All In One SEO

SEO is the holy grail of all travel website endeavours. If you have the best graphics and content in the world it won’t matter if no one sees it, right?

The beauty of WordPress is that search engines – all of them – love it. Even Google. WordPress has a few very high-tech features that make it robust right after installation, but to get the edge you need All In One SEO

Once it’s installed, the settings couldn’t be simpler. It pre-installs re-writes for the title tags, so the search engines can read what the site is actually about. From the developer’s website:

• Titles
  The text that you see in your browser’s window bar is the most important thing *on* your page. Make sure your titles are getting rewritten and the important stuff (your post titles) always come before anything else. You can leave a few words from your blog title to do some branding but don’t overdo. If your post titles don’t contain your most precious phrases you want to rank for then tweak them. Leave the post titles as it is but change the meta title.
• Descriptions
  Once your pages rank in search engines your description (aside of course from your title) makes a potential visitor want to click through, or not. It’s mta descriptions, believed dead by many people, that decide over your site’s fate. If you don’t want to invest the time and write a description for every post at least let them be auto-generated. This vastly better than the usual “Share This … Posted on … under …” description that is often used. The preferred source for your post description is your post excerpt. Use this when you want to tweak your description.
• Keywords
  All in One SEO Pack can generate them from your categories (this was the old way of tagging your posts in wordpress) or from Ultimate Tag Warrior or, starting with Wordpress 2.3, the built-in tagging system. Using your categories is optional, the rest is auto-detected and used if there. WP 2.3.x tags are the preferred keyword source.
• Duplicate Content
  You can have “noindex” and the like generated for archive-, category- and tag pages if you seem to have trouble with duplicate content.

Personally tested on more than 40 blogs over 4 years, I’ve been able to attain high ranking with very little effort using this plugin. I’ve tried several others, but this one is the gold standard as far as I’m concerned.

Ole Ole It’s Spain

• View a Live Demo of Ole Ole It’s Spain
  
• Download ole-ole-its-spain

This two column theme features a slight shadow on the background, with a full image in the header. Great for a Southwestern theme site or blog.

Need help setting up your travel website in WordPress? We can help!
Contact us today for more information.

Amazing Beach

• Download Amazing Beach WordPress Travel Theme
• View a Live Demo of Amazing Beach
  

This two column theme features a slight shadow on the background, with a full image in the header. Great for a Southwestern theme site or blog.

Need help setting up your travel website in WordPress? We can help!
Contact us today for more information.

Dedicated Cruise Websites with Consortium Content

Cruise-Only website for large agency, featuring outside database integration from Signature Travel Network. Custom work with XML feed for newsletter and third-party accounting software.

Client: CruiseMatch, Inc.

Need/Solution: CruiseMatch, Inc. needed a way to integrate a data feed from Signature Travel Network to power their suite of websites. We built a custom program to convert the data and import it into a php/mySql solution, wrapping it into a Wordpress CMS so the client could continue to modify and update the site for search engine and marketing purposes. We also integrated social marketing via Twitter and an added network of sites feeding to the main sites, as well as integrated two XML feeds to populate their newsletter with their quote requests automatically and also a feed to create a ClientBase Res Card from their website quote forms, potentially saving hours of data entry.

Timeframe: Ongoing since 2006.

Dedicated Travel Supplier Website Design

A website designed to showcase only one supplier, using their content and branded links. Free template, with basic setup fee to modify the design.

Client: AskYourTravelAgent.travel

Need: This travel agency has a primary site and was looking for a separate site specifically to market one brand of supplier, Sandals & Beaches. With a very tropical theme (free) to start with, we added her logo and phone number to the graphic header and then customized the links and a few pages of content.

Timeframe: With one-click Wordpress installation, hosting on our servers, discussion, design and modification, this site was live within 2 business days.

Ongoing Expense: $29 per month for hosting fees.

Twitter Tools

Alex King has some of the best plugins out there. The code is clean, and I’ve found that they work from revision to revision of Wordpress. If something breaks – they’re on it.

Twitter Tools is a tried and tested favorite of WP-TravelWebsite.com. We use it for all the sites serious about social media marketing and our own personal blog.

In short:

Twitter Tools is a plugin that creates a complete integration between your WordPress blog and your Twitter account.

Details

Twitter Tools integrates with Twitter by giving you the following functionality:

* Archive your Twitter tweets (downloaded every 10 minutes)

* Create a blog post from each of your tweets

* Create a daily or weekly digest post of your tweets

* Create a tweet on Twitter whenever you post in your blog, with a link to the blog post

* Post a tweet from your sidebar

* Post a tweet from the WP Admin screens

* Pass your tweets along to another service (via API hook)

As I said, it’s seamless. There are other services that can do a little more, but I prefer the stability of Twitter Tools.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Choosing a Theme Style

Choosing your theme style is one of the most important pieces of putting your site together. No two travel website should look alike, and your theme should reflect your own style and brand.

Home Based Travel Agents, Outside Agents & Travel Bloggers: If your clients (audience) know that you work from home or that you’re a “one-person-show”, and you have or want to foster a personal connection with them, then you can choose a more personal look focusing on your personal aspects. Your posts and entries can be written in the first-person and you will have a less formal, more friendly voice. There are dozens of free travel themes that can be customized for your purposes, and there are also some Premium themes – which are generally less than $100, but your own the theme files and can expect some tech support from the theme designer.

Travel Marketers, Group Travel Professionals, CVB’s & PR Firms: Might want to consider a more professional, corporate Wordpress theme and add more travel features to it, rather than choosing a travel theme and removing the whimsical features often found in the free travel websites. Some popular theme styles are magazine styles and layouts that feature video and some advertising. This style of theme is designed to showcase a business, and make the visitor feel secure that there is an entire company ready to serve their larger needs.

Take some time to consider your theme, although the beauty of Wordpress is that is allows you one-click changes of themes, so you’re never locked in for more than a few minutes to any design.

Cruise Theme

The Cruise Theme works for home-based travel agencies looking for a cool cruise theme.