The Power of Digg

Here is a great example why SEO’s should concentrate on quality, linkable content. In 7 days he generated 234,000 links, from a mere 100-200 links. That’s the power of Digg, and the benefits that come with Digg.

Asiana Airlines - Poor Internet Marketing

I was reading the Bangkok Post about a week ago and noticed a half page advert from Asiana Airlines - 2 direct flights per day from Bangkok to Seoul. I have wanted to go to South Korea (and the north) for a long time now, so I made a mental image of Asiana Airlines.

Last night myself and my girlfriend started discussing our holiday plans for this year. My girlfriend voted for skiing in Japan, as she has never seen snow before whilst I voted for South Korea. We agreed that we would look into the costs involved with each and use the costs as the deciding factor on where to go.

So, with my fingers crossed I typed “Asiana Airlines” into Google and I got the following search results:

Now, from an SEO/M and end user perspective, this is poor on-page SEO. What link do I choose? Not one of the ten title descriptions or description tells me where I should click to book a ticket.

Anyway, I decided to check out the “Asiana Global Sites” link. Guess what? They don’t have a link for Thailand. Damn, what do I do now?

Hmmmm, I know, I’ll go back to the search results in Google. Even though the asiana.co.kr link says “For foreigners residing in Korea” I think this must be the corporate Asiana web site (with the .co.kr domain format). Hopefully I can find a link to where I can buy or find out a price for a ticket. This is what I got…

What link would you select?

I choose “International” above the bookings. I went to select the departure city and there was only one option - Korea.

Above I noticed a “Site Map” link - Hopefully this would direct me to the right place.

NOTE: If your site has more than 20 pages of content, I highly recommend generating a site map. If visitors are having difficulty finding what they are looking for, a site map will instantly point them to the right page. Check out Google Webmaster Tools to learn more.

On the site map they had a link “Reservations and ticketing - International” This took me to the page I was just at. Back to the site map. Next page “reservation search”, I got this message:

“For the security purposes for the user, it is impossible to change the reservation…..”

What is that all about?

Okay, by now I would have given up, but by this time I had already thought about writing this post so I wanted to continue (for your benefit ). At this stage, I honestly didn’t know where to click next. So, back to the site map. I selected “Worldwide Offices” which was under the “About Asiana” rather than “Reservations and ticketing. Wooo Hooo! I eventually get a number for Asiana in Bangkok. I called and asked them if they accepted online bookings, they said no.

Now the question is, why pay for advertising in national newspapers when you can’t get your internet marketing sorted out? Also, why are they not accepting online bookings, why not invest the print advertising budget in an online booking system? It’s not like they can’t afford it, they own multi-million dollar aircraft! I wonder how many other airlines don’t offer online bookings, I hope I’m right in guessing not many.

I also wonder how much business they have lost due to this? I would think a lot.

Asiana Airlines, if you are reading this - we offer a usability report that covers all the aspects I fount frustrating with your site, only small changes are needed for a huge improvement with communicating with potential customers online. Stop damaging your brand!

Link Bait for 2007

Danny Sullivan, a guy who has been in the SEO world from the start, is a well-respected expert on Search Engine Marketing.

Danny has written a good piece on “Link Bait for 2007”

Link bait is by far the best way to get organic, relevant inbound links - inbound links generate traffic and higher search engine rankings!

Are you taking link bait seriously? If not, you should reconsider as the benefits are huge!

Shameless plus: SEO Bangkok Link Bait Service

99 ways to brand on the cheap

This is a very well written article with some great suggestions and tips on how to market/brand a company that won’t break the bank! Well worth a read.

Visitor Eye Movements

I recently fount this cool article that looks at web site user eye movements. The article also covers the different levels of area concentration on each part of the page. Worth checking out, especially if you are running adverts on your site.

Domain Format

I’m often asked about which is the best route to go when buying domain names.
Should I Include keywords? Use “-” to separate words? .com, .co.uk, .net? length of the domain?

Here’s my view:
Always use your primary keyword if possible! This will help a little with rankings, especially with MSN. If you plan to attract business worldwide, use a .com - almost all type ins start with a .com and in my view, a .com looks more professional than a .net or .biz (One exception: non-profit organisations such as charities, in my opinion, should use a .org domain.)

If your site is aimed at the UK market, use a .co.uk - when I’m searching something related to the UK, I would generally click on a .co.uk domain over a .com I’m not keen on using “-” within domains, I think they look spammy! Especially if you use more than one. Only use a “-” once if the two words together are hard to see, especially if you plan to promote the domain in print media.

Many people think that the search engines may not recognise a 2 word key phrase if they don’t use a “-”: they do! Like our domain, we have seobangkok.com The search engines will understand that the keyword may be: SEO Bangkok or SEOBangkok

Last but not least, the length of the domain. Try to keep the domain short if possible as it looks more professional and is easier to remember. I also think long domains look spammy, as well could the search engines!

Audition Update

About 3 months ago I read an article in my weekly magazine that a film company is seeking actors for a new movie called Back to the Bronz Forest. I applied for an audition and got accepted. During the audition I had to read a script in front of many people and learnt about the character:

He’s a Karen, just trained to be a mahout (elephant’s trainer), he’s in love with MALEE, his teacher’s daughter. He has the nature of a proud young man, and he thinks the world exists for his amusement. He does what it takes to get what he wants.

Yes, the audition was scary but a lot of fun. They have said that they will let me know if I get accepted so will keep you informed.