eCommerce SEO Case Study

"We faced a strong decline in organic visibility without a clear understanding of why. After the strategic technical SEO improvements, our search performance improved significantly and now reflects the true scope of our operations."

A UK-based European food retailer partnered with PLANEKS to reverse declining organic performance and build a sustainable SEO growth engine. Although the company operated both online and offline and carried over 7,000 products, its digital visibility simply didn’t align with how established it was in the market.

Despite strong demand, the store struggled with low keyword rankings, poor category optimization, outdated technical infrastructure, and issues that prevented search engines from properly crawling, interpreting, and ranking its high-value pages. The retailer required more than simple content fixes; they needed a tech-driven SEO strategy capable of supporting an extensive catalog, complex taxonomy, and growing competition in the online grocery space.

What began as a declining visibility challenge transformed into an eCommerce SEO case study, representing how a well-engineered site architecture and targeted content enhancements can unlock consistent organic growth.

Technologies

Google Search Console

Django

Django Oscar

ahrefs

CloudFlare

Google Analytics 4

The client:

UK-based Online Grocery Store

Industry:

eCommerce

Country:

United Kingdom

Duration:

6+ months (ongoing)

Team size:

3 people

The retailer’s SEO foundation necessitated significant reconstruction. While UK shoppers actively searched for European groceries, the store’s online presence wasn’t strong enough to capture that demand or turn it into consistent traffic and revenue.

Requirements

Our solution

Decreasing Organic Traffic

PLANEKS rebuilt the website’s structure to make it clearer, more logical, and more straightforward for search engines to interpret. We reorganized the hierarchy around real search intent and ensured that categories, brands, and product pages were connected through a stronger internal linking system. This helped distribute authority more effectively and enabled search engines to prioritize high-value pages. Along with technical clean-up, structured data fixes, and a targeted link-building strategy, the new structure reversed the ongoing traffic decline and restored the website’s organic visibility. We have added the ability to select the desired orders in the admin panel, and export delivery addresses straight into a CSV file. DPD was set up to check the file folder every 3 seconds for raw address files. The files found are loaded into the system and parsed, a tracking number is generated for each delivery address and the receipt is ready for printing. No need for any more manual work here!

Poor Metadata & Category-Level Headings

To strengthen the relevance of category pages, we refreshed all primary SEO elements, including H1s, meta titles, meta descriptions, and introductory category text. Such updates reflected customers' actual search behavior and coordinated each page with high-intent keyword clusters. By providing richer context and stronger semantic cues on category pages, we helped them rank more effectively for competitive terms and encouraged more users to click through from search results.

Lack of Categorization & Duplicate Categories

As part of our eCommerce SEO case study, we performed a comprehensive audit of the existing category taxonomy to identify duplicate sections, fragmented structures, and missing product groups. Multiple categories overlapped or competed with each other, which diluted rankings and created cannibalization issues. To fix this, we rebuilt the taxonomy: cleaning up duplicates, removing unnecessary categories, and adding new ones that supported clearer thematic organization. This clarified page relationships for search engines, improving visibility across key product lines.

Poor UX/UI Affecting SEO Performance

With UX and SEO deeply interconnected, PLANEKS reworked the shopping and checkout experience to remove friction and create a smoother user journey. Better navigation, richer product discovery, and a more streamlined purchase flow encouraged users to spend more time on the site and complete more transactions, lowering cart abandonment. These stronger behavioral metrics supported higher search performance and contributed to enhanced overall ranking stability.

Low Site Speed

Slow load times were affecting both SEO and conversions, so we optimized backend processes, reworked resource-intensive database queries, and reduced server load to improve page rendering speed. The enhancements drove notable improvements across key page types — categories, brands, and products. Faster loading directly improved Core Web Vitals, lifted mobile rankings, and provided a more fluid experience for users scrolling through extensive product inventories.

Poor Conversion & Event Tracking

To transform SEO into a measurable growth channel, we implemented enhanced eCommerce tracking that captured every key interaction, from product impressions and views to add-to-cart actions, checkout steps, and completed purchases. We also implemented custom reporting dashboards that tracked genuine user interactions and tied revenue directly to organic search. This equipped the business to make informed decisions, understand category strengths, and prioritize the most valuable SEO opportunities.

Low Google Shopping Visibility

The Google Merchant Center feed was expanded and enriched to include all available SKUs and missing attributes such as GTINs, brand names, product types, sizes, and availability indicators. A more complete and accurate feed improved Google’s matching and classification of products, leading to more impressions and better placement in Shopping results. This upgrade also supported paid campaigns and increased the impact of blended organic + paid Shopping visibility.

Results:

Within this eCommerce SEO example, we’ve implemented an entirely restructured foundational search architecture, and the retailer achieved a significant turnaround in organic performance. The new architecture, optimized metadata, and improved category taxonomy allowed search engines to crawl, interpret, and rank the website more effectively.

The store began attracting more qualified users, resulting in higher conversions and stronger engagement. Customers discovered products more easily, navigated categories more efficiently, and completed purchases with fewer obstacles. Detailed tracking provided full transparency into SEO performance and revenue attribution, enabling the retailer to scale efforts strategically.

Such collective improvements resulted in a faster, more discoverable, and more profitable online store. Organic traffic has grown into a stable acquisition channel, consistently boosting keyword positions, visibility, and long-term revenue growth.

Ready to Upgrade Your Online Store?

Assess your business potential and reach out to explore how we can boost visibility, traffic, and conversions for your online store. Get more information, let’s build your next success story.

Get more info

Testimonials