SEO Case Study -
Balkan Trails, Travel Agency

Increase in organic traffic
+ 1 %
Keywords after 11 months (from 135)
1
Keywords after 16 months (from 135)
1

A 22-fold increase in traffic & visibility. An SEO Success Story for Balkan Trails

Introduction

Balkan Trails has emerged as a promising local travel agency, offering personalized and immersive tours in Romania and Bulgaria. Their focus on providing unique, culturally-rich experiences sets them apart in the travel industry.

Challenges Faced

Balkan Trails encountered several problems and frustrations, including:

  1. Very low Organic Website Traffic: Balkan Trails’ website was struggling to attract visitors through organic search results. This issue was crucial as organic traffic is often a significant source of sustainable web visits and customer engagement.

  2. Limited Organic Leads and Client Engagement: The company was not effectively capturing new organic leads or engaging potential clients through its online presence. This stagnation in lead generation was a critical barrier to growth, particularly for a business in the competitive travel industry.

  3. Over-Reliance on Google Ads: Balkan Trails heavily depended on paid advertising through Google Ads for most of their traffic and leads. This reliance was risky and financially unsustainable in the long run, as it left the company vulnerable to changes in advertising costs and effectiveness.

  4. Outdated Website and Performance Issues: the website had not been updated or improved for a long time, resulting in significant performance problems, including long loading times for the pages and poor user experience.

Each of these challenges represented a significant obstacle in Balkan Trails’ path towards establishing a strong online presence and achieving long-term business growth. Addressing these issues was crucial for the company to improve its digital marketing strategy and become more visible in the competitive travel market.

Competitive Landscape

Although Balkan Trails operates in a relatively narrow niche, they face substantial competition, particularly because they target the English-speaking market. This market is notably complex and competitive, especially by an SEO point of view.

Balkan Trails is fighting with strong competitors such as TripAdvisor, TourRadar, and Viator for certain keywords and search queries, despite offering distinct services.

Achieving high rankings for specific keywords in this niche is challenging due to the broad range of competitors and the overall popularity of travel-related content in English. Therefore, while Balkan Trails may not encounter severe competition within its specific niche, striving to distinguish itself in the densely populated English-speaking market poses numerous challenges since some of the biggest travel related competitors target same keywords.

Understanding the Business and Challenges

To fully understand the unique aspects of Balkan Trails’s business and the challenges they faced, a comprehensive research approach was undertaken. This included an in-depth analysis of the website’s authority to gauge its standing in the digital landscape.

Additionally, a competitive analysis was conducted to understand the market dynamics and the positioning of Balkan Trails relative to its competitors. Furthermore, a forecast was created to evaluate the potential outcomes and opportunities of the SEO efforts. This thorough investigation was instrumental in crafting a tailored SEO strategy that addressed specific challenges and leveraged the unique strengths of Balkan Trails.

Regular meetings with the client were scheduled to listen to their concerns, gather insights, and brainstorm potential solutions. This collaborative approach allowed for a deep understanding of Balkan Trails’s needs and goals.

The Solution

The following steps were taken:

  • Market Analysis and Forecast: As previously mentioned, we initiated our process with comprehensive research, which included conducting a competitive analysis and an SEO forecast.

  • Technical Optimization: The website received in-depth analysis and optimization to address any technical issues and enhance performance and user experience.

     

  • The website underwent a basic restructuring and redesign to align with SEO best practices and enhance its usability.

     

  • Content Optimization: We restructured, enhanced, and optimized the website’s content to align with SEO best practices, while simultaneously improving the User Experience.

  • Blog Planning and Optimization: By creating informative and engaging content on the blog, Balkan Trails gained a wider audience and established their expertise.

     

  • Please note that due to budget constraints, we refrained from engaging in link building practices for the client. We proceeded with our work without implementing an off-page SEO strategy. Given that link building still holds significant influence over rankings, it is important to emphasize that our efforts didn’t include it in our plan.

Implementation Process

The implementation process took 6 months and involved the following stages:

  • Full Website Audit and Technical SEO: Identifying and resolving website’s technical issues and improving its performance, structure and user experience.

  • Content Creation and Optimization: We optimized the existing content to align with SEO best practices while ensuring it provides valuable information to users.

  • Blog Strategy: Developing a content plan to address related keywords and provide valuable resources to the target audience.

  • A full tracking implementation in order to be able to monitor our progress.

  • Ongoing Optimization: Regular monitoring and fine-tuning of SEO strategies based on data analysis and user feedback.

Timeline and Results

At the beginning of our collaboration (February 2023) the site had an average of 400 daily impressions. After 16 months, the website reached 8700 impressions per day and it's still growing.

At the beginning of our collaboration the site had an average of 150 monthly users coming from SEO.

After 12 months, the website reached 1800 users per month and it's still growing. Due to technical issues and a complete redesign during the period of March-April 2024 (along with major changes at Google, such as AI overviews), a slight decrease was recorded. This should be short-lived, and in the future, we expect much higher traffic.
* In May we switched from Google Analytics 3 to Google Analytics 4 and that's why we don't have the data in the same chart.

The timeline of the SEO implementation and corresponding traffic growth:

  • Months 3: There was a noticeable 42% increase in traffic.
  • Month 4: Achieved a 153% increase in website traffic.
  • Month 9: By the ninth month, traffic increased by 350%.
  • Month 12: By the eleventh month, the increase reached an impressive 1100%, with the trend continuing upwards.

After only six months of implementation, the results have been exceptional, especially considering that peak performance has not yet been reached. After twelve months, there has been a twelvefold increase in traffic, from 150 to 1800 users per month, with continued growth.

Keyword rankings:

  • When we started this project, the site ranked in Google for approximately 135 keywords in the top 100, with only 6 in the top 10 and 4 in the top 3.
  • After 11 months, there are over 674 keywords ranking in the top 100, with 64 in the top 10 and 12 in the top 3.
  • After 16 month, there are over 860 keywords ranking in the top 100, with 104 in the top 10 and 33 in the top 3.

*Beware that the numbers below are derived from Ahrefs data, which is not 100% accurate. Typically, the actual figures are higher.

Organic keywords when we started this project.

Organic keywords after 16 months.

We focused on quality traffic instead of ‘garbage traffic’. We prioritized quality and the final results (leads) over sheer numbers. As a result, the number of conversions is directly proportional to the traffic increase.

Measuring the Improvement

The success of the SEO strategy was measurable through various key performance indicators (KPIs):

  • User Engagement: Tracked metrics such as average session duration, bounce rate, and pages per session to gauge user engagement and satisfaction.

     

  • Conversion Tracking: Implemented goal completions and conversion tracking to monitor the number of inquiries and leads.

     

  • Performance Metrics: Measured improvements in keyword rankings, Click Through Rate and organic search traffic.

Client Satisfaction

The client is satisfied with the reduced reliance on ads for website traffic and client acquisition. As SEO is a long-term strategy, it proves to be the most cost-effective digital marketing approach for many businesses.

Conclusion

Through a comprehensive SEO strategy, Balkan Trails successfully addressed their challenges and surpassed some of their competitors in terms of online visibility, client acquisition, and data insights. The collaborative efforts and tailored SEO solutions transformed their website into a powerful asset, attracting a significantly larger audience while reducing marketing costs.

"Andrei was a pleasure to work with. Attentive, prompt and professional. We obtained excellent results during the time we worked with him. "
Vlad Trestian
Owner & Co-Founder of Balkan Trails
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