This week Facebook has announced a powerful set of tools to extend the reach of social media beyond their own domain and across the entire web.  You may have already noticed the ubiquitous “Like” button appearing in new places.  This allows users to contribute to their Facebook profile without ever leaving the page they are experiencing.  When users stumble across content they enjoy and click “Like” it will both publish a link to the content on their Facebook profile and publish their name and link to their profile on the external page.

As a Facebook user, its up to you if you want to participate and you can customize how interactive/intrusive your social network experience is outside of Facebook by changing your privacy settings.  But as a marketer there is no reason not to give your clients another tool to promote your website.  The new widgets can be added to just about every type of content:  blog posts (WordPress and Drupal), real estate listings, vacation rentals, events, products and specials can all be promoted by your visitors to their friends without any interruption to their browsing experience.

Even cooler, the data obtained by all this liking is captured by Facebook and shared via API.  Pretty soon we may see the search button become obsolete on many sites.  Why force your clients to search when you already know what they like?  Let’s say you’re a vacation rental manager and your website is visited by someone who has been taking annual Hawaiian vacations and been staying in 4 bedroom beachfront homes, why not serve some suggestions of properties that fit their profile?  Pretty soon your entire web experience may be centered around your own interests and likes without you having to spell it out.

Anyone doubting that it will catch on?  Facebook estimated that over 1 BILLION “Like” buttons had been added within 24 hours of the announcement.

Contact us today to learn about custom Facebook widget implementation options.  Oh, and if you enjoyed this post, you know what to do.

- Braeden Flaherty
Director of Customer Service

Aspen Orthopaedic Associates (AOA) delivers a personalized care experience catering to outdoor enthusiasts from Olympians to young athletes and local weekend warriors.  The practice was founded fifty years ago during Aspen’s quiet years.  Since then, Aspen has become a glitzy global sporting mecca, and the practice has added centers across western Colorado in Glenwood Springs, Basalt and Rifle.

Provided with a fresh design from the team at Cadence Marketing, we redeployed the site on the Site Management Console (SMC) content management system.  In furtherance of their mission to provide their patients with an unparalleled level of care, the site we created for them incorporates several advanced features that will provide their patients with an online experience that is commensurate with the high level of care they’ve come to expect.  For example, patients can quickly and easily request an appointment with their favorite physician, or have their prescription refilled online.

Providing quality educational resources for their patients was an aspect central to the site’s redesign.  AOA really stepped up and made the investment necessary to create a valuable educational resource.  AOA provides the information, interactive animations, and video needed to demystify the often intimidating prospect of having a surgical procedure.  These animations take patients through a detailed step-by-step explanation of the procedure they will undergo. Patients can even print out these interactive descriptions of the procedure, or they can send them around in an email.

The site also has a community blog where you can track the impressive exploits of some prominent patient athletes.  The Doc’s Desk is an informative forum providing an array of event announcements, educational opportunities, research findings, community-related information, and news about the practice.  They also use the site to promote the Aspen Sports Medicine Foundation. (ASMF) This is a publicly supported nonprofit organization, spearheaded by AOA dedicated to the promotion, support and sponsorship of education and research in the field of sports medicine.

Congratulations to the great team that made this great redesign possible. Preproduction came courtsey of Cadence Marketing with design work by Tom Kenyon, development by Five Technology, Lauren did a great job as PM, Moira and Intrcomm made for a smooth deployment and Andrew made the project possible from the sales side.

Many sites have internal site search functionality which allows visitors to search for content, products and more.  Google Analytics can track these site search terms.  Analyzing this data can be beneficial for your search engine marketing campaigns.

To set up site search for a Google Analytics profile, log in and select “Edit” website profile.  Select the “Do Track Site Search” button and then enter your query parameter in the provided field.  You can determine your query parameter by going to your website and performing an internal site search.  For example in http://www.domain.com/search/?q=site%20search%20query the query parameter is “q”.  For more information on setting up Google Analytics site search check out the GA help center.  Depending on the volume of your site, give Google Analytics a few days to collect data and then analyze the data.

