It goes without saying that online travel industry is in the phase of rapid development. Tour and travel companies are seeking new technologies and applications that make online bookings and designation search easier for the traveller. How far have you explored these new online trends?

Online and mobile bookings will increase in the coming years and therefore, investing in a robust and highly secure booking system becomes a prerequisite for any travel company looking for future growth and sales. The data given below reveal the consumer purchasing trends.

In 2016, over 36.7MM U.S. consumers will book travel arrangements through mobile devices
By 2013 the figure will surpass 16MM consumers using mobile devices to book travel arrangements
More than 120MM consumers in the US will research travel plans online by 2013

Data collected from http://www.factbrowser.com/tags/travel/

Why people rely on travel and tourism sites
People can book, confirm, cancel tickets at the comfort of their home and make payments quickly. Browsing across the travel options, packages, hotels and add-on services become one effortless task with interactive systems. With the option to compare prices and packages, online travel sites are successfully offering a great value service.

Clients who faced difficulty while booking or making a reservation will give up and return to an alternative travel website. If your online efforts are not strategically planned and developed customers will not get what they want and subsequently you will lose them. Other factors that prevent a client from completing a registration include high price, technical glitches, payment difficulty, booking problems and unavailability of sufficient information. Developing your travel and tourism website can win you clients, generate more sales and drive profits.

Travellers across the world are also relying on Mobile payment systems. A growth in use of travel apps and development of technologies like NFC and mobile wallets further eases the payment methods. The convenience offered by mobile payment systems are encouraging travellers to book from their handheld devices, regardless of where they are. However, more than half of us are oblivious of this technology and only 6% possesses a detailed understanding of it. In no time, this technology will advance and it would be widely used.

Apart from websites, other digital mediums used to promote services and travel ideas are blogs, online advertising and social media. Some of the popular online trends adopted by big names in the industry are given below.

Online booking systems and secure payments
Making reservations and booking have become easier, thanks to the advanced online booking systems. Business travellers, families and individual travellers use travel sites that offer a convenient and secure online booking option. What makes them very useful is the option for comparing prices. Travellers can make better travel decisions and make sure payments.

Mobile booking and apps
With the proliferation of handheld devices, accessing travel information is at the fingertips of customers. Online booking is also done via mobile phones. To gain more clients, online travel sites should invest on mobile optimized website and mobile strategies. Today, mobile platform has been transformed into a real travel planning channel for many. A recent report reveals that in 2016, 74.3MM consumers in the US will research travel purchases on their mobile devices.

Computer Systems
For large travel business, a well maintained computer system will be the best solution. These systems ensure quick and improved communication between branches and locations, consequently making reservations and other tasks hassle-free. Guest preferences, reservation details and other information can be managed and kept in a single system.

Read the success story of a European tour company here  http://digiora.com/insights

Social Media Services
With an effective social media presence, a travel company can build an audience interested in their services. Consistent social media strategies can alone win the marketing goals of the travel company. Invest on social media campaigns and strategies to endorse offers online and via mobile.

Unless online tour and travel companies embrace these online trends, they will not be able to offer total-trip experience for clients.

Facebook ads have enticed many companies and advertisers who want to use social media platforms to promote their products and services. In the past few months several allegations arose against the effectiveness of Facebook advertising however it is still one of the popular social media advertising methods adopted by small and large businesses worldwide.

Deciding whether to invest or not on Facebook advertisements can be a daunting task especially when there are too many misconceptions and doubts regarding the advertising potential of it. This article hopes to familiarize you with some common terms associated with Facebook advertising. Understanding them can help you bring your social media advertising efforts on track. With over 900 million fan base Facebook becomes the best medium to advertise and promote brands.

Facebook ads

Facebook ads consist of custom messages from the advertisers which targets the fans. Unless it encourages users to act spontaneously, the effectiveness of the Facebook ads gets lost, therefore a lot of thinking and planning should go while developing ads.

Facebook Ad campaign

When you create a Facebook Ad campaign, it gives you the freedom to combine groups of Ads, either for a single business or separate businesses. Same daily or lifetime budget and schedule is shared by all the ads in the campaign. In Facebook Ad campaign you can group ads with ease and at your convenience. The best part is that, Facebook offer updated reports where you can analyze the output of the ads. In case of individual ads, there are separate bids and targeting.

Clicks

Clicks are the number of times a Facebook user clicks an ad. It could also be a ‘like’ for the advertised page or event. With more clicks the visibility for the advertised product or page increases. Facebook adopts methods, where advertisers are charged only for authentic clicks. This means repetitive and unreal clicks are not counted.

Impression
The term impression in advertisement means the number of people reached by the ads. Details such as the reach and frequency offered by the Ads are offered by Facebook. Total impression of the Ads is the product of the Ad’s frequency and reach. Data on the reach and frequency of the Ad is provided by Facebook. Social impression is nothing but an Ad impression consisting of brand’s content and interaction of the Facebook user.

