Broken links on your website are annoying and bad for your website visitors' experience. Trying to check them yourself would be a huge job if you have a lot of links on your website.

But don't despair! There are free tools that can do this for you. Go to the website below and enter your website address. It checks all your links it gives you a list with the broken links. Go to: www.brokenlinkcheck.com

Now just fix the links and you're done! Till next week, Marijke

Ha, the title sounds a bit confusing, doesn't it. You'll understand what I mean after reading the following.
Two of the current marketing trends in tourism are:

1. The importance of video on your website - and definitely on your home page. Video helps sell your product and convert to booking much more efficiently than static images. A videos also looks great as a background header.
   
2. Another trend is site speed. If your site takes longer than 3-5 seconds to load, you'll lose a lot of visitors and sales. The issue with HD video is that it can slow down your site if the files are very big, which they often are.
   

So to have HD videos on your website without compromising your site speed, read on..

I found this great (free!) little tool: Clipchamp. Clipchamp lets users convert, compress, edit and record videos in the browser. It's a free service that doesn't require installing software or uploading files to an online video converter or compressor.
I have just used it for a client's website, and it is fantastic! I reduced a 300MB file to 30MB and it's still super sharp! And SO much faster!

There are no input file size restrictions (it has been successfully tested with videos of up to 20GB). Our output format options are MP4, WebM, WMV, FLV and GIF.
Clipchamp is also very easy to use! I have also verified that it's a safe site to use.

So, give it a go and upload some great videos to your site! Go to: www.clipchamp.com

Till next week, Marijke

As mentioned in previous posts, images (with keywords in the file name, small file size and alt-tags and captions added) are a great way to get a better ranking on Google.

Reducing image sizes can be a bit of a hassle, so I'd like to share this simple little tool with you: Pix Resizer.
It's a very simple to use tool to reduce either one image at a time or a whole folder of images. They can be converter to a number of file formats (such as jpg, gif, png etc). The default is set on jpg (or jpeg) as this format condenses the file the most.

Here's the link to download this great little tool: Pix Resizer: http://bluefive.pairsite.com/pixresizer.htm

So, have a look at the size of your files and start replacing your images with smaller sized images (around 100kb).

Tourism Marketing Courses coming up: (click on links below)
Starting in Tourism: 3 May 2017 Invercargill REGISTRATIONS CLOSING SOON!
Growing your Tourism Business - Marketing Bootcamp: 15 June 2017 in Queenstown

Till next week, Marijke

In the last tip, I wrote about "How to get more great photos for your website and social media".
There are also certain types of photos you should avoid having on your website.
Here are nine examples (including my PET HATE one!).

Till next week, Marijke

Photos are the easiest and best way to promote your business whether you’re in tourism or sell a physical product. People are ‘visual’; if it looks good, they more likely to buy or book it! In fact, 92% of communication is visual..

I see many businesses struggling to update photos (and video) on their website and social media. It’s easy if you like taking photos yourself (I do!), but can be a hassle if you don’t.

Here are 6 ways and ideas to obtain good photos:

1. Put some budget aside each year to get professional photos taken. These can be used everywhere: your brochure, website, social media (incl Tripadvisor, your google map listing etc.), ads and media will use professional photos. Also, if your product appears in wholesale brochures, if you have great pics, they will be used to promote the region too.
2. But not all photos have to be ‘professional’ photos. Photos you take yourself can feel more authentic and spontaneous. Get a good quality late model smartphone. Not only are the cameras very good on them, you can also take some cool little videos!
3. Take photos every day and upload them on Instagram and Facebook (you can link these so you only have to do it once) and have a live feed on your website. This way, you’ll always have ‘fresh’ photos on your website! Don't forget to put a caption, hashtag or alt-tag on your photo so people know what they're looking at!
4. If you employ staff, there is bound to be someone who loves photography as a hobby. Make it part of their job description and you’ll have great new photos all the time!
5. Take a photography course.
6. Make a ‘shoot list’, a list of topics that would be great to have photos of for your marketing.

• Think about the things that your customers tell you they love about what you sell.
• Have a look at what other websites, and the type of photos that appeal most.
• The type of photos and posts that get shared most are photos that are: funny, inspirational, cute, stunning, surprising, novel.
• You could have a ‘theme’. For example, one of our local tabloids has a photo each week of a someone reading the publication in somewhere in the world.
• People photos: of your customers enjoying your product/having fun!
  
• Photos of your team (on the ‘About us’ page). Your customers want to see who they're dealing with!
• Add text to your photo (great for Facebook ads etc) - see example below.

So, plan how you're going to have fresh photo content on your website on a regular basis.

Till next week, Marijke