It's a great end to the week for Propellernet. The sun is shining and we've bagged our second CIMTIG Travel Marketing Award! Last night, the third CIMTIG Travel Marketing Awards took place at the very glamorous and contemporary Ballroom, in the Intercontinental London Park Lane Hotel. Our Travel Team Captain, Rachel and New Biz Director, Stefan attended the awards, which aim to demonstrate marketing excellence in travel, and reward and raise the standards across the industry. With this in mind, it was music to our ears when the crown of 'Best Use of Search Engine Optimisation' was awarded to us (for the second year running!), for our 'Villas in Tuscany' campaign for To Tuscany. The judges were particularly impressed with our "innovative approach" and "impressive search engine positional jumps" for the search term 'villas in Tuscany'. Back in 2010 our 'Flourishing Families Campaign' for Sovereign Luxury Holidays also earned us recognition for innovation in SEO,...

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The recently reported news that the Office of Fair Trading is looking to prosecute companies who pay bloggers for positive coverage of their products makes interesting news for all of us at Propellernet. Why would anyone offering quality content need to pay for coverage? Our approach has always been to develop content that offers genuine value to our target media, be that amateur bloggers, professional bloggers, or standard online media.  The fact that we use search personas and that we’re specialists in the travel and retail sectors means that we know the key media contacts well and we’re able to determine which sites are right for our clients’ target audience quickly and easily.   From there we use various inputs to determine what content will prove valuable both to our clients’ target audience and to the media that we’re targeting. The result of this approach is that we value good relations with all our key contacts from bloggers to journalists (regularly...

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Ok, so web content is nothing new; people have been creating new content (good and bad) since the birth of the web. But creating exciting, relevant content for your website... now that is a completely different kettle of fish! In the first instalment of ‘Get Creative in 2011’ we gave an introduction to what it is to produce great content for your website. We also discussed ways of using ‘Design SEO’ to benefit your online audience and produce the best content to boost your search possibilities. In part two, we will discuss why the production of smart, creative and well designed content is SO damn important to your brand and how you can squeeze every last drop from it. Read the rest of this entry...

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With the celebrations of the 1st of January now behind us and with a wealth of ideas for ‘what will be new in 2011’ stated - it is now time to do something big and yes, a little bit clever. Perhaps not as daunting as some would have you believe. Creating new exciting & well designed pieces of content can make all the difference to your search positions. In this blog post I will highlight some great ways of combining graphic design with SEO, a technique that has been used to great acclaim and success in my work with Propellernet. We call it Design SEO and it should change the way you think about content. Read the rest of this entry...

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Having read a very informative study, conducted by Nielsen, concerning the customer process in the UK online travel market, there were lots of interesting facts and figures which I felt compelled to share with our blog readers! The study took approximately 490 travel sites across all categories, and charted a detailed analysis from January to March on their users’ journey, from searching to purchasing. Being an intern at a search agency with one team focused entirely on the travel sector, the study highlighted some very important facts and I hope to explain them in this post. Let’s start with some basic facts: there are over 28.7 million people in the UK online travel market. Of these people, 22 million use search engines in their customer journey, with 92% of those that purchase using search at some point. That’s a huge number of potential customers that should not be ignored by any travel e-tailer wanting to dominate the industry! Read the rest of this entry...

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With an estimated value of £17.8 billion, online sales accounted for 6.7% of retail sales in the UK in 2009 (Mintel 2010). Today, as online shopping is evolving, retailers that have expanded or completely moved online are seeing a healthy growth in their revenue. With market leaders such as M&S and Next increasing their margins through their multichannel strategy and visible online presence, it is safe to say that e-commerce is become a  key revenue driver for brands. As online sales figures continue to grow, fashion brands really need to focus on their digital marketing strategy and realise that  if they don't, they will lose money! Read the rest of this entry...

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This is a topic that’s not often discussed openly in the SEO community or the online marketing world. Most people who have an SEO strategy in place to drive links to a certain category page, will no doubt understand that the main aim is to improve the position of this keyword. The immediate benefit is obvious, in that as positions improve, so does traffic from this keyword. This post looks beyond this and explores other side benefits, which often get overlooked. Read the rest of this entry...

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We’re winners… Again! The 4th Travolution Awards took place on Wednesday at The Boiler House at Battersea Power Station (what a stunning location). The Awards recognise companies, brands and individuals that excel in the fields of online travel distribution, digital marketing and technology so it’s only fitting that we were on hand to pick up the award for Best Use of SEO for the work we’ve done for our client www.to-tuscany.com Read the rest of this entry...

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I firmly believe that we will look back at Christmas 2010 as the moment mobile went from a really interesting topic to a serious tactic within all retailers' marketing mix, and what better way to assist retailers in the build up to Christmas than to put together a mobile wish list. Now what a present that is! Ok, maybe a bit of an exaggeration but below are my top 10 tips and considerations for mobile: 1. Don't think for too long! Mobile is still heavily in the planning stage and everyone seems to be talking about theories rather than proven conclusions. This has lead to many retailers waiting to see what happens with mobile before taking the plunge themselves. Read the rest of this entry...

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The past few days Google have been teasing us with various new animated logos and claiming that something big is coming, leaving the search industry waiting with bated breath. Would it really be something original and big, or rather would it be another Google Wave style failure? Yesterday they finally revealed Google Instant which immediately caused quite a stir. In their own words... "Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type. We are pushing the limits of our technology and infrastructure to help you get better search results, faster. Our key technical insight was that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only 30 milliseconds (a tenth of the time!) to glance at another part of the page. This means that you can scan a results page while you type." Read the rest of this entry...

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