Turning a tour website into a direct-booking engine with SEO.
Client Background
Excursion connects travelers with local guides and curated excursions. Before SEO work, the site relied on third-party platforms and word of mouth; organic visibility and direct bookings were low.
Challenges
- ~700 monthly visits and minimal rankings for tour keywords.
- Heavy reliance on marketplaces (20–30% commission per booking).
- Shallow destination content; weak internal linking to key tour pages.
- Booking funnel friction (unclear CTAs, limited trust signals, no multilingual support).
Strategy
- Technical & IA — Fixed indexation, improved mobile speed, structured tour page templates (schema, FAQs), and built a hub-&-spoke internal linking model by destination and tour type.
- Keyword & Content — Mapped high-intent queries (e.g., “tours in [region]”, “private guide [city]”) and launched destination guides, tour category pages, and long-tail trip planners.
- Local SEO — Optimized Google Business Profile, added photos, Q&A, and citation consistency across travel directories.
- Conversion UX — Clear “Book Now” CTAs, trust badges, reviews, flexible refund messaging, and multilingual content for international travelers.
🚀 90-Day Results
- 10,000+ monthly organic visits — up from ~700/month.
- 250+ direct bookings/month — reduced dependency on commission-heavy platforms.
- Top rankings — “tours in [region]”, “adventure excursions [destination]”, and key long-tails.
- Engagement lift — Time on site ↑ and bounce rate ↓ (trust & intent improvements).
Before → After (90 Days)
| KPI | Baseline | After 90 Days | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly Organic Visits | ~700 | 10,000+ | ~14× |
| Direct Bookings | ~20/mo | 250+/mo | +230+ / month |
| Keyword Visibility | Outside top-10 for core queries | Top-3/Top-5 for high-intent terms | ▲ CTR & bookings |
| Engagement | Short sessions, higher bounce | Longer sessions, lower bounce | ✔ Trust & intent lift |
Key Wins
- Excursion became a direct booking engine instead of relying on marketplaces.
- Organic growth translated into real reservations, not just traffic.
- Scalable destination hubs and tour templates enable compounding growth.
Image caption (one-liner): “90 Days: 10,000+ organic visits and 250+ direct bookings — no commissions.”