Leading island information portal welcomes close to 600,000 visitors during first six months of 2010

(TRAVPR.COM) LANZAROTE - ^9th July 2010 – The leading Lanzarote tourist information guide – www.lanzaroteguidebook.com – has enjoyed a near 50% increase in audience during the first six months of 2010. With visitor numbers averaging out at 98,685 per month during the first half of this year. So helping to cement the site’s position as the most popular English language tourist portal for the island.

In total the Lanzarote Guidebook website welcomed 592,115 visitors from Jan1st to June 20th 2010. Representing an increase of 48.89% versus the first six months of 2009, when a total of 397,669 web users visited the site. Continuing a process of ongoing growth that has been maintained even during the recent, challenging economic circumstances.

January 2010 in particular proved to be a record breaking month. As the site received over 120,000 visitors for the first time. Beating the popular portals best ever previous result of 83,000 visitors in January 2009.

This growth in audience is attributed to an on going campaign of search engine optimization that has resulted in the Lanzarote Guidebook site enjoying top rankings in key search engines such as Google.co.uk. As opposed to any major upturn in visitor numbers to the island. As according to publisher Nick Ball; “Lanzarote´s visitor numbers for the first five months of this year are in fact largely unchanged versus the same period in 2009. With total foreign arrivals for the year to May end standing at 585,847 passengers. Up by just 0.81% from the 2009 figure of 581,136.”

“In the absence of more tourist arrivals we’ve managed to continue growing our audience by constantly adding fresh, relevant content and by pursuing an SEO strategy that has helped us to establish a commanding position at the top of the major search engines for all of the key phrases relevant to our market. As a result anyone who is looking for villas, hotels, apartments, car hire, flights or pretty much anything else to do with the island will find what they want on Lanzarote Guidebook.”

“We’ve seen a big increase during the first half of this year in the number of people booking all or part of their holiday in Lanzarote online with us”, continues Nick Ball. “Bookings for villas and apartments for example are up by around 25% on this time last year. Whilst we are also seeing a marked increase in the number of people enquiring about both long term rentals and property for sale in Lanzarote.”

The Lanzarote Guidebook website was first launched in 2005 and is now also available as quarterly print publication which is distributed free of charge to tourists across the island.

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