What did the client need help with?
Wavehunters runs surf schools at Polzeath and Watergate Bay, plus wildlife boat trips, private charters and a water taxi from Padstow, Rock and Port Isaac on Cornwall’s north coast. Most bookings land in a short summer season, often from visitors searching for things to do once they’re already in the area. Plenty of people knew the Wavehunters name, but the business needed to reach the visitors who didn’t, especially on high-intent searches like “padstow boat trips” and “padstow water taxi”, where it competes with other local operators and booking platforms.
How did we help?
We started with the searches that actually lead to bookings. Keyword tools badly under-report seasonal tourism searches, so we used Wavehunters’ own Search Console data to build a list of 50 commercial terms across boat trips, surf lessons, equipment hire and the water taxi, and set up rank tracking against exactly those. We put together a prioritised technical SEO plan for the site and reviewed the analytics and tag set-up, so enquiries and clicks are measured properly.
We also rebuilt the site’s structured data so search engines and AI tools understand the business: priced Service markup on all eight trip and hire pages (from £27.50 sea safaris to £400 catamaran charters), surf school location markup for Polzeath and Watergate Bay, article markup across the blog, and the removal of a duplicate business listing that was muddying the signals.
What were the results?
In the 90 days to 20 October 2026, organic clicks grew 17% year on year, from 12,091 to 14,196, and average position improved from 18.5 to 10.6. Searches for the Wavehunters name stayed flat, so almost all of that growth came from people who hadn’t searched for the business by name. Clicks from “padstow boat trips” rose 48% and “padstow water taxi” rose 21%, and click-through rate climbed from 4.1% to 5.2% as more listings moved onto page one. For a seasonal business, extra visibility on those searches in peak season means more seats filled on every trip.
Looking to grow your bookings through search? Get in touch, or see how we helped PekoeTea Edinburgh.
