Ali Halit Diker

Writer | Editor | Globetrotter

Craft Engaging Travel Content That Takes Your Audience Places

Greetings! If you’re looking for an experienced editorial professional passionate about creating engaging travel content, please get comfortable and keep reading.

My story began in 2010 as an intern at Turkish Airlines’ in-flight magazines after switching my three-year design career to editorial. Honestly, it was one of the best choices of my life. Eleven years later, I started a new life in the UK—another good choice—and worked on a Turkish Airlines project with my first client.

I married a woman with wanderlust, and we have been exploring the world since 2018, visiting over ten countries and 30 cities in the past six years. I bring this personal experience and passion to my work, and combining them with my skills leads to many achievements for my employers and clients.

Here’s what I bring to the table

AUDIENCE RETENTION AND LOYALTY

While I have controversial opinions about SEO’s impact on content quality, I don’t ignore its importance. SEO has come a long way from content farming and keyword stuffing days. However, while most SEO professionals focus on short-term success, SEO is not necessarily the key to retention and audience loyalty.

Still, I admit that SEO played a major part in my success, and it continues to be so.

EDITORIAL TEAM MANAGEMENT

I was the editorial lead of the popular science and technology website Interesting Engineering. For 18 months, I managed the brand’s content strategy and editorial team, including monitoring and managing social media content flow.

I visited CES2020 as the Head of Content and coordinated the team on and off the field. We published over 100 pieces of content (articles and videos) from the event.

CONTENT STRATEGY

My experiences speak for me regarding my ability to read data combined with my intuition, which allows me to craft successful content strategies to achieve my employers’ and clients’ goals.

During my editorial lead at Mynet, one of Turkey's largest internet portals, the page views of the lifestyle service Mynet Trend rose to 13.5 million per month from 6.5 million per month.

While I was the Head of Content, Interesting Engineering's website had a whopping 8 million monthly page views, up from 4.5 million—almost within a year.

STORYTELLING

Storytelling is a crucial component of editorial success, along with SEO and a solid content strategy. However, it is often overlooked.

Telling a good story can help build communities, and catering to the travel community requires a personal touch, real experience, and genuine content. Curiosity drives exploration, which leads to travel. And what else is better to ignite curiosity than a good story? Probably nothing.

Storytelling is the best way to create engaging content in the travel niché, whether for journalistic or SEO purposes.

A selection of my clients

TURKISH AIRLINES HOLIDAYS (AUGUST 2021 - DECEMBER 2021)

ERKA IT, a Turkish Airlines contractor based in Istanbul, Turkey, responsible for creating and running turkishairlinesholidays.com, hired me to assemble and manage an editorial team to provide website copy and blog articles. My team and I created over 100,000 words of content monthly in Turkish and English. The Best Holiday Destinations in Türkiye ranks in the top 10 on the Google SERPs for over 30 mid to high-volume search terms and generates approximately 1,200 organic traffic in the UK, according to SEMrush data. Other high-performing articles and pages include but are not limited to Türkiye's Calmest Holiday Towns and City Breaks.

DEBITE (FEBRUARY 2022 - JULY 2022)

Debite, a Fintech company from London, provides business financing to startups and SMEs. I assembled and managed an editorial team to produce content for the company blog. Some articles, such as Top SaaS Tools for Small Businesses, Best Business Bank Accounts, and Best Business Credit Cards, appear on Google SERP or SERP features in the UK and US, according to SEMrush data.

VENTURES LAB (SEPTEMBER 2021 - ONGOING)

At Ventures Lab, a major iGaming company, I made significant contributions as a Freelance Editorial Consultant. My focus on affiliate marketing and brand websites led to the creation and execution of data-driven content plans. I managed editorial teams of varying sizes, consistently delivering high-quality content ranging from 250,000 to 1,000,000 words monthly, depending on the project’s needs.

Latmus or Latmos (Ancient Greek: Λάτμος) was a town in Caria, an ancient region in Southwestern Anatolia. The rock paintings found here tell the story of a community that lived in the area around 8,000 years ago. I named my company Latmus for two reasons. First, it references how people communicate, and communication is the essence of my business. Second, it's a homage to my father, whom I lost in 2019. He owned a company named Latmos a few years ago, and I was one of his first employees.

The hand in the logo refers to the contemporary Turkish name of the mountains, Beşparmak Dağları (Five-finger Mountains), where ancient Latmos was established. It also represents the first tool humans used to create other tools—hands have been used for communication, too. Additionally, the rock paintings in Latmos are parallel to the cave paintings in Lascaux, France. These similarities also represent the transcultural nature of stories and how the legacies live through generations, even after thousands of years.

LATMUS noun

lat·​mus | ˈɫ̪ät̪mʊs̠