The Search Engine Marketing (SEM) department completed an analysis of organic website traffic of current simpleview clients.  In this analysis, we compared 2011 traffic to 2010 traffic to determine how well websites performed year-over-year. The comparison was split almost evenly between clients currently receiving search engine optimization (SEO) services and clients not being serviced by the SEM department. On average, all of the websites compared experienced growth in organic traffic; however, clients serviced by the SEM department had a higher percent increase in visits.

Other statistics, such as pages per visit, average time on site and bounce rate were also reviewed. These statistics took a little bit of a hit across most of the websites, although SEM clients fared better on average.

CRM & CMS leader formalizes mobile development services to offer DMOs more features and a true one-stop solution for online destination marketing

TUCSON, January 26, 2012 - simpleview, the leading provider of CRM, CMS and web-based marketing solutions for destination marketing organizations (DMOs) now offers complete in-house development for mobile devices through its newly formalized mobile marketing division.

"The mobile space is becoming more important every day, and soon traditional, mobile and tablet sites will be indistinguishable from one another," said simpleview CEO Ryan George. "We needed a way to help our customers stay ahead of that trend, and there's an ever-growing number of advanced features and products for mobile marketing that we want to offer DMOs. The best way to meet those goals was to build on our expertise in this area and bring all of mobile development in-house."

George points out that while DMOs have other providers to choose from, simpleview's mobile sites offer advantages that other companies can't match:

• A true CRM/CMS integration vs. a latent feed
• The ability to have mobile site forms feed data directly into CRM
• Real-time reporting to partners on mobile listing views, clicks and calls
• Integration with the Destination Travel Network, which generates DMO revenue through enhanced web marketing for industry partners

"With nearly 100 DMO mobile sites already deployed, simpleview now leads the destination marketing industry in mobile development," George said. "And as the leading company in the industry to offer both CRM and CMS, simpleview is now further distinguished as the only company that can provide a fully integrated, one-roof solution for a DMO's most critical areas of operation."

In addition to sophisticated sites for smartphones and basic phones, simpleview offers tablet site development, app development, mobile site packages for servicing meetings, mobile SEO and SMS marketing services.

More information on simpleview's full set of mobile marketing products and services is available online at simpleviewinc.com/what-we-do/mobile-websites-apps/

About simpleview
simpleview helps destination marketing organizations (DMOs) succeed on every front, from convention sales to tourism marketing and day-to-day operations. The company offers integrated products and services including the industry's most advanced CRM and CMS platforms, powerful forecasting and reporting tools, dynamic websites, sites for mobile web, search engine optimization and interactive marketing. Founded in 1991, simpleview employs 95+ people with offices in Tucson, Dallas and San Diego serving nearly 200 domestic and international destination marketing organizations.

Media Contact:
Cara Frank
Director of Marketing & Communications, simpleview Inc.
(520) 575-1151
cfrank@simpleviewinc.com

 

It can be easy to forget about them, but your website's backlinks are important to review regularly. Backlinks, or inbound links to your website from another website, are an important indicator to search engines on how other sites view the importance or relevance of your website. There are a number of factors that search engines use, but in general, links from quality and authoritative sites convey popularity and importance to your website's content.

So, why should you check them?  You'll want to make sure that these inbound links are pointing to existing pages on your website. Some of these links might be old, so the pages they are linking to may have been moved or even deleted from your website. The importance of that link is wasted if the search engines' spiders cannot get to that page and review the content. Maybe you were considering removing the page but find that it is being heavily linked to - you may want to reconsider the move and leave the page if other websites and users find it to be useful content.

Now that you've checked your backlinks and found links that are pointing to pages that have moved or been removed, what do you do? You have a few options. First, and best, contact the website to let them know the page moved and ask if he or she would mind changing the link to the page's new location. If the page was removed, you could suggest another page that would be relevant to their users and content of their page. What if you are unable to reach the website owner and there are a number of links pointing to the old page? Your second option is to set up a 301 redirect to point the incoming link to the new page's location so users following the link can still get to your content instead of receiving a "page not found" error.

There are many free and paid tools you can use to check your backlinks; one of our favorite tools is Open Site Explorer. Just do a search for "backlink checker" and choose the tool that works best for you!

"Frozen bikinis in six, life-size ice blocks are coming to Times Square for one day only, Tuesday, January 24.  The "Defrost Your Swimsuit" ice block campaign kicks off the winter tourism season in Greater Fort Lauderdale.  The Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau is transforming a section of Times Square into a beach oasis featuring palm trees, large ice blocks encasing colorful bikinis and swim trunks plus bikini-clad models frolicking in a beach-on-wheels Beach Mobile."

