More money is expected to be spent on holidays this year and to make the most of this, travel agents are being urged to create original content to compete with online booking agents.

A poll undertaken by the organisers of the British Travel Awards (BTA) found that all the respondents said they will use the internet to either research or book part or all of their holiday. They use websites for several reasons including destination research and price comparison.

The chief executive of the BTA, Lorraine Barnes Burton, says, “In order to compete with internet retailers, agents need to expand their own websites to include independent content that will satisfy their customers with constructive reviews.”

She went on to explain that this can be in the form of blogs, online news articles, social networking or reviews. The content needs to provide information not available elsewhere as that is what customers want to read.

The poll also found that holidays are no longer considered a luxury for many people who now consider them an essential part of maintaining a work-life balance.

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Excellent website content represents 80 per cent of an online enterprise's success, but the key is to make it interesting, original and relevant to the target audience. That was one of the main points reiterated by search engine optimisation (SEO) experts who gathered this month to evaluate 2009 and assess the marketing outlook for next year.

An increasing number of online business owners are growing aware that, without optimised content on their websites, "they simply miss the chance to earn much more", according to the SEO analysts at website language translation specialist New Frontier Digital. "Currently, websites without SEO hosting are going down in search engine rankings as more business owners decide to use specific techniques."

SEO copywriting becomes "an obligatory action" for anyone starting an online enterprise, they concluded: "Without it, one will be simply pushed down to the last pages of search engine rankings."

With a growing number of web masters featuring online video content alongside their optimised text, Shawn Collins, the author of "Successful Affiliate Marketing for Merchants", recently reemphasised that creating original content is essential – "both in video and text" – in order to get and retain an audience.

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Website content may be king, but it should be complemented by other elements of web design which cater to consumers in the fast-moving online world.

That's according to a new white paper released by professional services provider KPMG, which claims ease of use should be another priority, alongside quality of content, for website designers.

In the report, entitled Emerging Business Models to Help Serve Tomorrow's Digital Tribes, the 21st-century phenomenon of the "digital tribe" is identified. It refers to how web users connect with each other based on common interests and beliefs, for example computer-game enthusiasts or fans of a band.

When targeted correctly with appropriate web content and services, such "tribes" can be transformed into powerful, loyal sources of traffic.

Tudor Aw, the report's author, suggests web designers enable the groups to interact with each other, in addition to giving them "compelling" content: "People are no longer constrained by physical boundaries. Instead they connect in a very personal and tailored way with hundreds of people with similar interests across the world."

Successful digital enterprises, Aw concludes, recognise that incorporating elements that consumers value in a website's design "is far more likely to give that enterprise longevity".

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The proliferation of badly-composed blogs, tenuous "news" stories and plagiarised articles online is proof that many businesses still don't appreciate the importance of regularly updated website content being of high quality.

According to search marketing experts, a lot of organisations fill their websites with "scraped posts, barely literate articles and keyword-stuffed nonsense" in the hope of attracting the attention of search engines like Google.

Something to bear in mind, Kevin Gibbons points out in his Econsultancy blog, is that after rising in search engine ratings, companies need their content to actually appeal to visitors who have arrived at their website.

If visitors aren't given or directed to something useful – or the content is poorly written – then they will leave and all copywriting effort will have been a waste: "Don't forget that well-written articles and interesting, useful content attract inbound links, which will help you in the search engine results far more than keywords alone."

Furthermore, dull or useless content is likely to damage a firm's brand from visitors' viewpoint. Gibbons also warns against advertising in the wrong area, since this can offend readers who have been promised "a certain kind of content" which then fails to deliver.

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Not only does website content require around half the investment of cost-per-click advertising, it's now one of the most important ways of driving traffic from natural search results.

That was the claim made by Joel Brandon-Bravo, from travel publisher Frommer's Unlimited, at the "Connect to Content" session during last week's World Travel Market trade show in London. He cited research carried out among eight of his clients which suggested content costs just 17p per visitor, in contrast to the average cost-per-click in travel search of 33p.

Travel magazine Travolution reports that the Frommer's general manager reached his 17p figure by dividing the total investment in content made by selected clients against the number of unique website visitors gained through natural search. Comprising a sample featuring airline, hotel and travel sites, the study looked at syndicated content, custom and mixed content.

In his speech, Brandon-Bravo emphasised the importance of properly integrating website content, comparing content investment to "buying a gym membership" in that it must be used.

"It's about integrating that content with your products and really making it work," he concluded. "If a customer has to do more than a couple of clicks they are just going to go away."

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When it comes to copywriting and web content, businesses should aim to strike a balance between optimising pages for targeted keywords, and ensuring this is maximised from a user and conversion optimisation perspective.

According to search marketing expert Kevin Gibbons, "there's little point" in attracting plenty of search engine traffic if pages don't convert – and vice versa.

His copywriting advice includes aiming for 65 characters in title tags, because (a) that's Google's cut-off point when it comes to search results lists and (b) doing so helps to keep tags concisely targeted towards the most important keywords.

Writing for the SEOptimise blog, he also emphasises the importance of compiling copy specifically for web users, featuring primary keywords in the first paragraph of text, as well as in titles and heading tags.

