Audience-first approach to SEO & PPC generates impressive results

Having successfully partnered with IDHL on their PPC and SEO, Exodus wanted to up their content game and ensure they were not only in line with their competitors, but ahead of the curve.

The answer? Undertaking a content audit and creating a content strategy – the findings of which would provide a blueprint for sector-leading content production that would increase traffic, improve rankings and generate leads.

Our starting point was understanding Exodus’ long-term goals: improving content across key competitive areas to increase rankings, traffic, and sales. First on the agenda, manually auditing a selection of Exodus’ commercial content and comparing to that of two relevant competitors. Using our proprietary Content Quality Score indexing tool, and ‘EAT matrix’, based on Google’s Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines, we analysed a range of commercial pages that Exodus wanted to perform well, alongside like-for-like pages from two key brand and keyword competitors. Assessing all these pages against out EAT criteria, we were able to pinpoint several opportunities for Exodus to enhance their website so that it was on the same level, or better, than their competitors. 

Through our extensive analysis, we found that Exodus was delivering high-quality content but missed the mark by not delivering a range of on-page EAT features used by competitors to increase landing page performance. With Exodus already delivering purposeful and well-structured content, the foundations were in place to build in additional items such as process overviews, FAQs, and at-a-glance content. Another key finding showed that, while they were already demonstrating their trustworthiness (a vital SEO principal) with customer reviews and linking, they needed to improve upon this by adding evidence of content creator expertise and industry reviews. This would truly showcase the value of Exodus to prospective customers. These fast-to-implement recommendations and more were combined into a solutions-focused content strategy. Designed to guide ID’s content experts and Exodus towards gold-plating their content and leapfrogging travel industry rivals, the initial results have been highly promising. 

As part of our content strategy, we also helped identify four content pillars. These pillars, designed to reflect industry trends, business goals and audience needs, are integral in providing purpose and focus for supporting content creation to boost upper-funnel keyword visibility. With them, Exodus can continue to deliver highly-optimised, relevant content that supports their overall marketing objectives.

Paid campaigns were overhauled, layering in audience data for precision targeting across segmented categories. Audience-based display campaigns also combined demographic and interest data from Google Analytics​. Within just one-week of the campaign, key opportunities were evident and bid adjustments made to maximise performance.

"It’s been a real pleasure working with IDHL over the past few years – they are clearly experts in their field and we have developed a very effective working relationship together to the point where it feels as if they are an extension of our internal team. They constantly analyse and question our strategy and results, and we trust them to guide us towards making the right decisions. They are conscientious and genuinely care about the success of our business.“

​Olivia Dudleston, Head of eCommerce, Exodus Travels ​