CTR

CTR is the Abbreviation of Click-through rate. The click through rate is the number of clicks on an ad divided by the number of times the ad appears. It is represented as percentage.

Promotion

In Facebook any type of competition or contest is known as promotion.

Promoted Posts

By promoting certain posts on your page, more number of people will view it. Administrator of the page can easily promote a recent post by using the promote button made available next to the page posts.

Premium Ads

This type of ads appears on the right hand side of the user’s home page when he logs in. If a person is a fan of that particular brand, then the ads show in the news feed. Through premium ads, brand can improve fan engagement.

Premium ads depend on the total impressions and are charged per thousand AD impression. It can be purchased from a sales partner or representative of Facebook. Page post, voice of friend and standard Ads are the different types of premium ads.

Sponsored Stories

This is a paid advertising service offered by Facebook to brands. With this service, advertisers can use content created on the Facebook page as an Ad. If a person likes a page, it shows in his news feed. The administrator of the specific Facebook page can utilize the news feed of this fan and the friends of his are notified regarding this.

A specific post of great importance and value to the brand can be promoted using Sponsored stories. Page like story, App shared story, Game played story and Page post like story are the different kind of sponsored stories.

Reach generator

With reach generator page post reaches 50 percent of the total fan base, when generally a page post reaches just 16%. It guarantees wider reach of the page post and increases fan engagement. However, to take advantage of this tool, the company should have at least 500,000 fans. Another eligibility factor is that the existing reach of the page posts should be less than 25% on an average.

Talking about this

This is introduced to evaluate the engagement level of the Facebook page. Facebook page administrator can view the Talking about graph and analyze the performance of the page. Since its launch in 2011, the’ People talking about this’ feature have allowed the companies to measure the page engagement.

These are just few of the common Facebook advertising terms, there are plenty more. Knowing and understanding all the necessary terms is crucial for any marketer and social media expert. There are also certain guidelines which should be followed while creating Facebook Ads. These guidelines are updated frequently by Facebook and you can read them at http://www.facebook.com/ad_guidelines.php.

Attaining a top position in the search engine results is something every online business seeks for. In the current situation where companies are struggling to establish a solid online presence investing in SEO services is inevitable for both large and small businesses. Expanding online reach is not the only purpose of Search Engine Optimization service it also helps businesses target a wide range of audience across the globe in the most cost-effective way. By increasing website and web page visibility, search engine can index the websites. When web pages are optimized your websites are rewarded with better rankings and your site appears in the top spot when people search for related words or phrases. Businesses should understand the benefits of SEO so that they could invest perspicaciously in such services and get better returns in the form of improved sales and higher audience reach.

Search engines will consider your website more relevant than your rivals to certain words and phrases, if your website is designed well with content containing related keywords. With more back links to your website, the popularity will increase enabling the search engines to rank your website well. In the coming years, online trading and shopping will increase to a great extent and the need for SEO solutions will double. There are SEO experts and companies who are ready to do SEO on your website, thus helping you generate leads and more sales. The best part of SEO service is that businesses can target clients who search for your services. With effective and careful use of relevant keywords, you can easily attract customers to your web pages highlighting your services and products.

SEO results in targeted traffic
With no doubt, SEO increases the number of visitors to your website and most possibly improves the chance of converting them into clients. Targeted traffic generates more sales and increases visibility and website popularity. What’s more you can reach targeted traffic of your choice. The general rule of the thumb is to keep your website on the top position for specific keywords so that you can continue to benefit from more qualified traffic. The rankings of your site should be maintained among the top position for long term results.

SEO, a cost effective search marketing
Unlike other marketing methods, search engine optimization is done at a minimum cost. In addition to its cost-effective nature, SEO claims to offer better ROI for businesses. Many businesses have received a greater return on investment. Raking the keywords of your website may take time but it is worth the wait.

SEO for brand visibility
Get your company name heard with SEO strategies. The more people see your company name for their searches the more popular your brand will become. Creating brand awareness may not bring sales immediately, but people will be aware of your existence and services. SEO services help in achieving this. Seo outsourcing firms provide affordable seo services to businesses.

Apart from making web pages more accessible, effective SEO services increases site load times and improves overall usability of the website. The benefits of SEO services like Keyword Research, Meta tag keywords and description, Sitemap creation, Social Book Marking, Article Submission, Directory Submission and Link building are unstinted and they are implemented to expand the online reach.

False redirects and cloaking, keyword loading, using duplicate content on pages, filling pages with irrelevant keywords and misspelling popular keywords deliberately, are things to avoid. Although these methods bring traffic instantly, it proves useless in the long run and the results will be less relevant to the search made. Use the Search engine optimization tool to attract the potential traffic to your website and increase brand visibility. Make sure to maintain your rankings on search engines of search engines so that you will continue benefiting from the traffic flow.