Access the report in the content section of Google Analytics.  Identify high volume search terms and compare these to the content currently on your site.  If you don’t already have content dedicated to these topics, consider adding new content.  This will help improve visitor retention.  Strategize on how to generate more search engine traffic from these terms.  Is paid or organic search more appropriate?  In this example, we might add a new page dedicated to area hiking including safety tips and recommended trails for all levels of hikers.  In time we would expect to start ranking in the search engines for keywords relating to [Aspen hiking] and thus we would begin to drive search engine traffic for this keyword.

Check back next week for another Google Analytics’ reporting tip.

Lindsay Reither
Director of Search Engine Marketing & Web Analytics

It is only fitting that we cap off our renaissance summer here at Blue Tent by rolling out a major overhaul of the Solar Energy International (SEI) website. Located just down the road from world headquarters in Carbondale, Colorado, SEI was founded in 1991 as a non-profit organization whose mission is to help others use renewable energy resources and natural building technologies through education and technical assistance. They have advanced this mission by working with grassroots and development organizations around the world to promote sustainability and improve quality of life, while offering a variety of classes and workshops for 18 years.

Having a web presence since 1998, SEI realized the power of the web as a medium to educate and communicate globally.  SEI approached us this spring knowing that, in order to retain their position as the leading force in the non-profit solar industry, their site was in need of a major redesign and redevelopment.

Goals
At the outset of the project, SEI set forth the following goals:

• Build a new site with a compelling design to act as a forum to facilitate SEI’s primary goal of educating people about renewable energy and sustainable building technologies, and be the “go to” online resource to satisfy any level of interest.
• Strengthen SEI’s brand by underscoring its unique history and wide array of products and services offered.
• Create the functionality needed for students to sign up for, and participate in, classes online and in person.
• Provide complete membership sign-up and administration functionality.
• Integrate a comprehensive e-commerce module to sell merchandise, books and DVDs online.

Process
We began by building SEI’s new site on our Drupal based CMS. This platform allows us the flexibility and scalability to add the features and functionality to accomplish the goals SEI set forth. We built the forms, forums, blogs, RSS feed, calendar and video applications necessary to create a trusted online resource for those seeking information about the latest developments in solar energy and sustainable building technologies.

To help facilitate SEI’s educational mission online, we created the custom integrations with Blackboard, so students could access curriculum, the shopping cart for purchasing textbooks, and the next phase of the project will integrate all of this member information seamlessly into their CRM database – creating a comprehensive web application for managing and growing their organization online.

We also created a member’s only area where interested parties can sign up for updates, access additional information and tools or view SEI’s alumni network, and update their member profiles within the CRM database. Down the road, we’ll be looking to enhance their email marketing and communication programs as well.

Conclusion

SEI has been a model client – embracing our holistic approach to internet marketing. Not only did they have the vision and commitment to make an investment in an industry leading web application; they also incorporated search, email marketing, and Google Analytics into their online marketing strategy.  We’re excited to measure the impact this rebirth of the SEI web presence has on their organization. We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to work with such an awesome organization and look forward to helping drive the success of their online marketing initiatives into the future. A big thank-you goes out to everyone that worked on this project!

Akumal Direct Reservations is the premier vacation rental provider in beautiful Akumal Mexico.  This little slice of heaven is nestled in the heart of the Riviera Maya on the turquoise blue waters of Mexico’s Caribbean coast.

Working with Sydney at Akumal, Blue Tent built a sleek and dynamic Drupal site evocative of the warm tropical beaches that make Akumal such an amazing vacation destination.  Apart from eye-catching aesthetics, the real story of the Akumal site is about what we were able to accomplish working with one of our technology partners.  We work extensively with Escapia because they provide amazing property management software platforms for the vacation rental industry.

In order to make life as easy as possible for Sydney, and for her potential online bookers, we created a custom API feed that integrates directly from Akumal’s site to their Escapia software setup.  This custom integration enabled us to design and develop custom property preview and property detail pages with quick search and advanced search features.  Availability is directly populated by the seamless integration with Akumal’s Escapia software to custom calendars on the property detail pages.  Other benefits of this integration include:

Frictionless Booking Process – Prospective clients find a property that appeals to them, learn more about its details, the dates it’s available to rent, and are able to input the necessary info to secure the booking all on one page, without being taken off site.

