SEO high-flyers: The air travel industry in the analysis
Current studies show: The number of "vacation-ready" people who still book their flight to the destination of their dreams in person at a travel agency has decreased significantly in recent years. In turn, the number of online bookings is steadily increasing. Tendency increasing.
We at Searchmetrics have taken this development as an opportunity to take a closer look at the performance of online portals from the air travel industry in search engines. Result: travel portals such as Swoodoo or Opodo clearly perform better on the Internet than the airlines themselves in this country.
Who exactly are the top players? Which sites have the best rankings and who has the most social fans and followers? Where there is potential for optimization? We clarify these questions in our study, which is now available as a whitepaper download.
Online bookings for air travel are on the rise
It is not yet the case that the owners of travel agencies can save the oil to grease the door hinges, but the percentage of those who book their air travel in person or on the spot has been declining for years. At least that is what a recent study by the Internet Travel Association* proves.
In contrast, at the same rate that customer traffic is leaving travel agencies, both information about and booking of travel and flights online has increased sharply. Logically, this also means that the traffic and sales of flight (travel) portals on the Internet are continuously increasing.
Searchmetrics study: SEO for air travel providers – DE, US, FR and UK
This is of course an advantage for those who have already positioned themselves well on the market. For other companies, on the other hand, there is a potential for optimization.
We, as the leading provider of digital marketing services, have taken a close look at the entire air travel industry and have prepared, compiled and evaluated the results in a study. The focus was on the national analyses of four countries: Germany, USA, France and Great Britain.
The study can be downloaded here:
> Download study flight and travel industry
The whitepaper "SEO in air travel providers – who takes off and who stays on the ground" provides a complete overview of the current industry, the market leaders in the air travel sector as well as the social performance of the individual competitors.
Our extensive (the world's largest), constantly growing database enables us to make well-founded statements about online trends in general as well as about markets and tendencies in their specificity.
Europe: Travel portals lead ahead of airlines – vastly different backlink and social strategies
A brief insight into the study: the online presences of the European airlines themselves perform significantly worse than the larger travel portals, whose keyword density is simply higher.
In the USA it looks (already) quite different. This applies to both organic keyword rankings (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEA).
USA: Airlines are the top dogs – nevertheless few holistic strategies
Both in terms of backlink structures – for example in terms of quality or nationality of the link source (server location) – and social media performance, there are very big differences among airlines as well as among travel portals among themselves.
Conclusion: The European market still seems quite diverse, with particular potential for optimization in the airline sector. In the USA, these have already taken a position, yet there are few market participants with a holistic strategy.
Flight industry: market leaders, competitors and optimization potentials
Background of the study: Based on a comprehensive, industry-specific keyword set, we analyzed the top players, market shares, individual rankings as well as performance, (SEO and social) visibility, PPC, backlink structures and other KPIs of the relevant competitors.
From this data, a comprehensive market overview was generated, which enables us to prepare targeted recommendations for action, strategies and potentials for market participants.
Analyse – Optimize – Succeed: Our data for your success
What we do?
With the help of our software, the Searchmetrics Suite as well as the Searchmetrics Essentials, markets, competitors as well as the own performance in these can be analyzed according to individual needs – data that finally lead to the preparation of optimization potentials.
Why we do it?
We support you with our data and our software in market analyses, optimization of your online performance as well as the successful implementation of your online campaigns, so that you reach your goal: Increasing your ROI!
How we do it?
Three words: Analyze – Optimize -Succeed!
Searchmetrics at the dmexco in Cologne
By the way, we will be at the dmexco in Cologne soon. We'll have live demos of the suite, our leading minds on hand to talk, and – if you'd like – appointments for consultations.
We look forward to seeing you on 18./19. September at booth E019 in hall 8.1!