SEO Tools: Alexa Ranking for 3 Official Provincial Tourism Sites Comparison

As presented in an earlier post on the rant made by Gord Hotchkiss on why Ontario Tourism does not “get” Search Marketing, I want to present to you today what they should take a look at from time to time to measure up against other major provincial travel websites, such as Quebec and BC. During my days at a major ad agency, I was taking care of a important Paid Search Advertising budget for Tourism British Columbia - HelloBC.com - and one of the things I really liked to measure was my improvement on the Alexa ranking scale. Despite issues with accuracy that this tool has, since Alexa rankings are calculated based on the people who have installed the Alexa toolbar, it gives somewhat a good indication of the overall traffic to the site, compare to competitors. It is the proportion that we are interested in, not sheer numbers.  Alexa ranking is easy to track over time and this is what I am using this SEO tool for. The lower the Alexa ranking means the more heavily visited the site is. That being said, when I started working it, the Alexa ranking for HelloBC.com was near 90,000. Check where it is today, compare to Quebec and Ontario:

As you can see, BonjourQuebec.com (red) has the lead in terms of traffic, followed closely by HelloBC.com (blue). Ontario Tourism is not yet in the race according to this graph, which correlates with the comments made by Gord last week about how poorly constructed Ontario Tourism’s Search Marketing plan is. Also, as traffic goes up, your Alexa ranking goes down. In this case, HelloBC.com’s new Alexa Ranking is 69,038. In the same time period, Alexa Ranking for BonjourQuebec.com went from 65,000 to 57,144. Ontario Tourism is way behind at 187,583. Therefore, if you are actively involved in Paid Search Advertising (PPC) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO), take a minute or 2 per month and check your Alexa Ranking. It is fascinating what you can find over time and how you can beat your competitors and bring more qualified customers your way.

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Comments

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