SEO – Akumal benefits from a search marketing perspective because there is more fresh content for Google and Bing to find and more pages for them to index.

Easy Management – Sydney only has to go to one place to manage her property details, photos, and availability.  She doesn’t need to cross reference with anything else. Sydney can access everything she needs to manager her properties through her Escapia software, eliminating the danger of double bookings.

We’re really proud of this site and the work that went into making this amazing functionality a reality.  It couldn’t have happened with out a solid team.  Thanks to Sydney at Akumal for the awesome content and for being such a great client to work with.  A big shout out to our partners at Escapia for creating quality software and for providing the support to Lauren so she could make the integration happen. Lastly props must go to Sam for building a great customer relationship.

To ensure some good 19-inch dumps, we do a snow dance to the Scandinavian snow god, Ullr. Apart from favorable conditions, you might be surprised at how few in the vacation rental and luxury lodging industry think about the importance of seasonality on their website. For would-be travelers there’s almost nothing more important. Here are a few simple tips for to prep your site for success this winter:

Theme your site for the season. Whether you’re located in Hawaii or Colorado, choose pictures that help your prospects picture themselves enjoying your resort. Change pictures of people rafting or mountain biking to nice shots of people taking face shots in untracked powder. Better yet, configure your site to have a summer theme and a winter theme that your site visitors can select, and that you can quickly update to display as the default theme as needed.

Integrate real-time weather feeds and reports. Snow reports, surf reports, and tidal forecasts will bring potential travelers back to your site again and again, especially during the lead up to their vacations. If you have activity packages such as snorkeling, flyfishing, yacht rentals, lift tickets, ski lessons, etc., be sure to advertise them on your weather page.

Get a web cam and point at the snow or surf. Video feeds are a great way to gain increased site traffic and offer live area information. Watching the sun drop over a sweet set coming in on your favorite break, or watching a storm roll in over you’re the resort you spent last New Year’s skiing with your family at, is a great way to keep people up to date and a unique way to take them from home to where you want them to spend their next vacation.

Put a news block on your homepage. Announce big snowfalls, perfect breaks, or other tantalizing events that make your users want to pull the trigger on that next vacation. Making your site a trusted resource by providing valuable information, if someone uses your site as a resource to check out the surf report or daydream about riding the snow that they are watching fall on the web cam, their propensity to book another vacation is dramatically increased.

Use humor. If you’re in Hawaii, show a picture of a poor soul in Buffalo, NY and then contrast it with a photo of one of your guests sipping a margarita on the beach with something as simple as a “before and after” tag line.

It’s difficult to make large capital investments in your website when rentals are down, but it’s always possible to invest in incremental improvements that will buoy the bottom line and increase conversions. But where should you invest? Try asking your website these five questions and see if you like the answers. If not, consider investigating improvements to one of these key factors.

