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Cruise Nation
Head of SEO | Sep 2025 to Jan 2026 (5 months)
Cruise Nation is one of the UK’s leading cruise holiday retailers. I was brought in as Head of SEO to rebuild organic performance after a weak foundation left by the previous agency. The site had the right commercial inventory but the wrong structure. Key revenue pages were effectively invisible to Google, internal linking was fragmented, and intent mapping across the deals ecosystem was absent.
The situation
The previous SEO approach had focused on surface-level optimisation without addressing the structural problems underneath. Commercial pages that should have been one or two clicks from the homepage were buried at average click depths of 3.8. The /cruise-deals section, the highest-value commercial area on the site, had only 2-5 internal links pointing to it from the rest of the site. Google’s crawlers were finding it, but not treating it as important.
At the same time, the content on revenue pages didn’t address the full range of questions a cruise buyer has. Pages were built around single keywords rather than the multi-intent queries MUVERA rewards: destination, ship, price, availability, ABTA/ATOL protection, and booking process all in one place.
What I did
Architecture overhaul
Internal links to /cruise-deals were rebuilt from 2-5 to 21+ across the site. Commercial pages were pulled from average click depth of 3.8 down to a target of 1-2. This single structural change, making key revenue pages easier for both Google and users to reach, had an immediate impact on how the site was crawled and valued.
Intent mapping on revenue pages
Key deal pages were rebuilt around transactional intent. ABTA and ATOL trust signals were made prominent. Best Price Guarantee messaging was structured as a clear on-page signal. Entity connections between cruise lines, destinations, and ship names were reinforced so Google could understand the full commercial context of each page.
Content at scale
Scalable FAQ block structures (8-10 questions per key template) were implemented across the deals ecosystem to close long-tail and objection query gaps. This addressed the MUVERA requirement for multi-intent coverage while also targeting the conversational queries that appear in AI-generated search results.
GEO and AI citations
Structured content and entity authority work built 1,472 AI citations across 567 cited pages in 5 months. This established Cruise Nation as a cited source in AI-generated responses for cruise-related queries, an emerging channel that sits alongside traditional Google traffic.
Results
first 30 vs last 30 days
first 30 vs last 30 days
30.97 → 12.29 avg
across 567 pages
All metrics are from Google Search Console comparing the first 30 days of the engagement against the final 30 days. The average position improvement of 18.7 positions reflects how far the commercial pages moved once they were properly connected to the rest of the site and structured for multi-intent search.
Key takeaway
The biggest gains at Cruise Nation came from architecture, not content. The commercial inventory was strong. The problem was that Google couldn’t easily reach it, and when it did, the pages didn’t signal their commercial importance clearly enough. Fixing click depth, internal linking, and intent structure across the deals ecosystem, before writing a single new word of content, was what moved the numbers.
The AI citation work ran in parallel and demonstrated that the same structural content improvements that help Google also help LLMs. 1,472 citations in 5 months from pages that were previously invisible is a direct result of making content clear, structured, and authoritative enough to be cited.
If your commercial pages aren’t performing despite having the right inventory, the problem is usually structural. Get in touch and I can show you exactly where the opportunity is.
More on how I work with this sector: SEO for travel companies