SEO promotion of a bus transportation website

Results: Increased search traffic by 12 times, 25% of commercial keywords ranked in Google’s top 3, and 73% in the top 10

Our team successfully drove a substantial surge in targeted traffic to transtempo.ua, a website for a bus company, within a span of only 12 months.

Our accomplishments include:

A 12-fold increase in search traffic.
25% of commercial keywords ranking in the top 3 on Google, and 73% in the top 10.

Regrettably, we lost access to the initial Google Analytics account, limiting our ability to compare the current traffic with data from the beginning of our efforts. However, we can still make a comparison with the traffic data available from the summer of 2019.

However, the initial recorded traffic for this project was 3403 visitors per month, as evidenced by the provided proof.

Project Timeline

The project began with its initial stage from October 2018 to July 2019. During this period, we achieved significant success by ranking most of the targeted keywords at the top. However, further progress was hindered due to the inability to implement certain crucial revisions.

In December 2019, the company embarked on the second stage of promotion with a new website. Unfortunately, after three months, the work had to be paused due to the complete paralysis of the client’s business caused by travel restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. SEO promotion activities resumed in June 2021.

Client: Transtempo is a passenger carrier specializing in international transportation. Their operations primarily focus on countries in close proximity to Ukraine, such as Poland, the Czech Republic, the Baltic countries, and more.

Their website offers the convenience of selecting desired routes and purchasing tickets directly. Despite being smaller in size compared to competitors like EcoLine, Flixbus, Busfor, and others, Transtempo’s competitive advantage lies in the ability to order tickets directly from their website and their extensive route coverage.

Project Goals

Achieve top rankings on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) in targeted areas.
Drive significant growth in SEO traffic.

Biggest Challenges

Competition from international competitors who have broader route coverage and well-established brand recognition.
The brand operates websites on multiple domains with separate Ukrainian-language versions, requiring the implementation of hreflang tags to connect and indicate language variations.
The site’s extensive and intricate backend, particularly due to its booking functionality, posed challenges and consumed time in implementing certain technical modifications.

Internal Optimization

In the first month of our work, we conducted a comprehensive technical audit and prepared the necessary guidelines for optimization. The scope of our efforts included:

Transitioning language versions from HTTP to HTTPS and consolidating them.
Identifying and eliminating duplicate home pages.
Identifying and addressing empty pages without value by creating guidelines for updates and setting up redirects.
Identifying pages that result in a 404 server response and implementing redirects to existing pages.
Preventing the indexing of tagged pages in the blog.
Creating landing pages for new semantic clusters.
Establishing a new content structure for landing pages.
Preparing guidelines for optimizing different language versions, including subfolder transfers, verifying language switches and URL matches, and adding hreflang tags.
Implementing appropriate navigational breadcrumbs.
Implementing micro-markups.
Resolving errors in sitemap files and robots.txt.
Adding meta tags, both customizing them for priority pages and using templates for the remaining pages.
Fixing errors in H1 to H3 headers, ensuring correct content definition, optimizing headers, fixing hierarchy issues on certain pages, and addressing instances where multiple headers had the same value.
Optimizing website loading speed.
Implementing a link scheme.
Automatically adding alt text for images.
Defining the logic and rules for displaying customer reviews on the pages.
Optimizing categories in the menu, highlighting popular destinations, removing duplicates and irrelevant links from the top menu, and more.

These efforts were aimed at improving the overall website performance and enhancing its visibility on search engines.

Keyword research and content optimization

During the initial 3 months of our work, we dedicated ourselves to collecting a comprehensive semantic core encompassing all directions, routes, and additional services. We began with prioritized elements and expanded from there.

After conducting competitor analysis, we proceeded with the following actions:

finalized the website structure and introduced new pages. Specific pages were created for individual routes (e.g., Kyiv to Prague), as well as for cases where only the destination was specified (e.g., tickets to Krakow);

added new meta tags for priority pages and established templates for others
refined the structure of landing pages and incorporated additional blocks to enhance visitor experience
optimized existing text content and created fresh, new content for certain pages.

These efforts were undertaken to ensure that the website’s content was comprehensive, relevant, and tailored to meet the needs of the target audience. By focusing on the semantic core and optimizing the content, we aimed to improve search engine visibility and engage users effectively.

Blog Work

Once we completed the keyword collection and finalized the on-page optimization for the commercial pages, we shifted our focus to the blog. As part of our strategy, we prepared guidelines for five blog articles every month. The content for each article included:

Semantic core: We carefully selected and incorporated relevant keywords and topics into the articles to align with the target audience’s interests and search intent.
Required text volume: We determined the optimal length for each article, ensuring that it provided sufficient information and value to the readers.
Comments on structure and content: We provided guidance on the overall structure of the article, including headings, subheadings, and paragraphs. Additionally, we offered feedback and suggestions on the content itself, ensuring it was engaging, informative, and aligned with the client’s goals and target audience.

By consistently producing high-quality blog articles, we aimed to enhance the website’s authority, provide valuable information to users, and improve organic visibility in search engine results.

External optimization

In our project, we encountered the presence of a few low-quality links on the site before our engagement. Consequently, our primary task was to build a strong portfolio of high-quality backlinks while working within a limited budget.

To achieve this, we employed the following link-building tactics:

Concentrating link building efforts on 3-4 priority areas: We prioritized building links for specific pages and focused on achieving top positions for those pages before moving on to the next set of pages.
Placing links on pages close to top rankings: We strategically placed links on pages that were already ranking relatively well (e.g., around the 20th position). Over time, these links gradually improved their rankings, even with a relatively small number of backlinks.
Choosing a diverse range of donor websites: We selected different types of websites to acquire links from, ranging from thematic forums to high-quality articles. This approach ensured that our link portfolio was as diverse and varied as possible.

However, during the second stage of our work, we noticed some drawbacks in this strategy. For instance, many of the forum links became inactive or “disappeared” when the project was paused, resulting in a decrease in the overall volume of the link portfolio, almost returning to the initial level. However, the high-quality article links remained indexed, ensuring that there was no significant drop in rankings.

Despite these challenges, our focus on building high-quality backlinks allowed us to maintain the website’s position and visibility in search engine results.

Results

After 12 months of dedicated SEO work on the site, we achieved remarkable results. The traffic experienced a twelvefold increase, skyrocketing from 3.4 thousand visitors per month to an impressive 43.8 thousand. Additionally, 25% of the targeted keywords reached the top 3 positions on search engine results pages, while 73% secured spots in the top 10.

It is essential to acknowledge that such significant achievements were only possible due to the client’s parallel efforts in business development. Throughout the project, the client actively engaged in PR activities, utilized various channels to enhance brand awareness, revamped the website for better user experience, and expanded their range of services.

The fruitful collaboration between our SEO team and the client played a vital role in delivering these outstanding outcomes.

SEO Marketing for a Bus Transportation Website