1. Do you satisfy the rate conscious?
   Renting a house is essentially an e-commerce transaction. Imagine an e-commerce site without prices, or a Request More Information button next to the product. Web users expect easy access to rates based on their target dates, not average nightly rates or generic designations like ‘Economical’ or ‘Luxury.’ In the information age, your site should deliver rates as quickly as possible, ideally at the search results page, based on the dates and length of stay.
2. Do I get results fast? 
   A quick search on the home page should allow users to get down to the business of renting a house immediately. Do not impede this process. The search should be visible on a 1024X768 screen, clean, and inviting. Inviting means simple. Provide a link to advanced search for those who might want to search by more than just start date, length of stay, location and a couple of key amenities. If you have many properties consider offering drill-down or drill-sideways results in a sidebar next to your search results. Drill-down: we have this many results if you narrow your search with “Hot Tub.” Drill-sideways: Show the number of results if a user were to filter by “Walk to Slopes” instead of “Ski in, Ski Out.”
3.  Do you provide enough rental detail and the ability to purchase?
   As a general rule, err on the side of simplicity when it comes to content, so that users can focus on the business at hand without distractions. This rule doesn’t apply to rental details though. If you’re going to rent a house for a week and pay big bucks, you’ll want as many pictures, virtual tours, maps and as much availability information as possible. Vivid descriptions are helpful, as are comprehensive list of amenities with house-to-house comparison options. As a rule, people don’t read on the web, that is, until it’s time to spend money. They will also want real pricing and online booking if this can be provided.
4.  Does my site make helpful suggestions?
   We’re seeing more and more “fuzzy logic” search results on VR sites. Drill down results appear in a sidebar next to large results sets and provide links showing common filters you might want to apply to reduce the overall number of results to a manageable level. A link in this sidebar might look like this: “Add Hot Tub (27),” indicating that the user may want to filter down to only 27 results by adding Hot Tub as a criteria. This link will go straight to the filtered results. A drill up link might suggest that the user remove an uncommon filter from their search for more results. For instance, “With Out Elevator (35).” Drill sideways results allow you to suggest parallel options to your user, for instance the house is available on an adjoining week to the dates searched or if you selected Ski in, Ski Out, you might consider the following link “Walk to Lifts (25).” These types of search services are increasingly common on travel sites.
5.  Do you take advantage of GIS?
   Does your site provide your user with integrated geographical information to help them picture themselves at your location. Offer your search results on google maps as well in list format. If you’re in a large city, see if the public transportation system has an API plugin. For instance, in some large Metropolitan areas HopStop (http://hopstop.com/) let’s you embed a form in your site that will return point to point subway, bus or tram directions. These services add value to your site and provide compelling reasons for your users to return after they’ve booked.

– Seth Brown
Director of Web Projects 

As we say goodbye to 2008 and look ahead to the promise of the New Year, we are well aware of the challenges that lie ahead. It’s no secret that the current economic conditions have created a very tough business environment. Just about everyone has been affected by the financial crisis and the melt-down in the real estate market. And when people lose confidence, they tend to stop taking risks and adopt a “back to the basics” mentality. It’s a time to separate wants from needs and boil our lifestyles, our operating budgets and marketing expenses down to the most basic essentials.

This is not such a bad thing. Because surviving through these challenging times is often what makes businesses better and stronger. It makes us take an honest look at ourselves – to identify what’s working and what’s not – and to make those difficult decisions that might otherwise get overlooked. Frugality is in, excess is out.

This reality certainly also applies to our client’s internet marketing programs. For many, now is not the time to take on big, new projects that require significant expenditures of time and money. Rather, now is the time refocus, refine and revitalize your existing internet marketing strategy. Identify what’s working and find ways to do it even better. Determine which programs are faltering and overhaul them or cut them altogether. Following are some simple suggestions of how you can get “back to the basics” with your internet marketing strategy in order to go from good to great in 2009.

The Year-End Review
You’ve got to know where you are before you can possibly know which direction you need to go. Schedule a comprehensive review of all of your internet marketing initiatives from 2008. Are you able to clearly measure your ROI for each online marketing channel? If not, why not? How will you measure your ROI for 2009? Which programs were the most effective and which ones bombed? Where will you spend your coveted marketing dollars?

Affordable Website Enhancements
Take a critical look at your website. Have you worked to improve it over the past year? What enhancements can be made at minimal cost for maximum impact? Analyze your web analytics data to determine where your site needs fixing. Do certain pages have a higher bounce rate than others? Are your visitors abandoning your site at a certain stage of the conversion process? Look for simple design and content enhancements that will improve the user experience.

Evolve Your Email Marketing Programs
Many of our clients have very good email marketing programs. However, there’s always room for improvement. Make sure your email programs is “authenticated” to increase the delivery rate into the inbox. Measure list subscriber growth and attrition. Redesign old templates that may not render nicely on newer email clients such as Outlook 2007. Segment, test and get creative with more advanced email marketing techniques. Encourage participation and feedback. Remember that it’s about building relationships and good communication. 

