1. How to use social media for travel SEO Kevin Gibbons, Director of Strategy - twitter.com/kevgibbo Kevin Gibbons, Director of Strategy - @kevgibbo

2. “Social media is changing the face of travel”

3. Social Media vs Search – who to trust? 90% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know… 70% still trust online consumer opinions from people they don’t know! 41% trust search engine results * Nielsen – July, 2009

4. But how does this influence SEO? Here’s some ideas on how to use social media to impact your search strategy…

5. Twitter – find journalists/bloggers

6. Action: Use relevant hashtags & Jounalisted

7. Video – universal search results

8. Action: Distribute to multiple channels

9. Facebook – search isn’t just Google

10. Action: Build great/shareable content

11. Images – universal/image search

12. Action: encourage users to credit you = links!

13. Reviews – Improve Seller Extension Ratings

14. Action: Incentivize users to leave reviews e.g. Offer 10% discount to returning hotel customers who leave a review

15. Blogging – become an authority = links!

17. Linking out – get there attention by linking to them – and use their name/brand, they’ll probably spot it in Google Alerts.

19. Action: Use great images/infographics

20. Forums – targeted links & traffic

21. Action: Don’t spam – build a trusted profile

22. Flowtown – find customers social profiles

23. Action: turn customers into brand advocates

24. Social signals – boost topical/QDF rankings?

25. Action: Being first is very important

26. Catch users early in buying cycle via social

27. Action: Give users a reason to return to influence personalised search via brand queries

29. Universal search – travel generates high volume of video/images results

30. Target users at earlier research stage in buying cycle – so that they return via brand query, this is likely to impact personalised search results

31. Links! Great potential to strengthen backlink profile with targeted/relevant links