Vacation Shuttle SEO Gains 10x More Traffic With HOTH X
Our clients are very important to us. We get to know them, understand their business goals, and do whatever is in our power to help them succeed.
It doesn’t matter if they’re a giant multinational corporation or a small mom-and-pop shop, we’ll work with them, in the same way, to boost their SEO and deliver more traffic than they’ve ever seen before.
The following case study will document how we worked with one particular client in the transportation industry to grow his traffic by 10x and deliver 1,900% growth in both ranking keywords and backlinks.
How did we do it exactly?
We started by getting to know the client and working with him to create the most effective vacation shuttle SEO strategy possible within his budget.
Our relationship was based on transparency and trust, and we enrolled him in our fully-managed SEO program to be able to access all of our services at one time.
This client is not only ecstatic about the results he received from The HOTH, but now he’s planning to stay with this over the long haul.
Keep scrolling to learn more!
Background
Julio from Punta Cana Transfer, a transportation service for vacationers in the Dominican Republic, reached out to us about a year ago for help with growing his website.
The company offers safe and reliable transfers from four locations in the DR to many exciting destinations and hotels.
Tourists can book their transfer online in advance or call when they arrive at the airport. They can also choose between a private transfer and a private luxury transfer.
Staff at Punta Cana Transfer had been using some PPC ads to boost traffic but they wanted a long-term growth solution and they didn’t know what to do next.
“Before starting with The HOTH we didn’t know anything about SEO,” said Julio. “The HOTH took us by the hand and guided us, and they were very eager to help us even though we started very small with them.”
Julio started working with us on a smaller scale but we showed him the same attention and drive as we do to all of our clients.
Our goal is to see clients succeed no matter their size or industry!
Julio later decided to enroll in HOTH X, our fully-managed SEO program, over the summer of 2021 with a budget of $500 per month.
And that’s where the action began.
The SEO Audit
Our team immediately set out to collect data on his site. We conducted a full vacation shuttle SEO audit. That way we could identify his strengths, weaknesses, and what needs to be improved.
We do the same thing for all new clients. As you can see below, his homepage is engaging and user-friendly. He just needed more people to find it so bookings would increase.
Punta Cana Transfer had been receiving some historical traffic from PPC ads but their organic traffic was non-existent.
They had less than 10 referring domains when they started working with us and they ranked for less than 15 keywords.
It was clear there was a lot of work ahead of us, but we knew that tapping into our best-selling SEO products would get Julio up and running.
“Easy Wins” Keyword Analysis
During our initial audit for new clients, we also identify keywords they’re already ranking for in positions 4-30.
We call these “easy wins” because they can give the client a short-term burst in organic traffic before our other strategies are in place.
All we had to do was compile a list of these keywords. They included vacation shuttle SEO terms like “Punta Cana Transfer Service,” “how to get from Punta Cana airport to resort,” and “Dominican Republic car service.”
Besides finding keywords in this specific range, our SEO team also wanted to maximize the overall effect they would have on Julio’s website by selecting those with a higher search volume.
Punta Canta Transfer had previously purchased PPC ads to drive traffic so we could also examine each keyword’s cost per click (CPC) to determine which ones are most sought after.
The average CPC was about $2 and knowing that helped us whittle down our list.
Once we selected the best “easy wins” keywords, all we had to do was incorporate them onto his web pages to see a spike in traffic.
After that, we could switch to the highly competitive keywords in positions 1-3.
Competitive Gap Analysis
Checking out what the competition is up to can also be helpful when finding new keywords. In the marketing world, we call this a competitive gap analysis.
Our team discovered that Punta Cana Transfer was in direct competition with 39 domains for many of the same keywords.
Some of these businesses were very similar to Punta Cana Transfer while others focused more generally on resorts and transportation.
When we looked more closely at one of the top competitors, we found it ranked for 179 keywords that Punta Cana Transfer did not. Another top competitor ranked for 52 unique keywords.
Some of the competitor keywords included “Punta Cana airport code,” “Dominican airport transfers,” and “book vip Punta Cana.”
Many of these keywords could be used in his new vacation shuttle SEO strategy. Not all would fit but it was good to start looking at the keywords used in similar businesses.
