SAGetaways
In 2018 two travel addicts, Naledi Molefe and Pieter Botha, decided South Africa needed a corner of the internet that celebrated its awesomeness.
That’s how SAGetaways was born—a travel platform that sparks wanderlust and helps people plan the kind of trips they’ll be talking about for years to come.
It’s not just pretty pictures. SAGetaways serves up destination guides, ready-to-go itineraries, packing hacks and handpicked experiences—sunrise safaris in Kruger to wine-fuelled afternoons in the Cape Winelands.
The mission is simple: show off the best of South Africa’s landscapes and cultures and make travel planning as easy as a lazy Sunday braai.
By 2024 they had built a reputation—32 destinations and 180 detailed travel guides that feel like insider tips not generic blog posts.
And with domestic travel bouncing back big time after COVID, the timing was perfect. Tourism injected R628 billion into the economy in 2024 and SAGetaways wanted a bigger piece of that pie.
That’s when they teamed up with EcoSEO. The result? 300% increase in organic traffic and a clear path to becoming one of the top travel names in South Africa.
Lead Time: 10 months
Sector: Travel and Tourism
Target Type: B2C (Business-to-Consumer)
Demographic: Local and international travelers interested in South African adventures, including safari enthusiasts, budget travelers, and cultural explorers
Website Goal: To inspire and guide unforgettable travel experiences in South Africa by providing destination guides, itinerary planners, packing tips, and curated experiences, establishing SAGetaways as a leading travel platform
Services: Long-tail keyword targeting, Schema markup implementation, Backlink Acquisition, SEO-friendly URL optimization, Image SEO and visual content optimization
4X
Organic Traffic in 10 Months
The Challenge
SAGetaways had a solid fanbase after 6 years, but the website’s growth had hit a brick wall—2,000 visits a month according to Semrush.
That’s tough when you’re pouring your heart into rich travel guides that deserve way more eyeballs. Stuff like “South Africa travel itinerary” or “best safari destinations” just wasn’t ranking where it should.
Why? A few stubborn issues:
- We found that the website wasn’t showing up in search results for key travel terms.
- They hadn’t been using technical SEO tricks like proper schema markup to make their Google listings pop.
- The website had no strong backlinks to back up their authority in a competitive tourism space.
- Our technical team found that the URLs were messy and images weren’t optimized—it was making it really hard for both users and Google’s bots to navigate.
Blog owners - Naledi and Pieter reached out to us at EcoSEO in March 2024 hoping we could shake things up and get SAGetaways noticed as the ultimate local travel buddy.
Our SEO Strategy
We got to work and cooked up a strategy just for them. We first started by researching the competition, digging around into most published South African travel blogs and some of the bigger global tourism players.
Using our own list of suite of SEO tools we focused on 5 key moves:
Targeting Long-Tail Keywords for Niche Audiences:
Using Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool, we identified long-tail keywords like “3-day Kruger safari itinerary” and “budget Cape Town weekend getaway.” We expanded SAGetaways’ content portfolio from 120 to 600 pages, creating detailed guides tailored to specific traveler intents.
Boosting Search Listings with Schema Markup:
We dug into ranking gaps with Semrush. Then added schema markup for places, travel agencies and the blog articles using Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper.
What’s the SEO payoff you ask? Rich snippets like star ratings and itinerary previews that grab attention in search results. Google Search Console showed 2,500 keywords pulling up these fancy listings, resulting in a 20% increase in clicks.
Building Credibility with Quality Backlinks:
Backlinks are like street cred for websites. Using Ahrefs’ Link Intersect Tool we found who was linking to SAGetaways’ competitors—local tourism boards and well known travel blogs.
We got 15 quality backlinks from travel sites, safari operators and global platforms through guest posts and partnerships. This gave SAGetaways some serious SEO mojo.
SEO-Friendly URLs & Image SEO Optimisation
Cleaning Up URLs for SEO and User Experience:
Using an analogy - messy URLs are like getting lost on a poorly marked hiking trail—frustrating for everyone and anyone. Using the SEO tool - Semrush’s Site Audit, it showed us a list of "complicated URLs" that were confusing Google’s crawler bots.
We fix this by using a more simplified URLs. We used descriptive paths with keywords like “South Africa safari”. The result? Within a month - Google Search Console showed a 12% increase in crawl efficiency. Using this method we made it easier for people and bots to find what they need.
Driving Visual Traffic with Image SEO:
Important SEO Information - So called travel content needs great images (visuals), but we realised early on - UrbanNest was leaving traffic on the table by ignoring image SEO.
Ahrefs’ Site Explorer showed huge potential in Google Image search, so we optimized photos and infographics.
Alt texts were sprinkled with relevant keywords(using main and semantic keywords), images were compressed using TinyPNG for speed. We also submitted the images to the sitemaps via the Google Search Console.
We notice a immediat effect - Traffic from image search jumped from 2% to 10% of total visits, turning pictures into gateways for new visitors.
The Results
In 10 months EcoSEO’s strategies transformed SAGetaways:
- Organic Traffic: 2K to 8K, 300% increase.
- Keyword Rankings: SAGetaways now ranks for 5.6K keywords, 400 in top 3.
- Rich Snippets: 2.5K keywords trigger schema.
- Backlinks: Domain authority went from 22 to 30, 15 new high quality backlinks.
- Engagement: Bounce rate decreased 18% according to Google Analytics.
- Image Search: Google Image search now 10% of total traffic, up from 2%.
SAGetaways’ top guide “Ultimate Kruger Safari Itinerary” now gets 1.2K monthly visits thanks to optimised content and images. Social media growth 3.5K Instagram, 5.2K Facebook, 2.1K X.com, SAGetaways now reaches more people.
EcoSEO’s strategy combined technical expertise with SAGetaways’ love of South African travel. We used Semrush, Ahrefs and Google Search Console to target niche keywords, add schema to SERPs and build authority through backlinks and optimised URLs and images to connect SAGetaways with people who want to travel to South Africa.
Technical Tools:
Semrush, Ahrefs, Google Search Console, Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper, TinyPNG, Google Analytics
SEO Services
Long-tail keyword targeting, Schema markup implementation, Backlink Acquisition, SEO-friendly URL optimization, Image SEO and visual content optimization
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