Thomas Cook Main Site Review

If you haven’t already, please read the overview.

SEO:

Crawl Stats

I completed a full crawl on the site. The below data is including externally linked sites. With a total of 62,173 URI’s crawled these were the stats:

Each of those, could really have its own section, so I will only focus on a couple of key points. (I can expand on any if there’s interest)

No Hreflang Tags

These should be done, instead of explaining here I’ll link to a couple of useful articles:

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en

https://moz.com/learn/seo/hreflang-tag

https://yoast.com/hreflang-ultimate-guide/

Mixed Content

There’s pages that aren’t marked as “Secure”, it is unsure if these have a negative SEO impact (as majority of the page is secure apart from this specific resource). However best practice is to resolve these.

 There are potentially up to 5791 pages that are impacted by this.

Currency Exchange

Currently, there’s some rankings (using SEMrush) for a lot of search terms related to currency exchange with quite a poor currency page.

I looking at current rankings. There’s possibility for a good amount of ranking increases by using a table. Using an API of some sort (current exchange rates).

An example (completely made up numbers)

The phrases currently ranked in top 100 by search volume for: https://www.thomascook.com/travel-money/buy-euros/

• gbp to euro
• eur to gbp
• 1 gbp in eur
• 100 gbp to eur
• 1000 gbp to eur
• 500 gbp to eur
• 300 gbp to eur
• 200 gbp to eur
• 50 gbp to eur
• 250 gbp to eur

As you can see, these are high purchase intent search terms. Using examples of their exact amount, whilst being a good experience for the user will also mean that you’re providing more relevance for search engines.

Image Compression

Using a single page. https://www.thomascook.com/flights/

Paid Search:

Language Ads

I can see the logic behind these, I believe this is because of the company “Last Minute” and a generic phrase match. However, for a variety of destinations this could be a good tactic

Looking through a range of places, similar to cape verde, the only one I found that did this was TripAdvisor (going to the English landing page)

This would be a simple and quick campaign to set up. The cost per clicks would be low (as looking at the serps the only place doing this is TripAdvisor.) with the visitor intent being the same as other customers.

Sitelinks

There’s a couple of issues:

1.  The available options
2. Links working

As you can see on this example, searching for “Cape Verde Last Minute”. The sitelinks are not related at all to my search term. There’s the possibility to upsell on these. The url that I get sent to is: http://www.thomascook.com/lp/1×7-last-minute-holidays/?lpsrc=Google+-+Thomas+Cook+API+Packages+Lastminute&lpkey=cape%20verde%20last%20minute&cvosrc=ppc.bing-API+Lastminute+%7C+Dest+Country+%7C+Cape+Verde+%7C+Country+1+%7C+Country+Packages+TCUK.cape+verde+last+minute&cvo_campaign=API+Lastminute+%7C+Dest+Country+%7C+Cape+Verde+%7C+Country+1+%7C+Country+Packages+TCUK&cvo_crid=192087856719&Matchtype=e&gclid=CMiI8qurvdMCFcMp0wod3ToEaw&gclsrc=aw.ds&dclid=CLTg_KurvdMCFTES0wodfu8IZA which gives this error:

This is an easy fix, at least to find. Using Screaming Frog all sitelinks can be crawled and you can get an error code.

Lack of Ad Extensions

This ad is on “Cheap All Inclusive Holidays” with a good call to action, however with no sitelinks, there’s a good amount of clicks that is being missed. According to SEM Rush this term has 60,500 searches a month. Which is a lot of traffic that has a relatively high purchase intent.

No Use Of Callout Extensions

This is something that is used by Last Minute very well.

As you can see, their use of callout includes their ratings. This is a great way to fill the serp real estate with their ad to increase awareness/ctr.

Placements

There are a lot of aggregator sites

Display:

Unfortunately I have been on the site using numerous devices, left at different stages in the process and have not seen a single piece of display advertising. This is a massive area that they could be improving on. Previously when browsing similar sites (Booking.com) I have had ads follow me for days, which in the past even with my knowledge has brought me in. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be me not seeing any ads. According to SimilarWeb you get a low number of overall visitors. Comparing to the 12.89m visitors for Jan-March through SimilarWeb this is nothing.

Affiliate:

Aggregators: