How Expedia Uses Bloggers to Boost Its SEO Prowess
Skift Take
Expedia has been the most aggressive big travel band in corralling travel bloggers, and although their proselytizing can at times be clumsy, it has mostly been very effective.
After taking a prolonged wait-and-see attitude toward social media, Expedia executed a coup of sorts nine months ago when it signed on about a dozen well-known travel bloggers to contribute to its new Expedia Viewfinder blog.
These bloggers and blogs, including Midlife Road Trip, Kara Williams, Captain and Clark, No Vacation Required, Spencer Spellman, Beth Whitman, The Planet D, Hip Travel Mama, Trip Styler, Matt Villano, Sarah Gavin, and Carol Cain, have openly served as brand ambassadors for Expedia in various social media and advertising campaigns, on the Viewfinder blog itself, and through their own blogs.
Expedia's relationships with the bloggers give it social media cachet, sway with influencers, the ability to attract these bloggers' readers, and the wherewithal to address their diverse audiences, which may range from honeymooning couples to adventure seekers, single moms, and baby boomers.
Although the quality of these bloggers' contributions about popular destinations runs the gamut from inspirational to promotional pablum, SEO experts give Expedia credit for publishing quality content.
The issue of quality content at Expedia comes to the fore because Google recently spanked Expedia for a paid links scheme, and Expedia's organic search results subsequently took an approximately 25% hit.
Expedia, or perhaps an SEO company that it used, allegedly enlisted a vast network of sites to post spammy links to Expedia to boost the online travel agency's SEO stature. Expedia's stock took a nosedive in late January when the first reports came out about Google's penalty.
Expedia recently wouldn't comment about the specifics, and that's fairly outrageous since the incident impacts investors.
