Online marketing experts may wish to take a peek at the findings of a new study carried out for the travel industry by the Total Media agency.

The agency spend a year surveying the British public’s attitudes to booking holidays and found that more and more people are using mobile devices such as smartphones and iPads to make their holiday arrangements.

The company urged travel operators to do more to make their websites mobile browing-friendly and to develop their own travel apps – or at least to throw their weight behind the more successful apps on the market.

Its researchers found that 18 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds wished to look up flight times on their phones, while 15 per cent wanted to book hotel rooms via their mobile devices and 15 per cent of 16 to 44-year-olds were already using their phones to get as much information as possible about their holiday destinations. Online advertising campaigns need to be aware of this growing trend and bear it in mind when focusing their online marketing strategies, such as making more use of such local advertising features as Google Maps.

With the growing popularity of travel apps, Total Media discovered that a hefty 44 per cent of consumers would prefer to download a free travel app sponsored by a travel company than buy a non-sponsored equivalent.

The report said: “The huge demand for sponsored apps provides a massive opportunity for brands. Free to the user, perhaps, but it is an excellent way for established brands to both cement their position in the market and engage with new customers in a fresh manner.”

Total Media managing director Nick Oram commented: “Destination companies of all types – hotels, restaurants, museums – must start to engage with real time and geographic mobile services.”

Dan Coysh

Daniel has been a freelance journalist and providing SEO Copywriting services for over three years now at Online Media Direct, after eight years as reporter and news editor for a national newspaper. He has provided SEO news content for a number of sites and on several occasions has completely rewritten a website’s text – both in the public and private sectors.

Google created a new opportunity for local businesses hoping to boost their online marketing efforts this week – Google Place Search.

The feature is intended to offer users of the search engine more and better organised local information on businesses and services, including photographs of the business premises themselves and reviews.

From the Google users’ point of view, the new feature is a great way of exploring a neighbourhood, from the best restaurants and bars to museums and galleries. Place Search organises all this information around the location itself, rather than the category of business or amenity itself.

The local search results are marked out on Google Maps with red pins and come complete with any relevant info – such as whether a bar features live music – and web links to reviews from the likes of citysearch and tripadvisor. Previously, searches of this kind would provide the links and information in different parts of the results page, rather than conveniently grouped for easy digestion and comparison.

The feature looks set to be a boon for local businesses looking to raise their online marketing profile and attract extra custom from their catchment areas. It is likely that online advertising campaigns will be quick to pick up on the possibilities and tweak their marketing efforts accordingly.

Writing on the Google blog, product manager Jackie Bavaro said: “We’ve made results like this possible by developing technology to better understand places.”

“With Place Search, we’re dynamically connecting hundreds of millions of websites with more than 50 million real-world locations. We automatically identify when sites are talking about physical places and cluster links even when they don’t provide addresses and use different names.”

Dan Coysh

Daniel has been a freelance journalist and providing SEO Copywriting services for over three years now at Online Media Direct, after eight years as reporter and news editor for a national newspaper. He has provided SEO news content for a number of sites and on several occasions has completely rewritten a website’s text – both in the public and private sectors.

When you spend 12 hours a day online in front of a computer screen you certainly learn a lot about ways of promoting localised companies. In the vast majority of cases the tools available for localised companies such as your self employed carpenter, plumber or gas fitters as free of charge. The numbers of companies we meet in this position has lead me to write this latest blog it saves me going through the same list of free sources plus it enables viewers of the blog online to pass on the information to people they know that are perhaps self employed.

Ok the First stop for any company is Google Maps. Google offer a free business listing for all companies all you need is a Postcode and your away. One of the most common mistakes people do make is not considering what people will type in the search engine to find the product or service your company provides so take some time considering this prior to rushing in and making any mistakes.

Google maps listings are simple to complete here are my most important four points to consider -

• Title your listing properly according to your name and product/ Service you provide
• Add the relevant categories
• Additional Services add as many different services so for a carpenter – Doors – Yes   Windows – Yes  Guttering   – Yes add as many different services as possible
• Use the telephone authorisation method and not the Postcard method you will be waiting for 2 to 3 weeks and in that time you could have already had a visit or enquiry from the maps listing.

Look out for free submissions on sites such as Yell, Touch Local, Thomson Local, About us.org there are hundreds of different directories that offer this service. If you are a complete novice online and would like us take care of this for you simply give us a call using the free phone number above.

Garry Pickles

As the Managing Director of Online Media Direct Garry takes care of the day to day management of the company. Garry has been working within the Internet Marketing Industry for the previous 10 years and has a wide range of experiences in SEO, CPC and Social Media. | Follow me on Google Plus

Google have launched there new add on to Google maps you can now view street level in 3D. Warning 3D glasses are required and unless you still have a pair from the 3d cartoon annual your received in 1988 (aged 5) you will be like the majority requiring a new pair. I have not yet tested the street view in 3D but you can clearly see without glasses there is a definate 3D view created when you click on the icon that represents the 3D view. One can only presume that at the time of photography the camera used for google maps street view took a 3D image. I am no expert when it comes to what is required to create the 3D image but from what I seem to remember it has something to do with the green and red colours and two images being taken.

Please note rumours online are that this could have been a April fools joke with the timing of the launch but the feature still remains and I cannot see this being a prank.

 Before the Change the icon displays a grumpy chap with blue and red glasses above his head,

 After the change the glasses are added leaving a happy yellow chappy,

It seems 3D technology is here to stay this time.

If Google have added this 3D with prior planning then this is a very clever move 3D is the next HD if you catch my drift. Sky sports are already screening a number of Premier League football games at selected Pubs across the UK in 3D it is surley only a matter of time before high street TV shops and mainstream brands together with sky cash in on this new technology. I say new technology but 3D was for me something of the 1970 and 80s that never really took off. Flimsy glasses made of card were used but technology has progressed real life live events in 3D is a totally different kettle of fish indeed.

So visit google maps order some 3D glasses and away you go take a look at some famous landmarks if its that good perhaps some people will stop travelling and remain rooted in front of there laptop screen permenantly .

That was a joke by way.

Garry Pickles

As the Managing Director of Online Media Direct Garry takes care of the day to day management of the company. Garry has been working within the Internet Marketing Industry for the previous 10 years and has a wide range of experiences in SEO, CPC and Social Media. | Follow me on Google Plus

Google Maps business listings not to be underestimated.

As standard when setting up a business once the website is completed people think nothing of the free google maps listing and complete this with it being a free product in most cases not very seriously. I must admit until a few months ago I was to of the opinion that google maps was nothing more than a free gimmick from google for local companies who may find it useful that provide a particular service for example a garage for mots.

Being a company based in an office and speaking to nearly 99% of our customers over the phone or email I cold quite get the who google maps thing. But when you consider the number of local phrase searches made on google the final piece in the jigsaw falls into place with google maps.

To help you fully understand the potential of a google maps listing for your company here is a little case study -

The localised phrase we are considering for this is “furniture london” this triggers the Google maps listings

Furniture london on Google maps

Your Furniture company could appear here.

Notice not one listing is optimised for the “furniture london” phrase . This is just one small example of the potential of using our Google maps optimization service . Prices start as little as £99 and this optimisation service has been proven to deliver great results online with many satisfied customers.

If you would like to secure your companies optimised google maps listing please visit

http://www.onlinemediadirect.co.uk and call our freephone number

or email – info@onlinemediadirect.co.uk

admin