JeremyWeitzman

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ECHO-Trails Suggestions SEO= Search Engine Optimization Pay Per Click Paid Advertisements
 * Use different pictures throughout the website, some pics are duplicated throughout.
 * Maybe incorporate a slideshow of pics or linked albums of the places the tour visits so the viewer gets an idea of where they are going
 * The testimonial page is very vague
 * Maybe a discussion section for people to add their input whenever they want
 * Also, maybe a page about what people’s favorite part of the tour was
 * The travel industry’s sub page’s info is kind of irrelevant to the title. It should probably either discuss the travel industry of change the title to fit the info that is provided
 * The background image is very basic and seems to have little connection with the company’s objective.
 * Use images of places the tour visits or of pics of Switzerland’s beautiful mountains
 * On-Page
 * In the Metatag world, the title is the most important. “Welcome to ECHO Trails” is inviting but the site will not generate any views with the chosen words in the title. It needs to include keywords that are relevant to what the company provides its customers; ex. travel, tourism, history education, breathtaking scenery, etc.
 * To have a presents on google, description is important. Some of the items in the description are not very popular search items and have minimal relevance to the product that the company is engaged in. Terms such as boat rides, historical places, train, local buses are some of the things the company produces in their product.
 * The Metatag Keywords need to be reduced. There is too much there and google will not like all of those items. Choose the 10-15 most relevant items that go along with your company’s product, such as; guided tours, breathtaking scenery, historic places,Lucerne, etc. Also, some items are misspelled, repeated, and have little to no relevancy towards the company.
 * Off-Page
 * There is no value in their linked sites; styles/main.css isn’t viewed by most people. When you search for guided tours in Europeon google, [|www.expatexplore.com/Europe_Tours], is the top website on the page. The website offers many tours in many different countries.
 * Today __The New York Times__ posted an article on what places you should visit when traveling to Switzerland. Lucerne was one of the cities the times placed on their list. The times made the cities clickable and on the sub page there are suggestions of where to go, what to do, and what to eat. If ECHO trails links up with the times, which is a very prominent newspaper in the states, their reach would increase substantially.
 * Online directories such as yahoo or google places are some options to look at for getting more eyeballs on your website.
 * Also, make sure that your company is present in local directories and yellow pages. With the evolution of technology the yellow pages are now accessible online so if someone was to look up travel or tourism in Switzerland they could easily find info about your company.
 * Competitor Analysis
 * Some of the top travel/guided tour sites in the U.S. on the google search had links to major websites like Youtube and Facebook on their home page. Some of them are also linked directly with twitter and google on their home page. And they show how many people like the site on Facebook directly on the home page. This is important for a website because it gives the viewer insight of how successful or how popular the site is.
 * Ideal Portals
 * When figuring out what portal to enter you have to know what key aspects the company has to offer. Terms such as travel, sightseeing, public transportation, hiking, etc. are some of the main parts that ECHO has to offer its customers. By joining these portals it would become easier for people looking for a cool travel experience to find the website.
 * Suggestion/Explanation
 * Pay per click ads can be a valuable way to get your noticed. PPC ads are ads on a specific website/channel that accumulate a price determined by the amount of clicks the link accumulates. For instance, you join google and want to be one of the top links under a certain search criteria. You first have to match the what google likes in a google ad. A google ad consists of 4 lines with the first line consisting of a headline and link to site that is a maximum of 25 characters. The second and third lines consist of the websites description which has to be a maximum of 35 characters. The description is important to the relevancy of the search criteria based on the keywords you use. The fourth line is the web address and should be a maximum of 35 characters. After that you set a price on what you will pay per the amount of clicks your link gets. All of this will determine where you are positioned on the google search page. Also, when you find links under the search criteria there will be two columns of links. You want to be on the left column because that gets the most eye traffic (see below).



Social Media
 * Activities of competitors
 * Most competitors have linked up with the major social media sites. Some have more links than others and they also place the links in certain places. The placement of the links are crucial because if you have your links to, let’s say, facebook and twitter on the bottom of the home page viewers might not see the links because they never made it to the bottom of the page. The size of the links are also important because you want them to be visible but you don’t want them to take up space. Some sites even place their links at the upper and lower end of their home page to ensure maximum viewership.