This is a paid review.

Aloha Whistler Accomodations is the name of an accomodations broker that provides condos and chalets for skiers travelling to Whistler, BC. Their website is called, "Whistler Accomodations", and is where tourists can go to book accomodations.

Ahola's website has been online as far back as January 1999, according to the Wayback Machine, so they've had quite a bit of time to make improvements. The company itself has actually been in the business of providing accomodations to Whistler tourists for the past 27 years.

A look at their on-site SEO efforts and website design shows that they've done quite a bit...

• They've made heavy use of the "whistler" and "accomodations" keywords.



• They utilized tabbed navigation at the top of the page, which most usability experts agree is the most easiest form navigation for website users.



• They've made their telephone contact easily visible in a red side panel.



• They've even embedded a Whistler news blog into their website, which I've said before is best way to use a blog as a marketing tool.

But there are still a few improvements they can make. Here are my suggestions...

• They haven't used the "canada" or "british columbia" keywords on page. Google's keyword tool shows that such phrases as "whistler bc", "whistler british columbia" and "whistler canada" all have average search volumes. While the company has used these words in the META tag, they need to place them "on page", that is, within the readable text. Whereever they print the word "Whistler" replace it with "Whistler BC" or "Whistler British Columbia". It carries a lot of weight when keywords are actually being used on page.



• The Home page is too static. Add a "What's New" section below that displays the first paragraph from their last three blog posts. Note that Aloha is already doing something like this, but are instead only showing headlines, and they've done this through Javascript (via Feedburner). Unfortunately, Javascript is not indexed by Google, and as a result, Google sees the homepage as totally unchanged. Instead, deliver these headlines and paragraphs through some kind of server-side scripting, like PHP or ASP, so that Google can detect it, and consider the homepage as being constantly updated. This will result in higher search engine rankings.



• Add the word "whistler" to all the filenames. For example, their Accomodations page has this filename, "accomodations.php". Instead use this, "whistler-accomodations.php". This will give you a little better search engine ranking. Use it on all pages.



• Create pages for all popular "whistler" keyphrases, and link these pages through a "Resources" or "Site Map" page. Other phrases that Google's keyword tool shows as having average search volume, "ski whistler canada", "whistler blackcomb", "whistler condos", "whistler packages", "whistler hotels", "whistler lodging", "whistler ski resort", "whistler vacation", "whistler weather". Aloha should create a page optimized for each of these phrases. This will have the effect of casting a wider fishing net to capture more clients.

Labels: Website Review