6 replies to this topic

[Kumkum]

Travel + India related keywords show very low counts. Would it be ok if I use more generic keywords like "cheap vacation" , "cheap vacation packages" , " honeymoon destination" etc and include in my copy how India comes to the picture?

Would my client get benefits from these keywords? I don't want to use India+travel related keywords as they are not very popular or in-demand keywords.

Please suggest if I am thinking in a rational way or not.

Thank you for help.
Kumkum

[yuccadude]

Your though process is ok as they are more popular search terms and if you did get ranked well for those terms, it would bring in more traffic.

But....

If the term is too general, then all the client will get is traffic and no convertables. A convertable is someone who acts upon visiting the site. IE: They call the client or buy the product online or whatever the website needs them to do, beside just visit and read.

It is generally more difficult to obtain high rankings on more general/generic search terms.

[DanThies]

The combination of generic search terms, with good descriptive copy that includes the localized terms, will target the traffic effectively. People don't search for a 'honeymoon destination' on the web anyway. They already have some idea where they want to go.

[samt]

Maybe rather than focusing only on travel-related terms like 'honeymoon destination' or something, maybe put up some pages about attractions in India. For example, if you put up a page with all kinds of interesting info about say the Taj Majal (hoping that's really in India and I'm not just showing my ignorance here), you'd draw visitors who were interested in the Taj Majal, and maybe a lot of those people actually would like to visit there. You could do an informational page, with some type of a comment toward the end about "if you ever wanted to visit the Taj Majal, contact us for help planning the affordable India vacation of a lifetime" Or maybe a page about snake charmers, who are very interesting and cold easily be written about, with the same type of hook at the end?

[OldWelshGuy]

I fell into the trap for a while of (must get maximum visitors) I did some work for a customer and when i checked his visitor stats i was mortified to see they had actually gone DOWN not up as i had hoped, i couldn't understand it as i had done the research, i had applied my mind fully to the marketing research but his stats had gone down by about 20%.

I had to see him the following week, that was why i had been gathering the information, so along i trotted expecting to be verbally abused, but when i got there, he and his wife shook my hand and said 'brilliant' we have had loads of bookings from the web, we are getting about a dozen e mail requests a day.

The visits they were getting before were too generic, where as the lower volume were of more specific nature, and they were booking.

I have a friend who works in the Welsh Tourist Board, and he was telling me that they had 12.5 million visitors in august to the visitwales website, and the most searched for word was 'hotel'(s) followed by the area that hotel is in ie 'hotels in Cardiff' then we had 'accommodation' then 'castles' then 'tourist attractions'. this helped me get a better handle on the mindset of visitors to Wales. To give you an idea of how big a yardstick this is, the population of Wales is 3 million, so basically there were 3 visitors for every person living here, so it was quite helpfull.

If i was going on holiday i would not search for holiday information india, i would search for 'holiday packages india' or a major city that i fancied visiting, or maybe if i was arranging my holiday independantly i would want to know about ' hotels in xxx' or maybe flights to xxx' plus 'airport transfers in xxx airport' I guess it depends on who the target audience for the website is, if it is independant travellers then the breakdown of each item may be the way to go, if it is package holiday makers then they would need a separate set of keywords.

[qwerty]

I completely agree with OWG. I would just add that, for the American market, replace the word "holiday" with "vacation" and you've got yourself a new set of keywords.

[compar]

I completely agree with OWG. I would just add that, for the American market, replace the word "holiday" with "vacation" and you've got yourself a new set of keywords.

Qwerty is absolutely correct in this. In the USA, Christmas and Easter are "holidays". Time off work for travel, rest and recreation is "vacation".

And you have to remember that if you are trying to market to Americans.<edit> So by all means do your research and find out what they call it and how they spell it in the USA.

<edit note- silly negative remarks about an entire country are just not necessary. -Scottie >