SEO Case Study: Airtel.in

Overview

Airtel is one of India’s largest telecom providers with a strong online presence through airtel.in. With an Authority Score of 78 and ranking 179 globally on Semrush, the brand attracts millions of monthly visits. This case study explores Airtel’s current SEO performance, growth opportunities, and recommendations for scaling visibility.

Current Performance (August 2025)

Traffic & Rankings

Organic Search Traffic: 18.2M (+4.1% growth)

Paid Search Traffic: 475.5K (+14% growth)

Organic Keywords: 646.7K

Paid Keywords: 1.6K

Backlinks & Referring Domains

Backlinks: 976.2K

Referring Domains: 20.5K

Engagement Metrics

Pages/Visit: 5.26 (Strong user engagement)

Avg. Visit Duration: 08:33 (Slight decline)

Bounce Rate: 37.29% (Slight increase)

Geographic Traffic Distribution

India: 95% traffic share (18.2M visits)

US: 1.6% (311.3K visits)

Nigeria: 92.2K visits

Others: 611.8K visits

Observations

High Brand Visibility in India: Airtel dominates Indian search queries, with 95% of its organic traffic coming from India.

International Visibility Gaps: Despite global telecom operations, international traffic share remains very low (<5%).

Strong Authority & Backlinks: With nearly 1M backlinks, Airtel has a robust link profile but can focus on high-quality, contextual links.

User Engagement Insights: High session duration shows content relevance, but the rising bounce rate signals UX/content mismatches.

Non-telecom Topics Driving Traffic: Keywords like “EU to UK shoe size” and “women’s dresses” are generating significant traffic but may not align with Airtel’s business goals.

Opportunities & Recommendations

Keyword Alignment

Prioritize telecom-related keywords (5G, broadband, mobile plans, IoT solutions).

Reduce dependency on irrelevant queries by refining content strategy.

International SEO

Create geo-specific landing pages for regions like Africa, the US, and Southeast Asia.

Implement hreflang tags for multilingual targeting.

Content Optimization

Refresh top-performing content to maintain visibility.

Improve topical authority in telecom and digital services.

Technical SEO

Reassess site speed, mobile usability, and Core Web Vitals.

Ensure crawl efficiency for thousands of indexed pages.

Link Building

Shift from quantity to quality-focused link acquisition (telecom, tech, finance publications).

Conclusion

Airtel.in is a high-authority domain with massive organic visibility in India, but international presence and keyword relevance are key areas for growth. By focusing on targeted content, global SEO, and technical optimization, Airtel can scale its organic reach beyond India and strengthen its authority in the telecom industry worldwide.