Case study · SEO retainer
How we grew an ecommerce brand's monthly organic clicks by 115% in the first nine months
Nine months into an SEO retainer with an ecommerce brand in the bathroom and homeware category. Monthly organic clicks grew 115%, impressions grew 61%, and average ranking position improved from 10.8 to 7.3. Year on year, Month 9 clicks were up 50% on the same month a year earlier. Chart shows the retainer's first nine months; this case study will be extended as the compounding curve builds.
- Monthly organic clicks 11,262 from 5,226 +115%
- Monthly organic impressions 533,524 from 331,087 +61%
- Average ranking position 7.3 from 10.8 3.5 positions gained
- Timeframe Month 9 from Month 1 9 months
The client
A mid-market ecommerce brand in the bathroom and homeware category, running a substantial product catalogue across bathroom fittings, vanities, tapware, showers, tiles and accessories. Search traffic was already the site's largest acquisition channel when the retainer started, ranking on head-term commercial keywords but with room to compound both position and click-through on the long tail of product and category queries.
The problem
A brand with real search demand but leaking value at the technical and on-page layers. Category and collection pages carried limited descriptive content, meta title and description discipline was inconsistent, structured data was thin, and internal linking was not consistently moving equity between related product clusters. Search Console data suggested the site was earning impressions across a wider set of queries than the click-through rate was capturing, a classic signal that the listings themselves were doing well enough to appear but not well enough to win the click.
The plan: category depth, then compounding on-page discipline
Nine months of sustained, unglamorous fundamentals. Each workstream running in parallel from Month 1 so the fixes could stack.
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Category page depth
Every high-value category and collection page rewritten with genuinely useful buying context (materials, sizes, brand comparisons, care and installation guidance). Category pages are where transactional queries convert on this kind of site and thin category copy was the biggest gap Google was telling us about via impressions vs clicks.
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Meta title and description discipline
Rewritten across every indexed product and category page against real Search Console query data. Meta descriptions written to earn the click, not just fill the field. Immediate CTR uplift visible in Search Console within weeks.
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Structured data + internal linking
Product schema, breadcrumb schema and category-level FAQ schema deployed cleanly, redundant markup consolidated. Internal linking expanded between related categories so that a lift on one collection page could pull a related one up with it.
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Content programme on the informational cluster
Weekly long-form buying guides published in the informational cluster (bathroom vanity, taps, shower doors, extractor fans, mirrors and similar), each linked to the matching commercial category. Every article was a bridge from a research-intent query to the buy-intent page.
The trajectory (first nine months)
Monthly organic clicks rose every month for the first six months, from 5,226 in Month 1 to 7,549 in Month 6, then stepped up 41% in Month 7 to 10,610. Months 8 and 9 held at that higher level, at 11,363 and 11,262. Impressions followed the same shape, and click-through rate rose in every one of the nine months.
Source: Google Search Console
Source: Google Search Console
Nine months in, the curve has changed shape. Months 1 to 6 were a steady linear climb, each month measurably better than the last. Then clicks stepped up 41% in Month 7, earlier than the Month 9 point where compounding usually shows on this shape of site, and Months 8 and 9 held at that new level. Month 9 came in 1% below Month 8, the first month-on-month dip of the retainer, but the signals underneath kept improving: click-through rate rose in every one of the nine months, and Month 9 had the best average ranking position of the whole retainer.
Two checks on the headline number. Clicks from non-branded searches more than doubled over the nine months, so the growth is not just people searching for the brand. And Months 8 and 9 were up 57% and 50% on the same months a year earlier, so it is not seasonality either. This case study will be extended as the trajectory continues.
Could we do the same for your organic traffic?
Nine months of fundamentals ran cleanly on this account with no unusual tactics. The same shape of retainer transfers to most ecommerce catalogues with genuine search demand. Book a free audit and we will tell you honestly whether it would work for you.
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