What we did

We began with keyword research targeting Mail Travel’s core product areas, to identify popular themes and qualify areas of interest. These included specific destinations for cruises, age brackets, and holiday preferences. From there we were able to build a clearer picture of users.

We also gathered Google Analytics data for all traffic to the Inspiration blog pages. We used this to select the highest performing pages, and carried out a detailed editorial audit of the content to look for common factors.

At surface level we established several travel topics that were common to high-performing content. Diving deeper, we also saw editorial themes and practices that contributed to performance. This helped us make several recommendations to immediately improve content across the site. For example, using a style guide to ensure consistency, establishing a clear link between headline and content, and greater use of dynamic subheadings.

At the same time, we also ran our keyword research alongside these site metrics to develop new example user personas. Importantly, these personas were qualified and couched in solid data which meant no hitting-and-hoping with content that we suspected would appeal, but a sound basis for a content calendar with definite appeal for Mail Travel readers.

With all of this in mind, we consequently developed a quarterly calendar, carefully based on the personas and Mail Travel’s priority products. We came up with an initial 60 headlines and briefs, all designed to get Mail Travel readers clicking, reading, talking and buying.

We worked closely with Mail Travel to make sure that we also used the calendar to promote products and destinations in line with seasonality, general travel events and Mail Travel’s wider business goals.

We also managed Mail Travel’s social media alongside the content work, acting as an easy single point of contact for engaging content production.

Outcome

Our editorial team delivered 20 articles of 500–1,000 words per month that quickly showed improved user metrics, including average time on site.

We reported monthly on the content’s performance, using the same user metrics that were used to audit the content originally. In the first month our new content led to increased conversions and better engagement on the Mail Travel site, and is still continuing to boost the blog’s performance.

By the end of the project, content produced by Melt had seen a 50% increase in conversions compared to other pages.

Head of eCommerce Mail Travel