How will the travel industry fair during these tough economic times and how can travel marketers justify the cost of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?

Search Engine Watch has provided five tips that may help to stretch marketers in the travel industry’s budgets in the short term and grow their businesses in the long term.

Tip #1: Bid Smarter For Less

Fine-tune your pay per click campaigns by focusing on your conversions and goals and consider good judgment and common sense over aggressiveness in your campaigns.

Tip #2: Capitalize on Content Opportunities

Focus on and create deal-driven content. The media will eat-up any money saving tips that are sent their way, so don’t forget to invest in solid media relations and push links out via online PR web sites.

Tip #3: Target Your Travelers

Although price slashing will have the most impact on your direct sales and, unfortunately, your bottom line in the short term, try to gain the loyalty of the traveler by offering rewards for friends’ trips booked, etc to successfully grow your customer base.

In addition, think local and not global – you may uncover a new customer base! Try to appeal to people within a 50 to 100 mile radius who are staying close to home because they can’t afford anything further.

Tip #4: Connect With Customers

Get involved with tools like Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other social media web sites to discover the pain points with your audience. Reputation management is critical – you can’t afford to lose customers due to poor reviews, so be sure to highlight your commitment to customer services.

Tip #5 Creativity Counts in SMO

Start experimenting with different methods of social media. Design game applications that run for free and have a limited time offer or coupon code for participation or high scores or create a YouTube channel to highlight video clips. The possibilities are endless!

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