SEO & Content Optimization for Luxury Villa Travel Company
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Other Digital Marketing
- $50,000 to $199,999
- Nov. 2020 - Ongoing
- Quality
- 4.5
- Schedule
- 5.0
- Cost
- 4.0
- Willing to Refer
- 5.0
"They've provided a unique ability to marry a numbers-focused strategy with a content plan."
- Hospitality & leisure
- United Kingdom
- Phone Interview
- Verified
A luxury villa travel company was looking to enhance their digital presence and improve the quality of the content on their website, so they hired Passion Digital Ltd. for SEO and content optimization.
Since partnering with Passion Digital Ltd., the client has been experiencing a surge of organic traffic coming to their website on a monthly basis. The internal stakeholders are particularly impressed with the team's unbridled effort to understanding the company's tone and market position.
A Clutch analyst personally interviewed this client over the phone. Below is an edited transcript.
BACKGROUND
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I'm the digital marketing manager at The Thinking Traveller. We're a luxury villa travel company, specializing in high-end luxury villas in the Mediterranean. My role there is to look after all of our digital marketing channels, and take users from discovery through to the website to try and convert as many of them as possible.
That's broadly my role at The Thinking Traveller. At the moment, we are in most of the Greek islands, Trulia, Sicily, and Italy, Corsica, which is a French island on the South Coast, and Mallorca, one of the Balearic Islands in Spain.
OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE
What challenge were you trying to address with Passion Digital?
I think we've always valued the opportunity that organic search offers, and we were also acutely aware that there's only so much that technical optimization can do when you're trying to target search volume. Passion Digital Ltd. offers a really great mix of technical SEO and content creation, and some of the team members have a great background in travel content creation.
Our real target and the original brief when we spoke to Passion, was around trying to make sure that we can create as much quality content that can target high search volume keywords, and drive as much qualified traffic as we possibly could — that's what we've been working towards over the last eight months with Passion.
SOLUTION
What was the scope of their involvement?
The way that we work together is that essentially, search volume dictates the content plan throughout the year. Passion would then map out when and in what countries specific keywords are driving the highest volumes. For example, if luxury villa Sicily trends in July in particular, and in some of our key markets, Passion would then look to create content that targets those keywords. Some of my favorite pieces of content that they've created so far are looking at multi-destination travels.
We’re obviously in multiple locations or destinations, and creating content that targets two or more destinations means that we can capture search volume for both when it comes to search. I think Greek versus Italian food, the battle of the banquets, is really already a very good performing piece of content for us.
More recently, there's maybe more topical content, like how The Thinking Traveller is simplifying international travel during COVID-19, which, obviously, is probably the thing that people are searching for the most at the moment. They’re also asking questions such as; can I travel to the country that I want to go on holiday or will my country allow me back in when I return?
We’re really trying to capture the most at the moment, but also sort of make sure that we're best placed with really interesting and thoughtful content.
What is the team composition?
On the technical side, we work specifically with one SEO manager, but she works alongside the SEO director. I'd say, off the top of my head, it's either two or three team members working on the technical SEO — on the content side of things, we have three team members who help us there as well.
How did you come to work with Passion Digital?
I think I discovered Passion initially through an agency comparison site while looking at the best SEO and content agencies in London. It's always a good sign when an SEO agency is top ranking when you search for that term. Clearly, they know how to optimize for a term that helps them — I also found them then through a specific sort of comparison site.
After that, I went and did a little bit of research through LinkedIn, spoke to some contacts who have used Passion in the past, and found that they had nothing but good things to say.
How much have you invested with them?
It would be in the region of about £50,000 GBP (approximately $69,300 USD).
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working together right at the end of November 2020. We didn't actually start working together until December, but I think the contract was signed in November 2020 — the partnership is still ongoing.
RESULTS & FEEDBACK
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
I think to be able to share uplift and performance would be a little bit unfair on them, because they've done quite a lot of work to help us create the platform that enables us to post and share new content. Passion spent a lot of time helping us when we didn't really have much creative content.
Having said that, I was just looking at the organic traffic this morning. This month is about 75% higher than it was this time last year. Obviously, it's a bit of a difficult time to compare year on year given last year's situation, but we have steadily seen organic traffic. Over the course of the year, we've seen the gap between the 2019 search volume, and traffic to the website as well as current performance shrink. By that, I mean that we started the year quite significantly behind 2019’s organic traffic.
The month-on-month performance data is showing that we're in a place now where we're much closer to 2019 performance than we were. I'd say, as a rough guide, we started the year at 70% down in 2019, and we've gotten to the point now where we're around 25% behind — much of that I would attribute to Passion.
How did Passion Digital perform from a project management standpoint?
No complaints on that side. I think their style is very much to feel like an extended part of the team. By choice, we have fortnightly catch-ups with them on the phone, but they're open to having weekly or monthly calls to catch up on project status. In terms of communication, at the end of an email, they're always available for a phone call — they really do feel like an extension of the internal team.
What did you find most impressive about them?
They really spent the time to understand the company when we first began working together. I've worked with a couple of SEO agencies over the last sort of eight or nine years, and a lot of the time, they're very numbers-focused, which you would expect — the numbers dictate the content.
I think because Passion spent so long and put so much time and effort into understanding the business, the tone of voice, and our position in the market, they've provided a unique ability to marry a numbers-focused strategy with a content plan. It’s very much in tune with what we want, and it’s the kind of flavor we would expect — I personally haven't experienced that with another organic search agency.
Are there any areas they could improve?
To be honest, I think it's probably too early to give an answer to that one. I've been pretty impressed with them so far, so I'm sure at some point, something will pop up — but 8–9 months in, I'm struggling to think of something that I would push hard to improve at this point.
Any advice for potential customers?
Treat them as part of your team. It's kind of gut instinct when you're working with an agency. When you're typically working with an agency, you're always trying to get the best bang for your buck. I think with Passion, what I've experienced is that treating them like team members have really resulted in this great sort of cross-pollination of ideas.
I might be misinterpreting, but as far as I'm concerned, I feel like they're willing to go the extra mile, and I think that's a result of the relationship that we have with them.
RATINGS
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Quality
4.5Service & Deliverables
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Schedule
5.0On time / deadlines
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Cost
4.0Value / within estimates
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Willing to Refer
5.0NPS
