Hospitality Internet Marketing and Online Travel Promotions

Milestone delivers a complete package of internet marketing strategies, including website optimization and web promotions that drive quality traffic to your site and generate bookings. We develop an integrated and targeted internet marketing plan that puts your hotel listings at the top of the directories and search engines that matter most to your business.

Once a website is designed with the right strategy and is fully-optimized for the search engines, Milestone will promote the website so that people can find it when they search for things relevant to your market. There are multiple strategies involved in the successful promotion of a website. Milestone’s proven strategies are a mix of the following three strategies:

Organic Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization is an all-encompassing term that covers several aspects of organic promotion. Milestone promotes the website using several different techniques for organic optimization. Some of the key elements of Organic Optimization include the following:

• Content Search Engine Optimization entails writing keyword-rich meta tags and enhanced content for your website based on targeted online research. Milestone does extensive keyword research and embeds keywords in the content of the website to drive relevance on the search engines. Several unique strategies are used to develop keyword-rich meta-tags, titles, and descriptions for all the pages of the website. These strategies also result in high-conversion snippets in the search engine results pages.

• Search Engine Submissions - Once the SEO is implemented on the site, Milestone enrolls the website in search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and other major engines including local search engines. Milestone targets multiple levels of channels within the primary search engines. Websites are hand-submitted to each of the engines with uniquely written titles, descriptions, and keywords tailored for each search engine’s criteria.

• Directory Listings - Directory Listings are a key element in securing relevance for a website and driving higher placement organically. Milestone segments the 3rd party sites into 4 major categories - local, regional, national, and niche directories. Milestone maintains a database of over 7,000 lodging directories and brings in links depending on the client’s marketing strategy. These directories are segmented into multiple groups – by niches – beach, park and fly, skiing, weddings, spa, meeting planners, etc. Furthermore, these directories are also segmented by their reach – local, regional, national, and niches, and by state. In terms of our philosophy for generating links, we believe that only good quality links that are relevant matter. Our overall strategy and our proprietary methodology is one of our core intellectual properties and is one of our biggest differentiators in driving revenue for our clients with a very high ROI.

• Social Media Optimization – Milestone promotes client sites in several Web 2.0 social media site such as Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, etc. For more details about our optimization strategies in the social media channels, please contact Milestone directly.

• Ongoing Optimization Review and Algorithm Updates - Milestone's Search Engine Optimization is a continuous monitoring and improvement process where we regularly evaluate the optimization of your website against the targeted search terms your consumers are using to find you. Search engines constantly evolve their algorithms to make their results more effective. Milestone provides periodic updates to ensure your website is up-to-date with the latest technology changes in the search engine universe.

We have developed promotional plans which define the strategy for our client over the time-frame of the contract. Our well defined plans and our software help us maintain quality and consistency across clients and across campaigns.

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Pay-per-Click Marketing

Pay-per-Click marketing is search engine promotion where your ad shows as text link on the top or side of the Search Engine Results Page under “Sponsored Links” when people search for things that are relevant to your business. You only pay when the consumer clicks on your ad. How much you pay is determined by online bidding between all advertisers - the position of your ad depends on the bid, ad quality score, relevancy of landing pages, etc. Milestone recommends that the client conduct pay-per-click campaigns in conjunction with organic optimization. Milestone utilizes state-of-the-art technology to track the confirmed reservations and the phone activity generated as a result of pay-per-click campaigns. Pay-per-Click campaigns can be run using our automated tool or a manual process:

• Automated PPC Campaigns – Involves auto-generation of keywords (some keywords are specified manually). The bidding for keywords and the placement on search results is performed using sophisticated algorithms that maximize the return on investment on a real-time basis. Milestone provides detailed reporting (24 x 7 client access) regarding Return on Investment analysis for phone calls generated and reservations received using Reverse Proxy technology.

• Manual PPC - Milestone e-commerce strategists run the promotion campaign. Milestone uses its extensive background in the hospitality search engine marketing industry to optimize the campaigns and fine-tune the campaigns to maximize the return. Milestone provides detailed reporting (24 x 7 access) on Return on Investment Analysis to track the phone calls generated (Milestone’s Phone Wizard) and reservations received. Milestone’s strategies and methodology drive a significant return on investment for our clients. Some key elements of our differentiation include using our lodging industry background to select keywords, define geo-targeting, and direct the ongoing management of campaigns. For more details regarding Milestone’s PPC plans and strategies, contact Milestone.

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Brand.com Website Promotion

Milestone works with several brands to promote either individual franchisee websites on brand.com or to promote regional and corporate brand websites. All the promotion strategies described above are applied to the brand website promotion in conjunction with the guidelines established by the brand.

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