Thanks to everyone who attended our FREE Google Alerts Webinar - thank you for all your wonderful comments and feed back.
For anyone who didn't attend, here are some of the highlights.
HELPFUL HINTS
- Remember to use “QUOTES” around text that you want to locate EXACT matches on. This is a good tool to narrow down phrases that are delivering to diverse matches.
- DO from time to time review your alerts and try new alert phrases, refine existing alerts as needed. Remember there is a refining process to getting the information you want from alerts, it’s not going to deliver the perfect traffic without some amount of review and tweaking.
IDEAS OF WHAT TO TRACK
YOUR OWN WEB PRESENCE – Know what others are saying about you online.
- Your Personal Name
- Your Business Name
- Your Phone Number
- Your E-Mail Address
- Your URL
- Your BLOG
LOCAL COMPETITION – You can see what other inns, hotels, and related properties are doing in your area.
- Track via their web address
- Track via their business name
- Track via their blog, etc.
ASSOCIATIONS – You can keep an eye on your association information by watching your state, regional or group website URLS in your Alerts.
NICHE TOPICS – If you do spa services, retreats, girls getaways, romantic weekends, weddings, reunions or any type of niche marketing, include those phrases for world wide search for ideas you might be able to customize for your property.
INDUSTRY TOPICS – You can track phrases like bed and breakfast, inn, mixed in (or not) with your city + state words. Depending on how wide a net you wish to cast.
EVENT SITES IN YOUR AREA – Keep on top of events, festivals, etc. by including your chamber or other travel companies in your alerts, so if something is updated for your area, you’ll know about it and can act on it for packages and special combinations with your inn.
TRIP ADVISOR – You can track new posts by including an Alert as follows
- Trip Advisor + your inn name (as on your profile)
BE CREATIVE – You can track anything you want online, look for ways to track ideas to help you in your day to day business!
Complete Handout located at: https://acorn-is.com/
- Under Online Learning CLICK Webinars
- Scroll to bottom and locate our Handout section
- Choose Google Local Alerts (ver 1) Handout
Lisa Kolb
President and Co-Founder
Acorn Marketing
Educating our Industy 1 Innkeeper at a Time!
Comments from the Alerts Webinar:
"This was very helpful.I have never used Google Alert and look forward to what information comes thru. I've already started and hopefully can figure it all out! "
"I love all the information packed into the 1 hour session. I will deffinately be attending as many as I can."
Great tips Lisa! Even if Innkeepers simply follow themselves it would be beneficial. It is nice to be able to thank guests for blogging about you.
My one point of difference is that I would not consider other local B&B Inns competition. I consider them complementary. Even in bigger markets like Seattle, if we all work together we have a better chance of increasing occupancy.
Complementary? I like that term! When Mark and I owned our Bed and Breakfast in Colorado Springs, CO. We referred to our neighboring inns as our "Friendly Competitors". If we were full, we'd refer guests down the street and vice versa, but "Complementary" is another great way of saying "Hey – we all work together to provide for our guests!" Thanks for your comment!