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FTC Says it Uses Whois Data Base to Catch Criminals
The Federal Trade Commission is upset that the Whosis Data Base lock-outs for only $9.00 per year when websites renew their domain names is hurting their ability to track down criminals. The Federal Trade Commission claims it has used the Whois database to catch, convict and stop spammers, phishers and spyware culprits.Unfortunately the Federal Trade Commission has also doctored up sworn declarations, lied in their own declarations under oath and filed these bogus cases with malice and misrepresentation in Federal Courts. (We have legal proof of that statement).Nevertheless, the Federal Trade Commission contends that it needs this information to protect consumers? Although some say that the FTC has never protected consumers only put out public relations pieces that it has. In fact spam has went

e on marketing costs ie $20.00. Your web site converts 2.0% of visitors to sales (1 in 50 – sad isn’t it but that is the average conversion rate and yours may well be lower) which means that you should only spend a maximum of $0.40 per click on pay-per-click ($20.00 x 2.0% = $0.40)…not much is it? $0.40 will get you on about page seven in most markets for high volume keywords. Maybe your bookings for next month are looking a little soft so you are prepared to up your Percentage Marketing Spend to 10.0% of Revenue Per Online Sale or $40.00; that still means a maximum cost per click of $0.80 to give you a modest ROI.

So, why in the name of Conrad Hilton is the price bid today for the key phrase “your destination hotel” up to $3.00 per click on Yahoo Search Marketing and even higher on Google?

If you “rever

Kmart and Sears - Defying Botton-Line Gravity
Every once in awhile someone comes along to rewrites the accepted rules of their business.Henry Ford rewrote the rules of auto making when he decided to have partially assembled cars move through stationary workers, reversing the accepted way of manufacturing large products.In 1879, Franklin Woolworth opposed retail rules with his concept of pricing an entire store at a single discounted price – 5 cents. When the store failed to attract customers, closing a few weeks after opening, retail critics said it was proof the concept of a low-priced retail operation would never work. Woolworth would defy their opinions when he opened a second store later that year, adding a second price, 10 cents. The new store was a hit and led to 1,000s of stores under the Woolworth banner and dozens of copycats.<

The saying goes something like “A fool and his money are soon parted…” and buying pay-per-click advertising without doing your math homework can quickly have hoteliers sharing the same fate.

Pay-per-click advertising (those “Sponsor Results”, “Sponsored Links” or “Sponsored Sites” above and to the right of the organic or natural search results on the major Search Engines) has to be one of the smartest money-making ventures of all time. Advertisers bid against each other in a frenzied auction environment, competing to appear higher up the list of ads that accompany the natural search results.

As of today, to appear at the very top of the page in the Sponsored Links in the UK for “London Hotel” will cost you over GBP1.30 per click; in the US over $3.00 for “New York hotel”; in Australia more than $2.60 for “Sydney hotel” and in France more than EURO1.40 for the search term “Paris hotel”…that’s per-click…it costs you nothing to show your ad but the moment someone clicks on the ad and is routed to your web site, the meter clicks over one more time and takes another little nibble from your credit card balance.

Developed by the really smart guys at the Search Engines, the pay-per-click auction environment encourages the great majority of inexperienced users to bid up the cost per click somewhere north of Vladivostok…which it was probably designed to do. In the hotel arena, these inexperienced bidders are probably the same people who measure their performance in terms of ARR rather than RevPAR.

Still, it’s only a couple of bucks isn’t it? Well, based on data that indicates that the majority of hotel web sites convert less than 2.0% of clicks that go through to the site, at $2.00 per click, it just cost you more than $100.00 to convert that sale!

Given the prices being bid per click at the moment, it appears that few hotel managers and marketers are doing that math, so we have prepared the “Hotel Marketing Workshop Pay-Per-Click Calculator”. You will be able to quickly and simply work out in advance, exactly what the maximum cost per click you ought to be paying based on your Average Online Room Rate, Average Online Length of Stay, Percentage Marketing Investment Per Sale and Estimated Conversion Rate.