A New Vacation Shuttle SEO Strategy
Enrolling in HOTH X was integral to Julio’s success. He had access to all of our SEO products so his campaign manager could help build a new strategy that was both comprehensive and effective.
The first thing we did for Punta Cana Transfer was to utilize HOTH Blogger in expanding their content. It’s one of our most popular SEO services and clients can choose between short-form or long-form blogs.
Each blog is created by our team of professional writers and fully optimized for SEO based on the overall digital marketing strategy.
Good content helps your website rank for more high-performing keywords and gets visitors interested in your unique services.
At the same time, our HOTH Web Copy team started working on refreshing what appeared on the Punta Cana Transfer website.
They help websites to optimize home pages, about pages, sales pages, local pages, and product description pages. Our web copy team also sets up these pages to maximize conversions.
Depending on a client’s business or industry, they may want more visitors to make a purchase, sign up for a newsletter, or download an app.
Once Julio’s web pages were updated and his blogs were being consistently posted, we moved to the next phase of his SEO strategy—link building. The rest of 2021 was dedicated to HOTH Guest Post.
Backlinks are a top-ranking factor and Julio needed more to see any increase in his organic traffic.
Most people love reading about tropical vacations online, all we needed to do was produce some guest posts on other sites that would direct readers to Punta Cana Transfer.
Our guest post service is hands-off for clients. We generate the topics, produce high-quality guest posts focusing on domain authority (DA) or traffic, and we even publish them. Of course, clients get the final approval before they go live.
Here is a look at some of Julio’s orders:
- DA20 Guest Post: 2 Pack
- DA30 Guest Post: 1 Pack
- DA50 Guest Post: 1 Pack
And the last product we used in his strategy was HOTH PPC Management. Julio didn’t want to decrease paid advertising until he detected long-term SEO growth, so we kept up with his ads as we implemented the new strategy.
Our PPC service provides clients with a digital marketing expert who helps them create and manage lead generation campaigns, retargeting campaigns, call-only campaigns, and Google Shopping campaigns.
The Results
After nearly a year of hard work, we were proud to present Julio with a summary of his website’s performance.
HOTH clients receive regular updates from us but it’s also nice to examine growth over a longer range of time.
Punta Cana Transfers’ traffic reached historic levels thanks to its new vacation shuttle SEO strategy.
“Our organic traffic has grown over 10 times in the 10 months that we’ve been with The HOTH,” said Julio, explaining how he could tell our main objective was to help him achieve his goals. “Overall, I love how they just aren’t there to sell their products.”
As a HOTH X client, his strategy was tailor-made for his website and the budget reflected only what he needed to get the job done right. There’s no upselling with us!
Julio explained how The HOTH took a team “who didn’t know anything about SEO and made us rank first place on Google for various keywords.”
Let’s dive into how we did it.
For the first half of his campaign, we focused on optimizing his web pages with high-performing keywords and adding new blog content.
The result was over a 1,900% increase in keywords. Check out the chart below.
Punta Cana Transfer is currently ranking #1 for many keywords, including “car service Punta Cana” and “shuttles from Punta Cana airport to hotel.”
The second phase of Julio’s campaign was to start adding backlinks. Not only do they increase traffic but they are a sign to Google that your site can be trusted. Google likes to increase the rankings of sites with more backlinks.
Below you can see how Punta Cana Transfers’ referring domains also increased by 1,900% thanks to our guest post service.
The results speak for themselves and Julio decided to stay on with us as a HOTH X client. He even upgraded from HOTH X 500 to HOTH X 2000.
“We are very much looking forward to seeing what they do in the future,” he said.
Takeaway
Nothing makes us happier than seeing clients surpass their marketing goals. Julio’s team had been struggling to grow Punta Cana Transfer and he did the right thing by reaching out to us for help with his SEO.
We developed a tight working relationship with him over 10 months and we convinced him to take advantage of our best-selling, highly-effective fully managed SEO program.
All of our specialized tools were on the table for Julio’s campaign and we provided him with performance updates every step of the way.
After working with The HOTH he went from being an employee to having so much work that he decided to become an independent professional.
The beauty of a program like HOTH X is being able to put your digital marketing on autopilot so you can focus more on the day-to-day.
Are you interested in learning more about HOTH X or getting started with it for your business? Simply book a call with us and we can help!