Gibbons further suggests using keywords within the internal links to a webpage and cross-linking to related pages using keyword-rich anchor text, as well as using bold and italics – without overdoing it – to highlight important keywords.

Regarding the images accompanying web copy, he advises naming them using keywords and remembering to separate them with hyphens so search engines read them as spaces.

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Ensuring website editors are familiar with writing specifically for the web and having content reviewed for keyword density, links and HTML tags by a search engine specialist are two of the latest tips to emerge from search engine optimisation (SEO) experts across the pond.

Avoiding transferring brochure content straight onto websites is another point reiterated by New Jersey-based web design, advertising and online marketing specialists at Adamus Media.

"Websites with dynamic content should use static URLs so that search engines understand how to index your pages," they continue, noting that "shrinking advertising budgets" are prompting more businesses to maximise their online marketing and SEO strategies.

"Marketing online helps you serve desired content to the buyer at the right time – precisely when they need it and are ready to buy," adds the organisation's president, Sylwia Majewski, who emphasises that effective SEO is based, above all, on written content.

She advises bearing in mind the keywords used by customers when they search the internet as a primary consideration during optimisation processes.

Further recommendations include avoiding too much Flash content – since it is not yet searchable – and incorporating SEO into web design processes from the outset to save costs.

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Good website copywriting can increase conversion rates, sales and ultimately a business's bottom line, with effective sales copy combining benefit-driven messages with sales psychology and an array of copywriting techniques.

However, as more enterprises realise the potential of selling online, separating the so-called copywriting wheat from the chaff is a challenge that is also growing, according to seasoned search engine optimisation specialist Scott Chapman.

"The internet, for all its benefits, has opened up a large copywriting industry, but not everyone gives the same level of quality and results," he notes. "Good sales copy can have a significant bearing on the sales conversion rate and ultimately the success of a marketing campaign. Bad copy, on the other hand, can garner almost no results."

He suggests the best sales copywriting is designed to "grab prospects' attention" and make them realise how worthwhile specific products and services are.

To gauge the effectiveness of website content, businesses should look for almost immediate improvements in search engine rankings – with an increased flow of targeted traffic from the most popular search engines – bearing in mind that Google and others have adjusted to rank pages filled with badly-written copy low in their SERPs.

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Boosted sales and profits, better-informed customers and increased brand awareness are just some of the benefits of featuring a blog on your website. However, author and internet marketing consultant Chris Garret emphasises that blog content must be unique, authoritative and high-quality to reap the most search engine optimisation (SEO) benefits.

"You can't beat valuable, authoritative content for attracting links from other websites, forums, discussion lists and social networks," he affirms. "These links bring a quantity of attention, as well as quality, targeted visitors that turn into good leads."

In his guide to business blogging, he outlines the reasons every enterprise needs a blog:

1. SEO links – The more linkable your website is, the better your search results will be and the more direct traffic you will achieve. The average blog gets indexed by search engines 434% more than traditional websites.

2. Retaining traffic – The average blog attracts 55% more visitors, but getting people to return is key. A good blog not only draws traffic in the first place, it keeps people coming back.

3. Informing and interacting with your audience – With more people turning to the web to research before they buy, you can inspire confidence and loyalty via your blog. Plus, blog comments, feedback forms, surveys and polls are instant market research tools, letting you know which products to create and why.

4. Community growth – From audience discussions, interaction and comments, you gradually develop a sense of community which you can proceed to strengthen both on and offline.

5. Improved customer service – Enabling visitors to get in touch via multiple routes makes you more approachable and facilitates better customer interaction.

6. Audience motivation – With high-quality, well-written, relevant copy, loyal visitors are motivated by your calls to action.

7. Nurturing trust with good content – Providing compelling content and resources and encouraging repeat communication builds familiarity and nurtures trust – a vital ingredient for creating sales and leads.

8. Network with ease – Blog visitors are most likely to make appropriate future employees and networking contacts.

9. Public relations – Bad stories travel fast in the social networking universe. Use your blog to dampen negativity and communicate your side of such stories.

10. Branding – Value-based experiences create trust, promote word-of-mouth advertising and help build a stronger brand.

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Managing a team of copywriters to create keyword-rich descriptions of his products has led one retailer's site to become his organisation's primary source of revenue, with natural search emerging as the website's top traffic driver.

According to Eric Deniger, chief executive of clothing and footwear outlet Working Person's Store, his aim when he began building site content in 2006 was to feature more than simply "run-of-the-mill" product descriptions.

Instead, he aimed to take a keyword-rich approach using conversational descriptions that could be customised for different website-user demographics, leading him to create a site that is now his company's most effective marketing channel.

"We want to make sure that we maintain a position of technical aptitude in the marketplace, far beyond the retailers who copy and paste the bullet points from the manufacturer's website," he tells MarketingSherpa.

Deniger acknowledges that implementation required "a lot of work" but the copywriting strategy paid off, with 71.93 per cent of his site's traffic now arriving from organic Google search results.

His top tips for building and maintaining effective content include developing a "high-value" strategy centred on brand details, approaching copywriting conversationally and wittily and keeping product descriptions "concise, yet full of relevant information".

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