BA.com pushes for better search engine presence

British Airways has embarked on a long-awaited search engine optimisation campaign having been almost undetectable in natural internet searches for years. The airline has restructured its website in a more computer-friendly way enabling spiders, which search the Internet for relevant websites after a user enters a query, to access and study its pages more easily.…

British Airways has embarked on a long-awaited search engine optimisation campaign having been almost undetectable in natural internet searches for years.


The airline has restructured its website in a more computer-friendly way enabling spiders, which search the Internet for relevant websites after a user enters a query, to access and study its pages more easily.


It will help – though not guarantee – Ba.com appears higher up the natural listings when a potential customer is looking for flights on the web.


BA marketing manager for UK direct and digital, Joe Sikorsky, said BA’s website has, until now, been almost impenetrable by search engine technology.


He said the site has initially been developed from a consumer perspective without consideration to how search engines would find it among the 2.5 billion pages on the web.


“We worked a few years ago on the site, before I was here, but did not optimise it, which was wrong,” he told Travolution.


“The spiders couldn’t get past our gateway page. If someone was looking specifically for British Airways there wouldn’t be a problem. We’d be top of the natural listings.


“But if they searched for flights to New York or flights to Africa we’d be so far down the list we’d never be found.”


“We are now putting that right and it’s starting to bed in.”


Consumers will also be linked direct to the relevant page in the BA website, said Sikorsky, not just dumped on its home page. The appearance of the site would not alter, he added.


The greater optimisation of Ba.com could now see it reduce its sizeable, and increasing, pay per click budget, Sikorsky said.


“We will be looking at what is the correct balance,” he said.


The carrier has employed Bigmouth media to run its campaign.