Category Archives: Google

A big change is coming on 30 October: Parallel Tracking.

When AdWords (now Google Ads) was first launched it used what is called "linear redirect tracking". When an ad is clicked Google loads several components such as the Google Ads click tracker, the tracking URL and often some other tracking URLs before the customer gets to your landing page. In other words, the customer goes through one or more redirects after they click your ad.

While most users don’t even notice this happening, Google says that the delays of "hundreds of milliseconds" actually has a negative impact on campaign performance.

Parallel tracking, on the other hand, sends customers directly from your ad to your intended URL while click measurement happens in the background in a parallel process (customers are...

It’s time to ask yourself if you’ve done everything you can to market your travel website to the right audience. If not, now is the time to try these 5 sure-fire strategies to boost your website performance:

Optimize your images

The number one selling feature of any travel-related website is photos. Some may say an image-heavy website is bad for SEO. We beg to differ. Images can be optimized with keywords using the alt tags and with proper naming conventions. These are also crawled by Google Bots and are displayed in both the Image Search results and the Universal results page. As a pro tip: submit an image sitemap in your Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) to get those beautiful pictures crawled. Another plus points for beautiful pictures – they’re not just good...

Winter continues, and for some its getting rather wet and cold! For those wanting to make the most of these cooler months head to the snow, enjoy a pizza by the fireplace with friends or explore new areas of New Zealand, in our case the Great Lake Taupo region.

You sit at your desk dreaming of what to do this weekend and an ad pops into your newsfeed telling you the weather is great for that ideal ski weekend! Or the weather is perfect to embrace the cooler days with a relaxing soak in the hot pools. 
This is where things start to get fun! The ads that are served differ based on weather, whether that be past, current or future weather conditions (set to your preferences) you can reach those who might be looking for indoor activities on raining days, or outdoor on sunny...

Over the last few years, Google's search display has evolved substantially - and user behaviour is following suit. In 2005, Meditative researchers said that heatmap studies indicate user interest is all about the the “Golden Triangle”. By 2014, the model has shifted to the “elongated F”. 

The “Golden Triangle” from Meditative’s Eye-tracking study

The “Elongated F” became the new norm for 2014

Only three years after the release of the latest heatmap, we now face another great change. Google evolved the search results yet again by adding the business listing to brand name hotel searches. Underneath that are results from a meta search tool to show prices, reviews and other relevant information.

This begged Travel Tripper to question if the Elongated F still...

A market gamechanger since it boomed on the scene over the last decade, Google AdWords is unparalleled for revenue generation. Harnessing the power of the mighty AdWords can seem like a daunting task, particularly if you have little to no experience with paid online advertising. Then, once thrust into de facto campaign set-up and management, the tourism business owner can find themselves into a spiral of spending money without generating any leads or engagement

To avoid that “money down the drain” feeling, we have compiled a list of best practice tips for search engine marketing:

1.  Choose your battles wisely.

What is the goal you are trying to achieve through AdWords?  For example, if the proverbial “bums on seats” are your ultimate business goal, an offer-led, punchy...

When it comes to mobile browsing, speed is the number one consideration for users. Expectations are high, but many seem to be missing the mark. On average, load time for retail mSites is at 7.083 seconds according to Mobile HTTP Archive. 

The focus on images has been counterproductive to improving speed. Over that last few years, mobile page sizes have grown drastically with the average page served to mobile increasing by 203% since 2011. And the consequences are severe. Did you know that every second of delay from the first second of loading costs money? RadWare and Neil Patel have published information on the impact of loading time to the bottom line. Some of the most important findings of the research include the following figures:

• 11% decrease in pageviews
• 7%...