Category Archives: Google

We’re just a few short months away from professional virtual reality (VR) headsets to hit the consumer market in a storm of holiday promotions, and the future is here.

Google Cardboard  - Free Consumer VR

Google Cardboard, an approximately $20 box frame with plastic lenses, went on sale this year as a proving ground for this new technology and it’s been a wild success. Google brings the concept to anyone who wants to explore the new tech, with free designs for the cardboard headset also available on their website. Reminiscent of the red plastic View-Masters of the late 1980’s, these cardboard boxes have a simple slot for a cell phone. All you have to do is download a VR app to a smartphone and the world of virtual reality is in your hands. 

You may have noticed lately that there has been an increasing amount of odd-looking referral websites cropping up in your Google Analytics reports. This is known as referral spam.

Whilst this traffic doesn’t normally harm your website, it can skew your web traffic analytics because they often have a low visit duration and high bounce rate (yuk!).

There are three types of spam traffic - here’s what it is about and how to deal with it. Maybe grab a cuppa tea first because, let’s be honest, this isn’t the most exciting thing you’ll ever read.

1. Well behaved bots

A "bot" is an automated computer programme that visits your website to gather information, e.g. a search engine bot crawls your site to determine how to rank it in results.

Many of these bots – aka “spiders”...

All we seem to be reading about at the moment is the Google Mobile "Armageddon", the premise that on the 21 April if you are not mobile-friendly your website will be surreptitiously wiped off the face of search.

But it’s not quite all that dramatic. Let’s look at what is actually involved and whether you should be panicking just yet.

WHAT’S SO BIG ABOUT MOBILE?

We've been telling our tourism clients this for some time now: you must invest in a mobile-friendly (ideally responsive) website to succeed online. It’s no longer a “nice-to-have” - it’s a must-have.

• There are 1.08 billion smartphones in the world
• 50% of local search is done on a mobile device
• Nearly half of consumers say they won’t return to a website if it doesn’t load well on mobile

Last year...

Although the majority of top-end luxury travellers may make their bookings with an agent, it is their friends and family, search engine results, online videos and loyalty programs that inspire and influence their choices.

The results are just in from a report commissioned by Google to help them better understand the affluent US traveller and the role that online resources play in their choice of airline, cruise, lodging, car rental and holiday packages.

Trip Inspiration & Research

One of the most significant pieces of information revealed is that friends or family and the Internet are both equally influential as the number one source for inspiring a trip. Moreover, when it comes to planning and researching for a holiday, the premier sector turns to the Internet 87%...

Marketing is considered by many as a game of guessing, hoping, finger crossing and watching to see if there is a result, never really ever knowing what the return on investment truly is. The good news is, as the online pay per click model is being adopted by more and more channels, ROI for both intuitive and intentional marketing can well and truly finally be measured. Let's look at how to measure the returns and where the opportunities lie.

Search Engine Marketing or Price Per Click

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a very simple model where by you pay per click (PPC) for a set of keywords/search terms and the price per click is determined by how popular the search term is that you are targeting. A per day and per month budget can be set.

Now a days it is a stretch to call it...