Using this simple tool (it’s just a spreadsheet and some basic formulas), you will be able to choose what level of investment per click will give you a reasonable Return On Investment (ROI). And may prevent you from pouring your scarce marketing dollars down the porcelain through over-expensive clicks through to your web site. You can download it here or visit www.hotelmarketingworkshop.com and follow the links to this article and download it from there.

Now for that math lesson…let’s say you run a mid-scale inner-city hotel and your Average Online Room Rate is $200 and Average Online Length of Stay is 2 nights. You Revenue Per Online Sale is therefore $400. Now, before your eyes glaze over, it’s not much more complex, just keep following the bouncing ball a bit longer.

Most hotels allocate somewhere between 3.0-7.0% of revenues to marketing expenses, so let’s keep it simple and say that you would normally spend 5.0% of your $400 revenue on marketing costs ie $20.00. Your web site converts 2.0% of visitors to sales (1 in 50 – sad isn’t it but that is the average conversion rate and yours may well be lower) which means that you should only spend a maximum of $0.40 per click on pay-per-click ($20.00 x 2.0% = $0.40)…not much is it? $0.40 will get you on about page seven in most markets for high volume keywords. Maybe your bookings for next month are looking a little soft so you are prepared to up your Percentage Marketing Spend to 10.0% of Revenue Per Online Sale or $40.00; that still means a maximum cost per click of $0.80 to give you a modest ROI.

So, why in the name of Conrad Hilton is the price bid today for the key phrase “your destination hotel” up to $3.00 per click on Yahoo Search Marketing and even higher on Google?

If you “revers

Internet Home Business Secrets That Payoff!
I can picture you exactly where I was just a few short years ago -- Sitting in another useless meeting organized by a group of senior managers that have a combined IQ less than your own child at 3-months old. Around in circles you go, no progress again today and only those who play the game the best will collect the bigger paychecks - but even they can't outlast this game of roulette can they? Listen - I get asked often, even by my own wife, "why are you so driven!" It's true, these days I am passionate about just about everything I do - especially my internet home business. Why? Is it the thought of a new porsche sitting in my driveway that motivated me to succeed with my internet home business? What about cruising up and down the Paci

“Sydney hotel” and in France more than EURO1.40 for the search term “Paris hotel”…that’s per-click…it costs you nothing to show your ad but the moment someone clicks on the ad and is routed to your web site, the meter clicks over one more time and takes another little nibble from your credit card balance.

So, why in the name of Conrad Hilton is the price bid today for the key phrase “your destination hotel” up to $3.00 per click on Yahoo Search Marketing and even higher on Google?

If you “rever

Ebook Review: Quick Cash Injections
EBOOK DETAILS File Size: 1,287kb Zipped, 1,300kb Unzipped. Number of Pages: 1 long scrolling page. Format: Executable (.exe) Subject: Quick Cash Injections details the methods Sara used when she first started out in Internet Marketing to generate quick cash when needed.ABOUT SARA BROWN (AUTHOR OF QUICK CASH INJECTIONS) Sara Brown is one of the UK's top Internet Marketers. She sells on eBay at http://stores.ebay.co.uk/The-Jobhaters-Marketplace and also runs a variety of websites which can all be accessed from http://www.sara-brown.com/choices/. If you want to know more read her About Me page on eBay or subscribe to her newsletter through her websites.ABOUT THE EBOOK After reading An Interview with Sara Brown I was intrigued by her unique income generating methods a

convert less than 2.0% of clicks that go through to the site, at $2.00 per click, it just cost you more than $100.00 to convert that sale!

So, why in the name of Conrad Hilton is the price bid today for the key phrase “your destination hotel” up to $3.00 per click on Yahoo Search Marketing and even higher on Google?

