BillCheung

= = =media type="custom" key="19115566"= =**The ECHO TRAILS**=

On Page:
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 * The title on the metatag should to be changed.The title "Welcome to Echo Trails" is unique but it does not apply to the keywords that a person would be searching for when looking for a guided tour. As shown on Tagxedo, the most emphasized word on the homepage is Echo. While this shows a strong emphasis on brand name, Echo is not going to be found in a search engine unless an individual specifically searches for the company. To improve on the title, Echo should add something more explanatory such as "Lucerne Guided Tours", or " "Swiss Tours" because these would be phrases that a searcher would generally type in for this topic.
 * Found this very interesting link about the importance of good headlines in your website: CoxBLue.com
 * The description on the metatag is good. It provides a very specific description of what the company does and specifically mentions "led by a native English speaker" which would be attractive to many vacationers.
 * The keywords that that Echo Trail uses might need to be revised. Compared to a competitor site, Grand European Tours, they use considerably more keywords. Even though their competitor has a much larger website with way more content, they only have 8 keywords to their homepage while Echo Trail uses over 40 keywords. On a webpage, you can generally promote up to five keyword so you want these five to be very relevant to your business. Echo does not take advantage of this because not only do they have too many keywords, half of them seem irrelevant to the website. They need to trim down the keywords to important ones such as Lucerne, Switzerland, Guided tours, English speaking, walking, biking,hiking, and outdoor trails.
 * Overall, Echo Trail has a rather weak on page SEO. The company is not found on search engines when doing a generic search such as "lucerne guided tours". Even when specifically searching "Echo Trails", the website does not appear on the first page of results.

Off Page

 * From what we can see on the website, they have a only have a link to a Facebook page. But, the page is not a fan page and provides little information about the company itself. Also, a search for the company on both Twitter and Facebook provided no result leading to the company. Echo Trail currently does not have any emphasis on using social networks as part of the business and marketing strategy. An obvious improvement to this would be to establish Facebook and Twitter pages and encourage customers to follow them.
 * Echo does have a link to a travel agency at Luzern Tourism Office, which is a website that provide a lot of information about different tourist activities in the region. This is a good link to have because the website shows up third on a Google search when looking for "Lucerne tourism". Echo could improve it off page SEO further by linking it self with more tourism websites that are well known on the web. An example would be Viator, which provides travel information for many places throughout the world. Viator already has a very strong SEO as it is the first search result on Google when looking up any kind of tour. Echo Trial would highly benefit from this link if they could set up some kind of business relationship with Viator. The more links that Echo Trail can acquire, the easier they would be found and the more authoritive they will be.

Competitor Analysis

 * A similar company that offers tours in United States is Strictly Private Tours, which offers private driven tours of Washington D.C. The meta title of the company is very detailed: Private Tours Washington DC/Private DC Tours/Private Night Tour/Sightseeing/Van/SUV/Bus/Shuttle/Coach/Limo/Town Car/Limousine/Sedan/private guided tours/segway tours.Unlike EchoTrail, which has a very generic meta title, this title encompasses every single service that the company offers so it is very relevant for the page. The fact that they offer private tours makes them unique and gives them a better SEO because few other company offers the same service in Washington DC. On Google search, they are the fourth result when "private tours in Washington DC. However, the website has no backlinks so that makes it lose some relevance and authority in comparison to Echo Trails.

__PPC__

 * Echo Trial should use paid advertisement not only on Google search pages but also on other relevant sites. Examples of other channels besides Google would be travel sites discussed above such as Lucerne Tourism Office. Since this website provides tourism information solely on that region, it is the main authority on Lecerne. By paying for ad on this page, it will not only be good advertisement, it will also serve as a solid backlink. Combined with a paid advertisement on the search results page on Google, Echo Trail would able to generate much more customer awareness and build up its SEO.
 * On the Google search page advertisement, Echo Trail would have to follow the limit on the number of characters. A good example advertisement is shown below:

[|Lucerne-Guided Tours] Guided day walks, hikes, bikes tours. Native English speaking, Book NOW! __ www.echo-trails.com __

This ad is good because it is specific to the content of the webpage and also has a call for action.
 * For ads on other travel websites, Echo Trail could customize them to their liking with scenic pictures and larger descriptions. For example, they could place a banner ad on a travel blog such as [|Travelblog].

__Social Media__

 * Upon the comparison of three different competitors of Echo Trails ([|Lucerne Tours], [|Best of Switzerland Tours], and [[file:///C:/Users/Owner/Documents/Ritzel/wwww.luzern.com|City Tours- Luzern]]), they each have different approaches to the use of social media. Of the four companies, City Tours-Luzern does the most in social media. On its main page, it has links to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Flickr, and Google+. Each channel provided a different medium (pictures, videos, testimonials, reviews, etc) in which the company could show its services. On the other two competitor sites, there was no link to any social networks at all. Echo Trail only has a Facebook link and it is not a fan page so it cannot be assessed easily.