PRESS RELEASE: Sunny.Org

Or find out more about the GFLCVB "Defrost Your Swimsuit" campaign at Sunny.org/defrost/

Taken directly from The Roanoke Times online, Roanoke.com:

Residents and visitors in the Roanoke Valley can now find restaurants and lodging, search events and outdoor activities, and get directions using a website designed specifically for smartphones.

The Roanoke Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau unveiled VisitRoanokeVA.mobi at a news conference Thursday.

The site uses geo-tracking on smartphones to search for nearby restaurants, events, retail offerings, museums and lodging, and then gives directions. It also highlights discounts and specials at restaurants and hotels and offers weather, photos and a history of the valley.

Part of a $50,000 grant from the Virginia Tourism Corp. paid for the website, said Landon Howard, executive director of the bureau.

"Any business can add its information to the site's database for free", Howard said. Businesses are responsible for updating their own information."

Check out additional video coverage on the Roanoke Valley CVB Mobile Site:

WSLS.com &  WDBJ7.com

Tucson, January 19, 2012 - The Greater Lansing Convention and Visitors Bureau launches two new sites with website redesigns from simpleview.

The Greater Lansing Convention and Visitors Bureau launched their main website, Lansing.org and the Greater Lansing Sports Authority website, LansingSports.org last week with a website redesign from simpleview. Both sites are utilizing simpleview CMS and integrated with simpleview CRM.

The new sites feature integrations with some of simpleview's most robust partners, including Google Maps, traveler reviews from TripAdvisor and blog integration with Wordpress. Both sites also feature a member extranet, trip builder and video and photo gallery.

On the Lansing.org site, a visitor might wonder, why so many pictures of people pointing to their hand? This is a custom familiar to most living in Michigan. Michigan is shaped like a mitten and is considered a "handy" map commonly used by Michiganders when trying to show someone where you are from.

Both sites are currently sporting some of our latest social media integrations with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and their respective blogs. The sites showcase these integrations in the sidebar columns of their pages, the Lansing.org site calls their integration center the "Lansing Social Club" while their sports-oriented sister site nicknamed theirs "The Social Dugout".

Take a Closer Look at Lansing with their newly renovated site, Lansing.org or see for yourself the Spartan pride on the Greater Lansing Sports Authority website, LansingSports.org.

 

Lansing.org - Before	Lansing.org - After
LansingSports.org - Before	LansingSports.org - After

If you're thinking about taking your website offline for a day or two (like today for SOPA/PIPA opposition, along with major websites like Wikipedia), please make sure you're doing it correctly so as to not hurt your SEO efforts. In a nutshell, the advice is to use a 503 HTTP status code to tell spiders that the website is temporary unavailable. Click here to read the full explanation.

For more information on these two pieces of legislation: http://www.pcworld.com/article/248298/sopa_and_pipa_just_the_facts.html

http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/17/technology/sopa_explained/index.htm  

"Red Deer, AB and Vancouver, BC - Meetingmax Systems, provider of the travel industry's most flexible online housing reservation system, today announced the signing of a contract with Tourism Red Deer. The system is being purchased by a group of ten local hotels and will be managed by Tourism Red Deer. The system will be used to manage group housing reservations for sports, convention, and leisure group travel."

INDUSTRY NEWS: MeetingMaxSystems.blogspot.com

"TAMPA -- The National Collegiate Athletic Association's Frozen Four ice hockey tournament in April and the Republican National Convention in August will draw national attention and big bucks to Tampa in 2012.

But in addition, Hillsborough County's visitors bureau has recruited a number of sessions that won't draw a spotlight but will generate local delegate expenditures in the seven-figure range."

BREAKING NEWS: TBO.com

Google's new "Search, plus Your World" format for search results launched earlier this week. In a nutshell, Google now displays Google+ information (photos, posts, etc. from you and your friends) in the search results for those logged into Google, allowing logged-in users to search through private and public material at the same time. We are going to watch this closely and keep our SEM clients updated on how it affects your SEM efforts.

We forwarded our SEM clients a whitepaper we put together last month about the change in the way Google displays keyword data in Google Analytics for those users who are logged into Google while performing a search (they show as "Not provided"). Though we didn't know it at the time, the change may have been made by Google to prepare for this rollout. The keyword information for these logged-in users needs to stay private, as people are going to be doing more private searches now that they can access both their private and public information at the same time through their Google searches.

While we continue to do research to find the SEO changes associated with this rollout, we urge you to set up your Google+ page if you haven't already (http://www.google.com/+/business/) and consider adding the Google+ button to your website.

Find more information about "Search, plus Your World" here: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/search-plus-your-world.html.