Website update: September 2022
The world certainly feels like a different place - or at least the UK. We have a new Prime Minister facing down an energy and cost of living crisis, alongside the death of our long reigning Queen and the introduction of a new King. That’s a lot in the space of just a few days. In comparison, this article is rather insignificant in its need or presence but I thought it would be worthwhile to share a few updates on the website.
Website performance
The website has begun to plateau in recent months for a number of reasons, but I’m still quite satisfied with the progress I have made. We’re now averaging around 10,000 page views per month. This is not an outstanding number considering some travel websites are likely to get that within one hour but it’s a respectable figure for a plucky little website from the UK.
The number one and two drivers of website traffic, accounting for almost 40% of page views are the reviews of Scoot’s Economy and Premium Economy classes. These have consistently been the top performing articles on the site thanks to them being featured on the Scoot social pages (disclosure: Scoot paid for the flights) and have really been helpful in getting figures up. The one irritant about this article though is the strange comments I get… This is often people just ranting about their Scoot experiences which have been negative. Sure, I get it’s annoying but why is commenting on my website going to help the situation. Scoot is not a world class, outstanding experience, but pound for pound they offer an experience better than short haul low cost airlines and they get you there safely on modern aircraft. If you are a value conscious customer, that is all you can ask for.
Outside that, my article on LNER consistently ranks amongst my most popular articles even though it is outside my core focus for this site. On search engines, a number of my reviews for London-based lounges rank higher than major websites such as Head for Points and Live and Let’s Fly. In time, I hope to become a core destination for reviews of lounges at London airports.
Upcoming articles
Since around July, my uploads have been patchy for several reasons. The primary one being that I was having too much fun in the Pilipinas to devote too much time to authoring articles or reviews for the site. Second, is that I am now also writing for the UK-based luxury travel website Turning Left for Less. Along with Head for Points, TLFL was one of the first websites I came across in trying to understand the world of getting premium travel experiences for a lower price - or as its owner Michele says, ‘champagne travel on a prosecco budget’. I share the same ambitions as Michele’s website with a passion for luxury travel that is both accessible and doesn’t cost ridiculous amounts of money.
Writing for TLFL does provide better return for my writing time than if I write for my own website. With its greater reach, more people simply view the articles on TLFL than would on mine, so it makes sense to devote more time to an article there. Going forward, and for as long as I’m wanted as a contributor, is to split my articles as one to TLFL and two to my own site per week. ‘Juicier’ articles, such as the long haul business class reviews or luxury hotels, will feature more on TLFL because they, frankly, get more clicks than basic review experiences. Around four weeks after publication, reviews will be ‘syndicated’ on my site for completeness while articles such as the Finnair article will be republished on this site after seven days or so.
The publishing schedule will change for this site, as well as email newsletters, to adjust to this new setup. The plan is to push out new articles on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Mid-week articles seem to perform better and link up better with social posting than a Friday for example. Due to the target audience and longer reads, my articles for TLFL will be more likely to publish on weekends.
Whether the articles are on CallumElsdon.com or TLFL, here’s a taste of what you can have to look forward to:
The conclusion of my USA trip report which finished at the beginning of May.
Air France La Premiere (First Class) Review
KLM World Business Class
Singapore Airlines Suites Class (First Class) on the A380
Gulf Air Falcon Gold Business Class
MANY hotel reviews ranging from a bog standard Premier Inn through to the Shangri-La
YouTube and social
Ahhhh social media. I am VERY good at consuming it, but I do struggle at times with using it properly to promote the website - so much so I haven’t properly posted in a couple months besides IG/FB stories. New posts should accompany every new article on Facebook and Instagram, as well as Twitter (where I’ve have very little traction).
As for the more modern TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels, I do struggle. It seems to be the easiest way to social growth right now, but finding the time amongst writing for this website, TLFL, social posts and of course my full time job is a bit of a chore. If anybody has recommendations, drop them below!
YouTube videos are certainly not a primary focus for me even though I do enjoy the process of editing and looking back on filmed content. It is extremely time consuming but creating quality output and the positive emotions from that far outweigh any of the negative feeling from the time spent editing. On YouTube, I will focus on great pieces of content every few months or so. My first proper video, a review of Finnair’s new A350 Business Class received almost 22,000 views which is decent considering the stage of growth my channel is in.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading this combination of ramblings as well as the rest of my website. Your support is much appreciated and I hope you can join me for the ride in the coming months and years ahead.
Callum.
P.S. Yes, I am aware that the photos don’t correspond with what I’m talking about. It’s more to just show what I’ve been up to.
