help you appreciate everything that comes together to create a podcast

Read more about why Copyblogger is betting big on podcasting … http://rainmaker.fm/audio/rainmaker/copyblogger-podcast-network/

Do you have a blog? If not, why not?

Posted on August 26, 2016 by traveljunkies

27 Awesome Blogs about Blogging

Written by: Eric Brantner on May 24, 2010 – 7:52 am

Rating: 9.3/10 (3 votes cast)

So, you want to be a better blogger, eh? Well, you can either try to go out there and learn everything on your own, or you can pick up some helpful tips from these 27 awesome blogs about blogging.

I’ve included a short quote from each blog’s about page so you can learn a little more about them.

1. Problogger—”This site is dedicated to helping other bloggers learn the skills of blogging, share their own experiences and promote the blogging medium.”

2. Copyblogger—“Copyblogger is all about helping you get traffic, attract links, gain subscribers, and sell stuff!”

3. How to Make My Blog–”I am Marko Saric and I write articles on all things blogging. I am a blogging consultant and I help bloggers with their WordPress blogs, with Thesis Theme, with branding, blog promotion, search engine optimization, and affiliate marketing.”

4. Daily Blog Tips–”Daniel Scocco started developing blogs and websites in 2005, and Daily Blog Tips is the place where he shares what he learned along the way. The blog was nominated under the “Best Web Development Blog” category in the 2007 Weblog Award.”

5. Dosh Dosh—”Dosh Dosh is a blog offering internet marketing and blogging tips, alongside social media strategies. Best consumed by bloggers, entrepreneurs, web publishers, marketers, freelancers and small business owners.”

6. John Paul’s Blog—”I am a Blogger and Internet Entrepreneur and a Kidney Transplant Recipient. I have been making money online for 6 years. This blog is a keep it simple, no BS, how-to on how I can help you become a Blogging Entrepreneur too.”

7. Blog Herald—”The Blog Herald is a premier source of news, information, tips, and commentary on blogs, the blogging industry and bloggers worldwide. It has often been cited by both the mainstream media and bloggers as a reliable source of facts, figures, opinion and trends about blogging.”

8. Successful Blog—”Strategy, ideas, social media, and the business of a successful blog and online presence. Successful Blog is where bloggers meet…”

9. Blogging Pro—”We regularly discuss a wide array of blogging-related topics, from personal blogging, to blog monetization, to the technical aspects of blogging and even other emerging forms of new media.”

10. Blogtrepreneur—”Popular entrepreneur blog for young entrepreneurs and small business owners who demand excellence in business.”

11. Blogsessive—”Blogsessive.com is the place where you can find blogging tips, WordPress tools and plugins, themes and answers to your blogging related questions.”

12. Lorelle on WordPress—”Helping you learn more about blogging and WordPress every day with help, tips, advice, and techniques for blogging and using WordPress and WordPress.com. ”

13. Fuel Your Blogging—”Fuel Your Blogging is here to make you even better. We know, we know, you’re already a kick-butt blogger who knows your stuff. We’re here to make any new blogging stuff even easier to come by.”

14. Thou Shall Blog—”Blogging is all about sharing and learning. This blog serves as a personal journal documenting my journey into blogosphere to discover the unknown and sharing what I learn along the way in the hope that somehow someone will benefit from it.”

15. Blogussion—”Blogging tips and tricks including making money blogging, designing a WordPress blog, search engine optimization and more blogging tips.”

16. Kikolani—”Kikolani is about the art of blogging – blogging tips, social networking strategies, and other useful information to help bloggers become more successful in blogging.”

17. The Blogging Academy—”The Blogging Academy is resource for bloggers and webmasters. We offer unbiased blogging advice and blogging tips on how to get the most from your blog.”

18. Performancing—”Helping bloggers succeed by creating a home for professional bloggers and a place where those new to blogging have a one-stop resource with tutorials, analysis, tips, metrics, plugins, themes, jobs, monetization tools and a community base to share ideas & build strategic relationships.”

19. Build a Better Blog—”Creating A Business Blog: Tips and Tricks from The Blog Squad Denise Wakeman, Business Blog Consulting and Online Marketing Advisor.”

20. Tycoon Blogger—”This blog is a hybrid between a personal blog and blogging tips blog.”

21. Blog About Your Blog—”This blog is a hybrid between a personal blog and blogging tips blog.”

22. Mextena—”Blog Dealing with Blogging Tips, Make Money Online, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media News, Tech Updates and more.”

23. Top Ten Blog Tips—”Top Ten Blog Tips – a simple concept that provides exactly what it says – lists of blogging tips.”

24. Smart Bloggerz—”SmartBloggerz helps people to be a successful blogger and teaches how they can make money online. On this blog, My aim is to provide quality articles in simple to understand way which won’t make you confused while exploring how to be a better blogger.”

25. Bloggers Passion—”I started this blog to share the blogging news and tips, my personal experiences and what you can do and what you should do to become a successful blogger. Blogging is an art and the more you do it, the more you perfect you become.”

26. MyBlog2Day—”How to blog and make money from blogging is not a myth anymore. Here is step by step tutorial teaches you how to blog with success.”

