The Pekoe Trail is a 300-kilometer walking trail, the first of its kind in Sri Lanka, traversing the country’s central highlands from the Hanthana Mountains near Kandy to the hill station of Nuwara Eliya. This scenic trail weaves through tea plantations, misty mountains, and pristine forests, passing through historic estates and vibrant rural communities. Designed to promote sustainable tourism, it offers travellers an immersive experience in nature and culture while supporting the livelihoods of local communities along the way.
The Pekoe Trail represents a pioneering venture in Sri Lanka’s adventure tourism landscape. In its initial stage, which aimed to inspire and raise awareness, Antyra was tasked with a vital objective: to establish a comprehensive and authoritative online presence. This was achieved through a strategic focus on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) aligned with destination marketing practices, ensuring the trail’s visibility and appeal to prospective travellers.
However, despite the growing interest in adventure tourism, many travellers were unaware of the unique offerings of The Pekoe Trail in Sri Lanka. The primary challenge was to build an authoritative and discoverable online presence within organic search results. The goal was to inspire travellers, adventure seekers, and hikers to explore The Pekoe Trail, overcoming competition from more generic destinations that often dominate search queries.
To build an authoritative and discoverable online presence for The Pekoe Trail, we implemented a multi-faceted SEO strategy. This approach included optimising the website structure, conducting detailed keyword research, and executing post-launch enhancements. Below is an overview of our key actions.
We developed a targeted website structure that focused on the key destinations and attractions along The Pekoe Trail. This ensured that each stage of the journey was relevant to potential visitors, with clear navigation to enhance user engagement and search engine performance.
A comprehensive keyword research initiative was carried out to identify niche segments within broader, more competitive search terms. By targeting high-performing long-tail keywords, we optimised the website’s page structure and content depth, improving search visibility for both general and specific searches related to the trail.
Once the website went live, we conducted several important SEO activities to further strengthen its presence in organic search results.
Following the launch, we performed an in-depth SEO audit to evaluate the website’s performance. This allowed us to identify and resolve SEO health issues, pinpoint areas for improvement, and implement measures to boost the site’s organic visibility.
We initiated a backlink-building strategy, focusing on comparing our site’s backlink profile with competitors. This included outreach to high-domain authority websites within relevant industries, which helped us build a stronger, more credible backlink profile and enhance the overall SEO strategy.
Our content strategy was based on thorough keyword research, which helped us create SEO-optimised blog articles offering valuable insights to users. Additionally, we implemented page structure optimisations, such as custom filtration processes, to support the site’s SEO performance and improve user experience.
To ensure optimal site performance, we conducted technical SEO enhancements. This involved improving page load speeds, optimising core web vitals, and ensuring mobile content was fully optimised, guaranteeing a seamless experience for users across all devices
The Pekoe Trail website is currently ranking for over 900 organic keywords, as shown in the chart above, from April 2023 to September 2024.
Source: SEMRUSH
The above snapshot indicates the top discovery keywords for which the website is currently ranking in the top 5 organic positions as of September 2024.
Source Google SERPs
The above Snapshots depict the search result page rankings for the keywords “Trails in Sri Lanka” and “Hiking in Sri Lanka” in September 2024.
Over a 12-month period, as indicated above, we have successfully observed a steady growth in organic online visibility by 80% and an increase in organic traffic by 31%. Furthermore, the snapshot highlights the month-on-month growth trend in organic traffic, driving more visitors and deeper engagement within the site.
