The Challenge
As a new website with no audience, my challenge was simple: earn readers' trust and grow the site by publishing content that was more useful than what was already available. I launched The Foreigner In in 2021 because I was frustrated by how much travel and expat content felt repetitive, superficial, and written for clicks rather than readers. My goal was to create practical, experience-based content that would genuinely help foreigners navigate life in North Macedonia.
My SEO Process
01Phase 1: Creating Helpful Content (2021–2022)
I started The Foreigner In out of frustration with the lack of substance in many travel and expat blogs. Rather than focusing on keywords, I kept publishing articles that are practical and experience-based.
02Phase 2: Learning SEO Fundamentals (2022-2024)
As I gained experience in more on-page SEO tasks at work, I learned the importance of content structure, search intent, metadata, internal linking, image optimization, and keyword placement. I began applying these principles to improve both new and existing content.
03Phase 3: Optimizing Existing Content (2023-2025)
I revisited older articles and improved their structure, headings, metadata, and keyword targeting. Using tools such as Ahrefs and Keywords Everywhere, I updated content to better align with what users were searching for.
04Phase 4: Link Building and Outreach (2023-2025)
Drawing from my previous outreach experience, I promoted content and built relationships with other websites in the travel niche. This helped increase visibility and supported the site's organic growth through backlink acquisition.
05Phase 5: Conclusion Key SEO Lessons
Across each phase, the most important lesson was that strong SEO starts with genuinely helpful content. Over time as I learned more about technical SEO, content optimization, and link building, the process from simply sharing experiences evolved into building a more discoverable, authoritative website that better serves both users and search engines.
Results
Results Overview
Over the last 12 months, The Foreigner In appeared in Google Search over 335,000 times and generated over 3,200 organic clicks. An average position of 13.2 shows that many articles are already close to page one. To me, that's exciting because it means there is still significant room for growth through content optimization, internal linking, and continuous refinement of existing articles.
Top Performing Queries
These were some of the highest-clicked queries over the last 12 months, demonstrating the site's ability to attract organic traffic across travel, product review, and informational topics.
Top Performing Pages
The top performing pages reflect a mix of travel guides, product recommendations, and practical resources. Among the standout articles is Best Restaurants in Old Town Istanbul, which consistently attracts readers searching for authentic dining experiences in one of the city's most historic neighborhoods.
Other top pages include guides on SIM cards and eSIMs in Turkey, travel itineraries for Istanbul, and tips for getting around the city by metro — all practical topics that match what foreign travelers are actively searching for before and during their trips.
SEO Opportunities
By sorting Search Console queries by impressions, I can identify topics where Google already considered my content relevant. The queries with the high impressions presents opportunities for further optimization through content refreshes, improved internal linking, and stronger alignment with search intent.
Best Performing Article
Best Restaurants in Old Town Istanbul
Why I wrote It
A few months after visiting Istanbul, I noticed that many of the articles ranking for restaurant recommendations were too broad to be genuinely useful. Most focused on "the best restaurants in Istanbul" as a whole, without considering that tourists often stay in specific areas. If someone was staying in the Old Town part of Istanbul, they would have to check whether each recommended restaurant was actually nearby in that area. I saw an opportunity to create a more practical resource focused specifically on restaurants within the Old Town area.
Search Intent
I targeted travelers looking for restaurant recommendations in the Old Town part of Istanbul. While the intent was informational, I thought firsthand experience would make the content more useful and trustworthy than a generic list compiled from other sources.
Why I think it Performed Well
Rather than creating another broad listicle, I focused on solving a specific problem for travelers. The article narrowed the search to a particular area, included photos from my visit, provided location information and links to Google reviews, and helped readers quickly evaluate whether a restaurant was worth visiting. Keywords were incorporated naturally throughout the content, but my primary goal was to make the article genuinely useful for someone planning a trip.
Traffic Acquisition
Between June 2022 and December 2025, The Foreigner In generated 11,896 sessions, with Organic Search accounting for almost 70% of all traffic. Over this period, the site grew from virtually no traffic to several hundred monthly organic sessions through a combination of helpful content, content optimization, and search-focused improvements.
One of the most encouraging findings was the quality of the organic traffic. Search visitors generated 4,814 engaged sessions with an engagement rate of 58.5%, suggesting that readers were finding content that matched their needs and spending time engaging with it.
However, growth wasn't always consistent, and traffic fluctuated throughout the period. One thing I learned was the importance of regular publishing, content updates, and link-building efforts. Looking back, I spent more time publishing and optimizing individual articles than thinking about the site's overall content architecture. The website lacked pillar content, stronger topic clusters, and strategic internal linking, all of which could have strengthened its topical authority and created a more cohesive user experience.
Key Achievements
- Generated over 335,000 Google Search impressions and 3,240 organic clicks through content focused on travel, relocation, parenting, and life abroad.
- Established Organic Search as the site's primary acquisition channel, generating 8,226 visits and accounting for nearly 70% of all website traffic.
- Published multiple articles that achieved first-page Google rankings and attracted thousands of visitors from highly competitive travel and informational search queries.