27. BizChickBlogs—”Here, new bloggers and those who seek to improve their blogs can find content to help them start from nothing, and create a blog with readership and community. I enjoy helping women in business launch successful blogs, so if that’s you, please feel right at home!”

Visit traveljunkies – the adventure travel directory & search engine, like google only smaller

How To Make Your Adverts Work Better

Posted on July 1, 2016 by traveljunkies

“When things are good you should advertise, when things aren’t good you MUST advertise.”

Advertise your website, not your services or products.

Traffic is the lifeblood of your website, without traffic your site is dead.
If no-one sees it, it might just as well not exist.

To attract visitors to your website, advertise your website not your services or products.
Your website does your selling so don’t make the mistake of making your adverts a mini version of your website.

[more …]

Include a wide range of keywords and key phrases in your adverts.

As well as the keywords for your own business, think wider. Include key words and phrases people might use when they aren’t specifically looking for you.
For example, if you provide accommodation, include words for nearby attractions and activities. People searching for tours, scuba diving, sightseeing etc. will often need somewhere to stay so use these kind of keywords in your adverts,

Be friendly, helpful and contactable.

Make it easy for people to get in touch with you. Many adverts fail because they’re not user friendly or don’t tell visitors what to do next.

Don’t forget your Call To Action. Tell people what to do.
Include your name and contact details and encourage people to contact you.
Keep adverts short and to the point as many are read on mobile devices.

Use Social Media to promote your business – it’s free.

Always include links to your social media sites in your advertising and emails.
Link to Facebook, Twitter, Pinit and Linkedin. These four cover the widest range of prospects.
Limit it to four. More than four can look like spamming.
Promote your Blog in the same way you advertise your website. Then use your Blog to promote your website.

Make sure they’re mobile friendly

See more – http://www.traveljunkiesblog.com/mobile-friendly/

One more thing …

If your advertising isn’t working, stop doing it. Do something else.
You run your business to make money so find out how, where and when to advertise to get the best value for your money.

Cliff Chapman
traveljunkies

China To Take Over Hotels Worldwide?

Posted on February 16, 2016 by traveljunkies

The world has to be prepared for more guests from China: last year 109 million travelled abroad, mostly to Hong Kong, South Korea and Thailand – and to Europe. In the past four years the number of Chinese guests increased by almost one hundred percent on the Old Continent..

Read more … http://www.travelandtourworld.com/news/article/will-the-chinese-conquer-the-hotel-industry-worldwide/

Know – Like – Trust

Posted on January 19, 2016 by traveljunkies

Small businesses – to compete with the big boys …

http://www.traveljunkiesblog.com/2016/01/19/big-businesses-putting-squeeze/

Big Businesses Putting On The Squeeze

Posted on December 19, 2015 by traveljunkies

In a recent survey of more than 3000 small businesses in the leisure industry we asked the question …

What are the two or three things that concern you most in your business?

Not really surprisingly two of the top three were about customers namely …

Not enough customers
Not a regular supply of customers
Not enough time to do everything

These were followed by many comments about cash flow, recruiting and keeping staff and the cost of advertising.

But a number of replies were concerned about the way big businesses use their size, budgets and influence to put the squeeze on small businesses.

So is competion fair?

One of the replies was from Nick Marshall who with his wife Lizzie has been running holiday rentals for nearly 25 years and owns Cairns Holiday Homes in North Queensland Australia.

Nick has seen lots of changes in this time and none moreso than the effect the Internet has had on his business and no doubt on many other small businesses

Here’s what he had to say..

Dear Cliff.

Thank you for the feedback regarding the effect of large corporate interests taking a huge bite out of holiday rentals for doing little more than listing properties.

This was bound to happen. The internet, in its early days at least, offered a far cheaper method for small businesses to potentially be seen. The only way that small business could advertise in the mass media was through the traditional media of the press, radio and tv. For most of us that meant small ads in the classified columns or, at much greater cost, taking out an ad in the weekend travel pages of a national newspaper.

Twenty five years ago that was costing me nearly A$300 per week. In Australia the “rivers of gold” as the Fairfax newspaper group’s weekend advertising columns were known was decimated by the swing to the internet and the rise of eBay and many other alternatives. Not surprisingly they took action and bought a site called Ozstays which became Stayz.

That site had been started as a listing site for holiday homes and apartments in 2001 but soon started listing hotels, motels and resorts – probably because the founders realised that the more listings they had, the more they could sell the site for. Stayz was purchased by Fairfax for about $12 million in 2005 and then sold to Homeaway for around A$220 but that included more than A$150 million of debt. Even so, it was a very good return on investment. Homeaway, which has grown by a string of worldwide takeovers, was after the 50,000 odd listings and gross margin that exceeded 56% in 2012.

None of this should surprise but I really do not see how these very large businesses can survive with their present business model. They are all actively trying to separate the supplier from the customer until after the booking has been made.

Unfortunately, the majority of holiday homes do not have a brand name (such as a hotel might have). Customers are taking a real risk when they book a home without the opportunity to talk to the managers or the owners.

