Case Study: XO – #1 on Google for “Private Jet,” Twice

Client: XO (flyxo.com) · Industry: Private aviation · Scope: National SEO · Market: One of the most competitive keyword sets in the United States

The short version

We took XO from page 2 to the top 3 on Google for “private jet” in a matter of months. COVID hit, XO cut all outside vendors, and their rankings slid to position 7. They called us back — we drove them to position 1, then built a long-tail strategy that ended up converting more traffic than the head terms themselves: by early 2023, our route-and-city pages were XO’s #1 source of organic conversions, beating both broad searches and even branded searches.

Act one: page 2 to top 3

“Private jet” keywords are contested by charter marketplaces, brokers, and national brands with seven-figure budgets — and page 2 in this market means invisible. XO hired us to change that. Within a few months of technical cleanup, intent-mapped content, and disciplined authority building, XO’s most valuable broad terms moved from page 2 into Google’s top 3, and organic leads roughly doubled.

The interruption: COVID

When the pandemic grounded aviation, XO — like many companies — cut every third-party vendor, including us. Without active SEO, the rankings we’d built eroded the way compounding assets do when you stop investing: “private jet” slid from the top 3 down to position 7. Still page one — but in this market, position 7 gets a rounding error of the clicks position 1 gets.

Act two: back to #1 — and then past it

XO brought us back. We rebuilt momentum and drove “private jet” to position 1. But the bigger win was strategic: we built out route-level and city-level pages (“private jet LA to Vegas,” “private flights to Cabo,” and hundreds more) that captured travelers at the exact moment of booking intent — searches with a fraction of the volume of “private jet” but far higher conversion rates.

The numbers, from our weekly conversion reports

We tracked every organic conversion weekly, broken down by keyword type — branded, broad, and geo/route. From our first weekly report of the second engagement (July 2021) to the most recent (March 2023):

• Organic search generated roughly 500–570 tracked conversions every single week — thousands of high-intent private-aviation leads per month.
• Geo/route conversions grew 44% (121 → 174 per week) as the route-page strategy matured.
• By March 2023, geo/route pages were the #1 converting keyword category (174/week) — ahead of broad terms (140) and even branded searches (159). The long tail we built out-converted “private jet” itself.
• The broad head terms kept working too: “private jet” alone drove 25–37 tracked conversions weekly at a 6–11% conversion rate.

Why it worked

Two lessons in one engagement. First, SEO compounds — and decays: the COVID gap proved what happens when you stop, and the rebound proved the engine restarts when the foundation is real. Second, the money is often in the intent, not the volume: the biggest broad keyword in the category got beaten, week after week, by hundreds of unglamorous route pages that answered exactly what a booking-ready traveler asked. That is the same thinking we now apply to AI visibility — being the specific, definitive answer AI engines retrieve, not just the biggest brand in the room.

Could your market work like this?

If a category as brutal as private aviation can be won twice, most local and national markets are very winnable. See where you stand: run the free AI-visibility audit, check our transparent pricing, or book 15 minutes.