Great Hotels picks DBD Media for search drive

Great Hotels Organisation's family of brands include Great Hotels of the World (http://www.ghotw.com) and Special Hotels of the World (http://www.shotw.com).

DBD Media will manage the online travel giant's pay-per-click (PPC) search activity and provide search engine optimisation (SEO) training for the company's in-house development team.

The partnership forms part of Great Hotels Organisation's renewed strategy for its online business, which includes a major website restructure to improve SEO rankings.

DBD Media will devise and manage PPC campaign activity, aimed at driving targeted visitor traffic and profitable bookings to the Great Hotels of the World and Special Hotels of the World websites.

Additionally, the search engine marketing specialist's team of experts will provide SEO training to Great Hotels Organisation, with particular focus on link building strategies, to increase the business' visibility in the top search engines.

Carly Gotz, Director of Business Development and Marketing at Great Hotels Organisation, comments: "With the credit crunch hitting the travel industry, online visibility is vital to our continued success and search offers us high returns and measurable results. DBD Media's expertise in the travel business and search nous meant they stood out during the agency selection process. The company's flexibility, including providing SEO training for our in-house team, will allow us to really maximise our search campaign."

Nigel Muir, managing director of DBD Media, commented: "Great Hotels Organisation understand the need to evolve their online strategy to maintain a strong search engine presence as competition for customer clicks increases. We have been involved from an early stage in the website relaunch, and have provided consultancy on usability and customer journey, which will boost search results and provide strong foundations for their online business growth in the future."