The large sites like Homeaway, those operating under its name and AirBnB are expecting the public to trust their own brand name. Unfortunately, problems are happening ( trashing of properties, theft, prostitution etc) because none of these corporate sites are able to check out their clients. Flipkey is, I think, in a slightly better position because of its association with TripAdvisor which is the giant in customer feedback for all things to do with holidays.

Sure, these large listing sites do now attempt to verify ownership but their whole model is based on the owner or manager providing all the details of the property (copy, photographs, calendar data) when they list.

Homeaway recently passed 1 million listings worldwide and AirBnB has around 600 thousand listings.

With the amount of debt these corporations are carrying, there is no way that they can support their customers by providing a service that answers questions about individual properties. By preventing the pre-booking connection between the customer and the owner or manager, they are essentially saying “Trust Us!”

I do not think this will work because trust is breaking down everywhere at the moment. This provides an enormous opportunity for home owners and managers to get off their butts and build their own websites which will better serve their customers.

Of course, it is very hard to have a one property site which is going to be seen because the gateway is Google and there are only so many page one spots. Having said that, there are still many home owners who are not making use of Google Local for Business to be seen.

Property owners have to get together with other property owners in the same region or even the same suburb in large cities. Some areas already have well run websites specialising in that area. Support them.

Getting a good domain name is not as hard as it might seem. A name containing the name of the suburb, the village, the town, the region or sub-region or region is often available. Building a wordpress website is the easiest and least costly part. The hard bit is keeping the website updated and running an interesting, relevant and useful blog on the site to build up authority.

It is hard work and very time consuming. The days of list and forget are over – unless an owner wants to spend thousands more for elevated listing positions. It takes commitment and contribution by the owners to make it work.

Those who don’t take the plunge now will be lost in the listings. There is a wealth of good advice on the web – Matt Landau and Heather Bayer for example. This subject was touched on at the Vacation Rental World Summit this year. The cost of the webinar recordings is a small price to pay for the great advice offered.

The web is about doing it yourself rather than expecting others to do it for you.

Yours sincerely,

Nick Marshall

http://www.cairnsholidayhomes.com.au

Some pretty insightful words from Nick not only about the effect of large businesses but also about the difficulties businesses of all sizes face in the rental property market, and some advice to owners and future owners of rental properties.

We also heard from Christopher de Hrussoczy-Wirth, Kitsilano Cottage, Vancouver, Canada who sees the financial clout big businesses have on the industry and how they infliuence local government, and from Uwe-Dorte Bockwoldt of Tyll’s Dive, Roatan, Honduras who says that much of the solution is in their own hands.

Christopher wrote …

First would definitely be the incursion by big captial into the highly successful realm of residential based accommodations industry. The folks behind the vast infusion of capital into the directory listing and booking parts of our industry are ill suited to support and cater to the actual needs of what started out as a bunch of Mom & Pop operations. We really don’t want or need corporate types telling us how to run our businesses. Yet their deep pockets have given them a strangle hold on a segment of the accommodations industry that is now being victimized by its success.

Another concern that is escalating is the prospect of increasing local government regulations, mostly being driven by major hotels who see our industry as a threat to their bottom line.

——————————–

Uwe-Dorte wrote …

Hi Cliff

Have enjoyed your tips and hints.

The travel and tourism industry is very competitive and as small businesses we are invariably stretched for time and in many cases don’t have the necessary skills to compete with bigger businesses.

As a very small business, The ups and downs during the year can be concerning. We are aiming to get a a more steady flow again.

We do not need to be crazy busy, but need steadiness. We are building it up getting more and more repeat divers.

We are sliding down our rank in Tripadvisor. We do encourage new divers to make a review. But having so many repeat divers coming several times a year for years, it is hard to expect them to continue putting on reviews after each visit. The bigger shops have bigger turnover and many more people writing reviews.

Am afraid I am not promoting what we do good enough.

So many thanks to Nick, Christopher and Uwe-Dorte for their feedback and to the many otheres who took time to reply to us. It is very much appreciated.

Cliff Chapman

www.traveljunkies.com

If your businesses is being affected by “Big Business Practices” then we would love to hear from you.

Is Your Website Mobile Friendly?

Posted on February 5, 2015 by traveljunkies

How does your website look on mobile devices?

Take this one minute Google Test to see … https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly

It checks …

If text is readable without zooming
Whether users have to scroll horizontally or zoom
If links are far enough apart so that the correct one can be easily tapped
For software that isn’t common on mobile devices, like Flash

And shows …

What Googlebot sees and how it affects your website performance and search engine ranking.
What it takes to earn “mobile friendly” status with Google. This is important because Google, and other search engines, now look for “Mobile Fiendly Tags” when determining Page Rankings and positions.

Check your website here, it only takes one minute.
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly

If your site is Mobile Friendly – Great.

Related
From the Google Webmaster Central Blog November 18 2014.
“A page is eligible for the “mobile-friendly” label if it meets the criteria as detected by Googlebot”

Read the article here …
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/helping-users-find-mobile-friendly-pages.html

Please pass this on to friends, colleagues or even your enemies to help their website design.

Thank you.

Cliff Chapman
www.traveljunkies.com

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