As enthusiastic purveyors of RSS here at Tactical Thinking, we were as keen to play our part in the initiative as kids were eager to stick plastic eyes and ears into potatoes in the 1950’s.

So why do we need an RSS awareness day? Well, as useful and powerful as RSS is, it has yet to become a mainstream technology in the big picture of global internet use.

Feedburner recently reported that they track around 60 million RSS subscribers. Even if we bump that number to 70 million RSS users (counting people that use RSS with other applications or platforms) this would still convert to a meager 5.4% of the Internet users around the world, as of today.

That is still a relatively small group, however with native support for RSS in the latest releases of major web browsers like Firefox2 and IE7, this group will only get bigger. So what can be done speed up this growth, building on the innovators and grabbing the early adopters? One answer is to create an official ‘awareness day’.

Those of you who aren’t familiar with RSS are probably wondering why this percentage is still so small, especially if it’s everything we’re raving about. Would you believe that RSS has been around since 1997? 11 years and yet so few users! One of the main reasons for this is the lack of mainstream supporting software. I say “mainstream” as there’s been a variety of RSS-utlising-applications around for quite some time now. However, unless you work in the IT industry these applications (many of which are available as freeware) are unlikely to appear in your average software lineup.

So today is the first RSS Awareness Day and many bloggers around the world are posting articles and spreading the word. We’re following suit to supplement our last feature explaining the ins-and-outs of RSS. If you missed that, go and read it now—you’ll find a great video primer on the power of RSS—then send it to a friend and help spread the word!

Also, keep an eye out for a subsequent post here at Tactical Thinking discussing the future of RSS and what lies ahead in the world of information gathering technology.

Most importantly for our industry, the most popular products/services bought online by European shoppers were travel tickets (54%) and holidays (42%).

With a huge 80% of European internet users claiming to have made a purchase online these figures make a pretty strong business case for investing in online marketing.

Another key finding of the report shows how web users are researching their purchases more. The EIAA report states:

40% of all European online shoppers have changed their mind about which brand to buy following research on the web, highlighting the power that websites can have in the purchasing decision.

Online shoppers from more mature online markets are more likely to change their mind on what brand to buy following web research, than online consumers from less developed markets. As markets develop in online sophistication, shoppers will consume a wider variety of marketing messages and information sources to make their purchase decision which increasingly influences their brand and product choice. As a result, marketers must develop ever more effective strategies to engage with their consumers.

To me the underlying message is if you’re not already looking at social media and ‘web 2.0’ for marketing your business then you really should begin to do so.

The executive summary of the report can be downloaded here or by visiting the EIAA web site.

(Via Multilingual Search)

This post is an overall description of what Search Engine Optimization (SEO) actually is and why it is so crucial to businesses within the winter tourism industry.

The definition of SEO

SEO is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via ‘natural’ search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it ‘ranks’, the more searchers will visit that site.

Put in layman’s terms, SEO means making your web site ‘findable’ to a larger number of people.

The validity of SEO

Questioning the importance of SEO? Well, think about this…

When looking for information online the first point of call for the vast majority of today’s web users is one of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo! and MSN). This is particularly true for users who are unfamiliar with brand names and products in the market they are exploring. Here’s an example:

John is an English-speaking skier looking for information on where to ski in Japan. He’s never heard of any Japanese ski resorts, only of Nagano – the region that hosted the Olympics not so long ago.

He enters “japan ski resorts” into Google, however no actual ski resorts appear on the first page, only tour operators and online resort guides. To find out more he now has to search through one of the online guides or continue through Google’s listings hoping to find what he’s looking for (something that very few users do).

What if a ski resorts own web site appeared on the first page? John’s life would certainly be a little easier – and the resort would be more likely to welcome John as a customer and holidaymaker.

The search engine concept

A search engine is the middleman between you and your audience. Your web site speaks to the search engine, which then speaks to the potential customers when they ask it about a company or services like yours.

Try to think of search engines as travel agents: a travel agency is the middleman between the destination and the tourist. Much the same as a travel agency promotes destinations search engines promote web sites.

Having said that, for a travel agency to promote a tourist destination properly it requires some information first; brochures, prices, maps… you get the idea. Search engines require information too. Your web site MUST provide this information if it is to succeed.

What’s more, search engines will favour sites that provide information to them in a way that is easy for them to interpret, categorise and accurately describe to search engine users.

Written content that ‘speaks’ to search engines

Search engines look for written content in web sites. A web site without any written content in a format that the search engine can understand becomes very unproductive.

For example, a web site full of images (that may even include written text) does NOT speak to search engines. Web sites with impressive animations and no written content are only useful if the users are already looking at it, not if they are using search engines to find it.

‘Content-rich’ is a term applied to web sites that feature in-depth written content. Generally speaking, the more relative written information your web site contains, the larger your audience will become. There are of course other contributing factors here, but that’s the nuts and bolts of it.

The relevance to winter tourism

With the ever-changing and somewhat unreliable snow seasons (thanks Global Warming!), winter tourists are travelling further a field each year. The closest ski region to one’s home can no longer guarantee a consistent snowfall. Skiers and snowboarders are constantly on the search for fresh destinations and a new adventure. How best to research these new horizons? Using the World Wide Web of course!

Well-established snow sport regions can begin to expect more and more visitors from countries further away. Resorts in Japan can target Brits. Chalets in Europe can focus on the Chinese. Cross-culture marketing is now crucial for all winter tourism businesses with SEO being a primary influence.

Your web site

Take a moment to look at your web site. Re-cap and ask yourself these questions again:

• Is your web site really reaching its intended audience?
• Is it ‘findable’ through search engines?
• Is it promoting your business?

Want to learn more? Over the coming months we will be writing a series of SEO-related posts for you to indulge upon. Topics to cover include keywords, meta-tags, language translation, content mark-up, headers and optimising images for search engines.

Check back regularly or sign up to our RSS feed…