From manual bookings,
to a system that runs itself.
Elephant Eco Trails is an ethical elephant tour operator in Chiang Mai. I rebuilt their site with online booking, automated payments, and full SEO, tripling bookings since July 2026.
Where it started.
The original site had no booking system. Customers submitted a contact form, then waited for a manual email reply with payment instructions attached. Tour pages had almost no content, every inner page shared an identical keyword-stuffed meta description, and the FAQ URL contained a live typo. There was no schema markup, no address on the site, no Google Reviews integration and no sitemap submitted to search engines. The result was a site that looked credible but generated slow, manual, error-prone bookings and was nearly invisible in search.
Five moves that changed it.
Full SEO and site audit
We audited every page of the live PHP site across six categories: technical SEO, on-page content, trust signals, local SEO, content depth and UX. The baseline score was 51 out of 100. Five critical issues and five high-priority items shaped the rebuild brief.
WordPress rebuild with booking and payment
We rebuilt a new site with a booking system integrated, replacing the old site entirely. Customers can now browse, select a date, pay online and receive an instant confirmation, replacing the manual email-and-reply process that had been the only booking method.
Email automation for admin and guest
We set up automated transactional emails triggered on every booking: a confirmation to the guest with itinerary details, and a notification to the operator with booking data. Previously every confirmation email was written and sent by hand, with payment instructions attached manually.
Content architecture and on-page SEO
Each of the three tours got a dedicated page with a full itinerary, inclusions, pricing and an inline booking widget. I wrote unique title tags and meta descriptions for every page, restructured the FAQ into four categorised sub-pages, and created a dedicated profile page for each of the six elephants in the herd.
Schema, local signals and trust
We added Product schema with THB pricing to all three tour pages, configured LocalBusiness schema on the homepage, and added the full physical address with a Google Maps link to the footer sitewide. A Google Reviews widget displaying 130 five-star reviews was added to the homepage, replacing a section that had previously shown nothing.
What it moved.
What we delivered
- ✓Full WordPress rebuild from custom PHP
- ✓WP Travel Engine online booking system
- ✓Online payment integration for all three tours
- ✓Automated booking confirmation emails to guests
- ✓Automated admin notification emails on each booking
- ✓Three full tour pages with itineraries and pricing
- ✓Six individual elephant profile pages
- ✓Four categorised FAQ sub-pages
- ✓Product schema with THB pricing on all tour pages
- ✓LocalBusiness schema on homepage
- ✓Physical address and Google Maps link in footer sitewide
- ✓Google Reviews widget (130 reviews, 5.0 stars)
- ✓Rank Math SEO plugin configuration
- ✓Unique title tags and meta descriptions sitewide
- ✓XML sitemap created and submitted to Search Console