American Airlines Vs. Porter

Search Engine Optimization can make a number one company show up as a number 10 company and a number 8 as a 1. Everyone knows Cineplex is the leader in Movie theaters, however if you google search and they are on the second page perhaps the untrained eye won’t notice that.

Gone are the days where being the best means you are the best. There is so much to do on the internet for companies from being mobile friendly to showing up first when searched. This paper will compare two brands American Airlines and Porter Airlines and their SEO.

Porter Airlines fails drastically on a lot of typical SEO fronts. They don't use Keywords anywhere on their site or any descriptions either which are both the easiest and simplest ways to be found on the internet. American Airlines however utilizes both of them, 17 keywords to be exact and three different descriptive words. Both sites are easy to browse around and find what's needed however American Airlines offers more cruise options and other travel options which can be beneficial clutters the sights and makes it difficult to find certain things. Porter however uses a minimalist approach with the home page being book a flight. 

Another very useful tool is optimizing your mobile website for phones. When you go to Porter they have an entire different website for when accessing from a mobile or tablet device. American Airlines' website stays the same, difficult to maneuver and very large which makes users have to scroll around the website to find half of the clickable links.

Both of the Airlines showed similar trend bumps around the same times. Since American Airlines has such a larger search results it makes the porter results seem smaller and not as viewable. January, May and October are the big hot spots for trends in searches.

Based purely on view ability of the site Porter is vastly superior, easy to find what you’re looking for without any form of issues. American Airlines utilizes SEO much more effectively while being a little more cluttered on their homepage.  

Using SEO is a key thing for brands in the airline industry, to show up first and to have your brand showing up first can mean the difference from a booking or not. American Airlines shows up almost always first amongst the normal key words for brands. While porter lags behind only showing up unless you search for Porter or Billy Bishop Airlines.

Aa.com, (2016). American Airlines - Airline tickets and cheap flights at AA.com. [online] Available at:   https://www.aa.com/homePage.do [Accessed 11 Feb. 2016]. Inc., P. (2016). Book Flights - Porter Airlines. [online] Flyporter.com. Available at:               https://www.flyporter.com/Flight?culture=en-CA [Accessed 11 Feb. 2016] Google.ca, (2016). Google Trends - Web Search Interest - Worldwide, 2004 - present. [online] Availableat:https://www.google.ca/trends/explore#q=Porter%20Airlines%2C%20%2Fm%2F0z07&cmpt=q&tz=Etc%2FGMT%2B5 [Accessed 11 Feb. 2016]. https://www.flyporter.com/Flight?culture=en-CA [Accessed 11 Feb. 2016].