Alton Towers Resort is one of the UK's most established theme parks, set in the grounds of a country estate in Staffordshire. Part of the global Merlin Entertainments Group, Alton Towers has developed far beyond a traditional theme park. The resort now offers a water park, six themed hotels and accommodations, as well as a spa, crazy golf and conference facilities. 

Alton Towers came to us with the challenge to build upon impressive traffic and rankings the year after a major advertising campaign.

The Wicker Man is the world’s most immersive rollercoaster experience. This campaign included TV advertising and digital billboards nationwide, as well as a dedicated microsite and a major publicity stunt in London.

Alton Towers needed to boost traffic without a major new roller coaster ‘secret weapon’ to unveil. They chose to invest in SEO to improve upon the previous year’s web traffic and conversions. We set out an SEO strategy to achieve the following goals:

• Increase authoritative backlink profile
• Create engaging, useful content
• Reach new user groups and customers
• Delight customers with new interactive features.

As a well-known brand, Alton Towers already dominates search engine results pages (SERPs) for branded terms. However, to reach a wider potential audience, we aimed to target generic search terms related to theme parks, roller coasters, short breaks and days out.

We performed detailed Keyword Research, to identify the most valuable search terms with realistic potential. We then mapped these keywords, associating certain terms with specific landing pages, to avoid keyword cannibalisation across the site. 

A clearly structured Keyword Map helps to arrange content strategically, so that users are always presented with the most relevant results. From this mapping exercise, we also crafted optimised Page Titles and Meta Descriptions, to kick off the on-page optimisation.

Our Content Marketing strategy incorporates different tiers of content: from updating existing landing pages, to producing informative guides and major creative campaigns.

With each ‘top tier’ creative content campaign, we intend to create a buzz. By encouraging users to engage, each content feature drives organic and referral traffic, whilst earning valuable backlinks.

Collaborating between our in-house Creative Designers, Umbraco Developers and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) team, we built a shareable, interactive content feature: Rollercoaster Travel. Visitors to the website were invited to journey to Alton Towers on a rollercoaster of their choice, resulting in immersive video footage and unique fun facts about their favourite rides. We worked closely with the Digital Marketing, PR and Social Media teams at Alton Towers, to produce a successful, cohesive campaign. 

As part of our research and recommendations, we identified a number of Content Gaps on the Alton Towers website. In some cases, the resort’s popularity has spawned a number of fan sites that rank highly in search results for certain queries. We aimed to reclaim the authoritative voice on these topics.

After agreeing key priority areas with the client-side team, we curated a manageable calendar for new content production. In line with business objectives, we focused primarily on ‘Short Breaks’ at Alton Towers Resort. We created new pages dedicated to previously overlooked offerings, such as B&B packages or Summer Holidays. 

After our focus on optimising content related to ‘Short Breaks’, the Alton Towers Hotel landing page saw a 61% uplift in organic sessions.

As a long-standing giant in the leisure industry, the Alton Towers website was primarily focused on creating visual impact through imagery. As such, there was very little descriptive content on each page. 

In order to help search engines to understand and promote each area of the site, we rebuilt each main landing page to incorporate more descriptive copy. Each page now includes relevant keywords, search terms and answers to FAQs. Beyond improving relevance in search results, this extended written content helps the user to find answers to their queries more directly. 

Beyond the on-page and creative content marketing campaigns, our Digital Marketing experts also improved the site’s technical SEO performance. 

Google regards links as an important indicator of domain authority. A thorough Link Detox of the Alton Towers site helped us to identify areas for improvement. By assessing relevant links methodically, we cleansed Alton Towers’ backlink profile to maintain an authoritative, trustworthy domain.

We also began an outreach campaign to reclaim links wherever the brand name is mentioned on external sites. Off-page SEO is an important consideration for boosting a website’s perceived credibility, to search engines and users alike.

Whilst auditing the site, we also identified a series of historical pages, hosting out-dated or duplicate content. We installed 301 redirects on any irrelevant pages, to ensure that users and search engines were directed towards the most relevant content.