Case Study – Flight Training International
About Flight Training International
Flight Training International, Inc. is a Part 142, Flight Training School headquartered in Denver, CO. The school provides advanced flight training courses for commercial pilots who seek a specific aircraft type rating, or needs to keep/regain currency.
Aviation Marketing Consulting was retained to improve Flight Training International’s digital marketing campaign and improve its online lead generation.
Client Marketing Issues
Flight Training International had retained a local Denver marketing agency to handle their digital marketing. However, after working with the firm for nearly two years, Flight Training International was not pleased with their performance.
The local agency did not have aviation experience and the account team assigned to Flight Training International’s marketing experienced frequent staff turnover. This resulted in Flight Training International having to frequently “retrain” the agency’s new marketing team. More importantly, the agency’s lack of understanding about Flight Training International’s business, and aviation in general, resulted in numerous and costly errors. In addition, Flight Training International was experiencing the following issues:
- Overall web traffic was trending lower
- The number and quality of leads generated by their website had dropped significantly
- Search engine rankings for important keywords were dropping
Because the website is the driving force behind the company’s lead generation, reversing these issues was of paramount importance.
Flight Training International Case Study
| Process | Result |
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| Challenges |
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| Solutions |
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| Results |
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| Client Comment | “It is a pleasure working with an agency who understands aviation; they were able to help us from day one, without much of a learning curve.” |
Diagnosis
Aviation Marketing Consulting conducted a comprehensive audit of Flight Training International’s website and digital marketing campaign and discovered a number of serious issues:
- Structural Issues – Website construction, organization of content and out-of-date software made it difficult for search engines to properly index the site.
- Page Content – The website had many pages, but many had duplicate or very similar content, while other pages had very little content.
- Site Freshness – The content of the site had not been updated in months. The website originally included a Pilot Forum section, which had been shut down for over a year, but never was removed from the website or its navigation.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Issues – Many technical SEO issues were discovered: duplicate page title meta-tags, missing description meta-tags, duplicate page content as well as over 3,000 inbound links – many from poor quality and/or inappropriate websites. These combined to negatively impact the search rankings for the website.
- Website Design – The website was built on a WordPress theme first released in 2009. The website looked dated and did not have “responsive” design capabilities for viewing on mobile devices.
- Google AdWords Cost Per Click – The costs associated with Flight Training International’s Google AdWords campaign were higher than industry average, many paid leads were inappropriate for Flight Training International’s business, and there was no mechanism in the website to track conversions.
All of these issues combined for a poor user experience and resulted in Flight Training International’s search rankings to drop precipitously in Google, Yahoo and Bing – thus reducing the number of leads generated from the website.
Recommended Solutions
Aviation Marketing Consulting addressed these issues with the following solutions:
- New Website Design – A new responsive web design was developed, which gave the site a modern and pleasing look and eliminated the structural issues that plagued the old website.
- Content Development – The website content was reorganized to reduce the overall number of pages and eliminated duplicate content, thus providing a more intuitive navigation of the website material.
- Comprehensive SEO Program – An across-the-board SEO program was implemented that addressed the on-site technical deficiencies while also adding new, high-quality text and images. In addition, inbound links from poor quality websites were deleted or disavowed.
- Google AdWords Campaign – The parameters of Flight Training International’s Google AdWords campaign were adjusted and monitored to increase the number of leads and their quality while reducing the cost per click and conversion.
Results
- One month after launch of the new website search rankings improved from an average position of 55 to 11, a 500% improvement. Currently all of Flight Training International’s keywords rank on page one of Google.
- More importantly, the number of inbound leads has increased so dramatically that Flight Training International has hired additional sales staff and flight instructors to manage the increase.
What the Client Said About Our Work
“We noticed that our rankings in the major search engines were dropping and the number of leads from our website had slowed to a trickle.
The local agency that was managing our SEO and Google AdWords campaign really did not understand our aviation business and did not provide an effective solution to improve our website lead generation.
We decided to make a switch and retained Aviation Marketing Consulting. They developed a great looking website for our company, were able to get our search rankings higher, and subsequently the number and quality of leads from our website has greatly improved.
I am very pleased with our decision to retain Aviation Marketing Consulting – they are real pros when it comes to web development, SEO and digital marketing. It’s also a pleasure working with a marketing agency who understands the aviation industry; they were able to help us from day one, without much of a learning curve.”
– Mike Medley, President, Flight Training International, Inc.