If you “rever

How To Use Articles To Give Your Visitors What They Are Looking For
If you are an internet business or site, or even just someone who uses the internet a lot you know that a site needs well written articles. These articles provide the information people are looking for, and you want give them what they want.Key WordsThe first problem is that when writing an article you need to make sure there are enough key words and phrases in the article to link it to your site. The more keywords you have the higher you will show up on a search, and the more traffic you will attract to your site. Making sure you have enough of these key words and phrases is not always easy.New InformationNext you need to make sure you keep updating your articles to keep up with the competition. These new articles will attract new people, or even the same people who are looking fo

from pouring your scarce marketing dollars down the porcelain through over-expensive clicks through to your web site. You can download it here or visit www.hotelmarketingworkshop.com and follow the links to this article and download it from there.

So, why in the name of Conrad Hilton is the price bid today for the key phrase “your destination hotel” up to $3.00 per click on Yahoo Search Marketing and even higher on Google?

If you “rever

Be Gentle - Persuade Me; Nine Conversation Starters for Trade Show Exhibitors
Trade Show attendees beg - do not sell me, persuade me.They plea - Do not force me to buy something I will be sorry about later. Be Gentle with Your Influence.Here are NINE KEY WORDS to get the ball rolling....We all have something in our past we believe someone “sold” us. It might have been a lemon yellow car, a skimpy skirt or a purple tie. We bought it because - despite our gut feeling - we thought we were doing the right thing. We wanted to please the salesman - and we believed that person knew more than we did. Until we got home.One of the two major complaints from trade show attendees is the heavy sales pitch of the booth staff. You know that pushy salesman stereotype.. (FYI - the second complaint is staff that doesn't know its stuff - i.e. is not knowledge

So, why in the name of Conrad Hilton is the price bid today for the key phrase “your destination hotel” up to $3.00 per click on Yahoo Search Marketing and even higher on Google?

If you “reverse engineer” the math, at $3.00 per click with a 2.0% conversion rate and a 5.0% marketing investment and a 2 night stay, your hotel would need to be achieving an Online ARR of…wait for it…$1500.00 per night; perhaps in parts of Saudi Arabia that may be achievable but seldom in downtown anywhere else.

And the Search Engines are smiling all the way to the bank…even at a 5.0% conversion rate and 10.0% marketing investment that’s $300.00 per night; a not unheard of ARR, but 5.0% web site nett conversion rates and a 10.0% marketing investment are rarified numbers indeed for many hoteliers and their web sites.

So, what can you do to make PPC work for you? It’s all there in the formula:

research keywords that aren’t so actively competed for that are still relevant for your target audience and bid on those – less volume yes, but a much more reasonable cost per click
extend your key phrases that you bid on to three or four words “downtown boutique your destination hotel” as these phrases are again not so actively competed for
select and implement the very best Web Booking Engine you can find to make that final step to conversion as user-friendly as possible
increase your Revenue Per Online Sale by either increasing online rates or encouraging longer stays
find and be prepared to pay a professional to manage your pay-per-click investment with the skills to maximise click through rates and the lowest cost per click
call Hotel Marketing Workshop to help you increase your conversion rate through a better web site experience (oops…that darn commercial keeps sneaking in)
OR you could just keep bidding up the cost per click like everyone else and slowly go broke while the Search Engines keep charging your credit card

At Hotel Marketing Workshop we don’t actually manage pay-per-click advertising for clients; there’s nothing wrong with PPC when well-managed but we just prefer to do what we do best…developing and designing great web sites that maximise the conversion of visitors (from whatever source – PPC, Search Engine Optimisation, referrals from inbound links, online and offline ad campaigns) to online revenues.

And we are happy to help you find and select a PPC advisor as part of your overall hotel internet marketing strategy and work with them to maximise your online revenues… and we’re OK at the math too!

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Streaming audio is one of the most powerful things to come along in this generation. Statistics have shown streaming audio in most cases will help your conversion rate You need to have a clear plan of what audio can do for your website. There are so many ways to use streaming audio almost all of them will help you have a better site.

Why do most entrepreneurs and small businesses fail within the first 1-year of getting started? What is the reason someone can have experience and knowledge about a market, but still have trouble finding opportunities for products and services? Find the answers to these important business home internet work questions and more here.

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