Refine Your Search Engine Marketing Strategy
Search engine optimization is one of the more convoluted aspects of internet marketing. Schedule a year-end review with your search account manager to get a clear understanding of how your SEO program is performing. How have your rankings, traffic and conversions improved? How does your paid search (PPC) strategy fit into the picture? Can your campaigns be optimized to be more effective? Can you cut spending on unproductive keywords? Should your paid search campaigns focus on one, two or three search engines? What are your most productive keywords? Are there other long tail keyword phrases you could be targeting?

Assess Your Analytics Program
The core function of your web analytics program is to show you what’s working and what’s not. Are you spending the amount of time necessary to decipher this critical information? Is your Google Analytics configuration as comprehensive and customized as it should be? Are you consistently measuring key performance indicators (KPIs) or do you spend most of your time report surfing pretty pie charts? Make a commitment to understand and leverage your web analytics data to improve your overall internet marketing strategy. Hire a part-time account manager to help you identify and measure key metrics. Discover the actionable data and act on it. 

Thanks to everyone for a great year, and may 2009 bring you peace and prosperity!

Happy New Year!

Josh Lewis
VP Marketing

Everyone has a story. What’s your story about your business to prospective and existing clients? Do they believe you and does your story spread? Should they believe you? From a marketing perspective how can you make sure your story resonates with the people that you want to connect with? Do you tell them what we think they want to hear? Is that guessing? Do you expose every nook and cranny of your business operations, both good and bad? Are you really who you say you are, and how do you prove it? Lots of questions, and probably no simple answers, but I’ll submit the following:

From an internet marketing perspective, being genuine, authentic and real is the most effective way to build trust. Your story must be real and gain the trust of your audience. Gaining the trust of clients and prospects demands that you are who you say you are and do what you say you’ll do. Always. A great website that establishes you as the authority in your arena is important. Sending relevant, poignant email marketing messages on the schedule you and your subscribers agreed to is important. Winning at the SEO game through best practices and not trying to short circuit the system is important.

Whatever your marketing initiatives are, make sure that your story is real and trust will follow.

– Andrew Vick
Director of Sales

Many of our top clients in the real estate and vacation rental industries are analyzing and adjusting their internet marketing plans and budgets. In tough economic times, it’s no secret that cuts are expected across the board – and online marketing is no exception.

As we focus on aligning marketing budgets with online marketing strategies for 2009, we are tasked to find efficiencies in our marketing plans in order to cut costs and identify the most productive online marketing channels. It’s our job to advise our clients to spend their marketing dollars where they will generate the greatest ROI.

While we may be biased, we believe that investing in your digital marketing media should be your highest priority today. Not only is online media more affordable and efficient, it is also very trackable and true ROI for each online marketing campaign can be assessed with just a few clicks with the aid of a comprehensive Google Analytics setup.

Here are few new tools we have seen come across our desks that are not only affordable, but also enhance the user experience which in turn develops confidence in your customers and drives new business.

Integrated Online Booking – Booking trips online sometimes takes people outside of their comfort zone. Let them gain confidence in your services by providing seamless online booking. Rather than leaving your site or filling out a property request form, real-time availability and online booking will be key not only for you to promote your units accurately, but also to allow the user to search by dates or unit criteria and then book it online once they’ve found what they’re looking for. Check out the Gulf Shores Plantation booking engine to see it action!

Property Reviews – Positive property reviews are an important piece of the vacation rental industry and online reputation management. People have come to expect them for hotels on sites like Trip Advisor, Orbitz and Expedia but they have not been as readily available for vacation homes and condos. Positive customer reviews for vacation rentals on sites like FlipKey are a critical piece of information to give your prospects that will also give your company the edge over your competition. We’ve devised a number of ways to leverage and grow positive reviews for our vacation rental and lodging clients.

Online Brochures – Save money and trees by passing on the next printing of your real estate or vacation rental brochure and post it online in a rich media format instead. These dynamic brochures can be set to music and can be completely customized so they look even better than your print brochures and are a fraction of the price. Check out the Seven Lakes Ranch Brochure.

For more information on how you can stretch your marketing budget by investing in digital marketing, call Blue Tent today at 970.704.3240 and take advantage of a free one-hour internet marketing consultation.