Relaunching Flash Pack’s ‘blog’
Having first built a global network of award-winning journalists (and an archive of 500+ articles) when I arrived, it was time for Flash Pack's 'blog' to undergo a badly needed overhaul to improve its SEO, UX and reputation. It needed a content hub. Pulling together design, tech and SEO teams, I led on implementing a total refresh, launching in December 2019.
Flash Pack original branding | 2018
'Flash Pack Life' blog | 2019
Scamps | 2019
UX design high-fidelity wireframes
Content hub relaunched: SOLO
A new homepage
With a growing archive of over 500 editorial articles, the content hub played a pivotal role in driving website traffic. With this new homepage design, four new editorial sections (based on audience research and search rankings) made navigation far easier. A 'destination spotlight' and full width call-to-action feature provide the freedom for selected content, whilst 'Top Stories' is manually curated by the Editor.
An award-winning content team
To achieve Flash Pack's ambition of becoming the 'lifestyle destination for solo travellers in their 30s and 40s', I had to rapidly expand its content output. I built a global network of award-winning freelance journalists (Telegraph, Vogue, The Times, etc.) and brought a small team of editors in-house (ex-ShortList, ex-Stylist) to achieve this. I also signed record-breaking adventurer Ed Stafford as Flash Pack's columnist and brought many other influential voices to the hub. Organic social sessions (driven by popular editorial on SOLO) soon became Flash Pack's second strongest traffic driver behind paid media.
SEO best practice
A crucial part of the content hub's reimagining was ensuring SEO best practice – its previous iteration essentially alienated itself without it. Technically, we implemented breadcrumbs, schema markup, subdomains, cleaned up redirects, H-tags and reduced image sizes. Editorially, it meant building content clusters based on search trends (like a series on 'Where To Go When'), aiming for QABs and using search data to inform SEO-driven commissioning. Flash Pack's visibility dramatically improved and its content began ranking on the first page of Google regularly for key search terms.
Using SOLO to navigate COVID-19
When the COVID-19 pandemic began to unfold, it was nothing short of a wrecking ball for the travel industry. Using Flash Pack's organic social channels and SOLO as an editorial platform, I wrote and published stories on isolation, WFH and lockdown. But, above all, I penned a candid and honest letter from our CEO – which caught the attention of world-renowned and respected advertising chief Sir John Hegarty (founder, BBH), who described it as a 'masterclass in how to deal with a crisis'.