Blogging for Profit and Search Engine Optimization

BLOGS.  You certainly hear about them and have probably even read a few.  Perhaps you are wondering if you should create one for your property, but really are not sure how a BLOG would be beneficial for your business.  In the list below, RezStream helps explain the many benefits of adding a blog to your website. We will explain how they can increase your exposure online, which in turn make you more money!

Benefits:

  • It is easy! With some guidance about best practices, you can be blogging properly in no time. The result is more traffic and revenue.
  • Blogs ping search engine spiders, which means it alerts the spiders that there is new content on the website. As such, they index the site incredibly quickly. The benefit is faster indexing of pages. The more often the spiders are on the website the quicker we see results in the search engines. 
  • You can syndicate your site on feeds to increase exposure and traffic to the website. Journalists and other bloggers are constantly searching other blog posts to add to their own articles, which can bring in more links.
  • Blogs can be utilized as backlinks for your website.  Using anchor text from your blog to other pages within your site will add quality links to your website.  This is helpful for search engine optimization (SEO). 
  • Blogs create more indexed pages.  Again, this process is very helpful for SEO; the more pages you have indexed the better. In addition, the more pages you have, the more keywords you can optimize for. 
  • Blogs provide communication to your targeted audience.  A blog defines the personality of your business and website and creates a sense of community with your readers. 

Now that you realize why blogging is so important, what should you blog about?  Here are some suggestions from RezStream:

  • Describe attractions in your town or area of interest to visitors.
  • Provide information about local events and seasonal activities. 
  • Discuss what is new in town.
  • You can use blogs as a media room posting press releases, videos, photos and more.
  • You can also discuss specials, packages, and other business related news.

A blog is only as good as those posting to it.  If you cannot commit to adding a new post at least once a week, it is not going to be as valuable as it could be.  However, if you can make the commitment you will be helping visitors to your website as well as your own business.  It is a win-win!

Remember that if you need help with your hotel internet marketing strategies, please call RezStream at 866-360-8210.  We have a variety of marketing plans available that are suitable for all budgets.  RezStream’s team of experts can help give your internet marketing efforts a boost!

All About ExpressionEngine

Rick Ellis first developed ExpressionEngine as a blogging tool under the name “pMachine” in 2001.  An early prototype of pMachine was installed on Nancy Sinatra’s (Frank’s daughter) website.  After some real world testing and success, pMachine was released to the public in 2002.

By the end of 2002, pMachine had been featured in a few books and magazines and was having some success, but at that point, the Web was young and still developing.  Ellis noticed website owners and developers wanted more control and management over their content.  That’s when Rick Ellis developed a more robust tool called ExpressionEngine and the web development community took notice.

The first version of ExpressionEngine was first released to the public in 2004 as a general-purpose content management system written in object-oriented PHP and using MySQL for storing data.

ExpressionEngine’s publishing features are robust, comprehensive, and highly flexible.  Where other content management systems may have limitations in terms of visual design elements and/or display and organization of content, ExpressionEngine fills the needs of these major voids.

Throughout the years, ExpressionEngine has increased its features, flexibility, and popularity among larger businesses in helping build their web presence.  These steps advanced ExpressionEngine to version 1.6.8.  As its usage continued to grow, more features were requested from site owners and developers.  ExpressionEngine developers were now building “application-like” sites and needed even more flexibility and features at their disposal.  Ellis Lab listened to these requests and delivered with ExpressionEngine 2.0.  This version has been completely rebuilt on Ellis Lab’s “CodeIgniter,” an application MVC framework.

New Features of ExpressionEngine 2.0

Built On CodeIgniter
Acclaimed for its speed and flexibility, CodeIgniter has become the application framework of choice for many of the premiere PHP developers in the world.

New Interface
The ExpressionEngine control panel has been redesigned to make your experience and workflow faster, more intuitive, efficient, and better organized for superior control.

File Manager with Image Editor
ExpressionEngine 2.0 features an incredibly powerful and intuitive file and asset manager that can be used from within the publishing interface or on its own.  The new file manager includes the ability to crop, resize, and rotate your images directly in the control panel.

Key Features of ExpressionEngine

Multiple Categories
Each entry can be assigned to multiple categories, and you can create as many unique category groups as you want.

Relationships
You can create relationships between entries in different sections of your site, enabling information to be shared.

Expiring Entries
You can set an expiration date on your entries so they will be automatically removed from your site on that requested date.

Multi-User System
ExpressionEngine is a true multi-user system.  Each user can be granted a wide range of privileges, which allows you to define with precise control what each user is permitted to do.

Security
ExpressionEngine has the most comprehensive suite of security features of any publishing platform on the market.

When will ExpressionEngine 2.0 be ready for prime time?

As of this article, ExpressionEngine 2.0 is in Beta form, which is available to the public; however bugs, errors, and minor fixes still need to be worked out.  In addition, there are very few add-ons, extensions, and modules that may be needed to accomplish feature requests. 

RezStream recommends waiting to upgrade your site until ExpressionEngine 2.2 is released, hopefully in spring/summer 2010.  That doesn’t mean you should wait until then if you are thinking of having a site built.  RezStream can easily accomplish this process using the current version 1.6.8, which can easily be upgraded to 2.2 when it becomes available.  If you have further questions regarding ExpressionEngine, please feel to contact RezStream at 303.872.0220.

Published: December 30, 2009