Case study · Health & beauty
Found by concern, not just by brand name
A skincare brand sold almost entirely through paid social, and almost all of its organic traffic came from people who already knew its name. This is how we built organic visibility for the skin concerns and ingredients shoppers search for before they have chosen a brand.
Project overview
Shopify SEO for a growing consumer brand.
- Industry
- Health & beauty
- Client
- Confidential
- Solution
- eCommerce SEO
- Platform
- Shopify
- Timeline
- 6–9 months
- Team
- 3 people
- Focus
- Non-brand searches
- Content
- Concern and ingredient guides
- Measurement
- Organic revenue, new customers
Expected business outcomes
What the client set out to achieve
The aim was new customers from search, so brand searches were reported separately.
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80–150%
More non-brand organic traffic
Visits from people who had not heard of the brand.
Target range over nine months; brand searches excluded
-
30–55%
More organic revenue
Collections and guides lead shoppers to products.
Target range, compared year on year
-
10–20%
Lower share of revenue from paid social
Organic takes a larger part of new customer acquisition.
Target range; depends on paid budget decisions
Business challenges
Where the client started
The store looked good and ranked for nothing but its own name.
Collections
Collection pages named after internal ranges, not after what shoppers search.
Content
A blog of brand stories, with no guidance on skin concerns.
Products
Product pages with short descriptions and no ingredient detail.
Theme
Apps had added scripts and duplicate tags over time.
Dependence
Rising advertising costs were squeezing margin.
Proposed solution
What the Shopify SEO work covered
Pages for how shoppers search: by concern, by ingredient, by routine.
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Collection structure
Collections rebuilt around concerns and product types people search for.
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Concern and ingredient guides
Plain guides, reviewed by the brand's formulator, linked to products.
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Product pages
Ingredients, usage and questions added, with review markup.
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Theme clean-up
Duplicate tags removed, unused app scripts taken out, speed improved.
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Structured data
Product, review and guide markup validated.
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New customer reporting
Organic revenue split by brand and non-brand, new and returning.
Project requirements
What the client asked us for
The request was a second source of new customers. The brand had expertise its competitors lacked, and none of it was on the website in a form search engines could use.
Every guide was reviewed by the formulator before publishing. In skincare, accuracy is both a compliance matter and the reason people trust the page.
What the project had to deliver
- 01New customers from search
- 02Less dependence on paid social
- 03Content the formulator stands behind
- 04Brand and non-brand reported separately
Key challenges & considerations
What made it harder, and what we did
-
Cosmetic claims rules on what can be said
What we did
Every guide was reviewed by the formulator against a claims checklist before publishing.
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Shopify's fixed URL structure
What we did
The collection structure was designed within Shopify's URL rules, using clear names and internal links.
-
A small team with limited time for reviews
What we did
Reviews were batched into one short session a fortnight.
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Large competitors with years of content
What we did
Targets were chosen among specific concern and ingredient searches, where expertise counts for more than size.
What we watched for
- Report non-brand traffic separately
- Have an expert review every claim
- Fix collections before writing guides
- Remove app clutter from the theme
Development process
Structure, then guides, then products
Collections were fixed first, so that each new guide had somewhere to send the reader.
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Research
How shoppers search for concerns, ingredients and routines.
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Collections
Structure and naming rebuilt, with redirects.
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Guides
A guide published every two weeks, reviewed by the formulator.
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Product pages
Ingredient and usage content added, starting with best sellers.
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Theme and structured data
Clean-up released alongside the content.
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Monthly review
New customer revenue from search reviewed with the founders.
Technology stack
Shopify, tidied and measured
Work within the platform, and measure what it earns.
Store
- Shopify
- Liquid theme
- Metafields for ingredients
Search
- Google Search Console
- Ahrefs
- Screaming Frog
Content
- Guide templates
- Formulator review
- Editorial calendar
Analytics
- Google Analytics 4
- Shopify reports
- Looker Studio
Quality assurance & deployment
Checked before it went live, measured after
Marketing work is only as good as its measurement. Tracking was verified before anything launched, technical changes were tested on staging, and every result was reconciled with the client's own sales or booking data.
- Conversion tracking tested end to end before launch
- Technical changes checked on staging with a full crawl
- Redirects, links and structured data validated
- Copy and claims reviewed by the client's experts
- Reported figures reconciled with the client's own system
Deployment
- 01Theme and structured dataClean-up released alongside the content.
- 02Monthly reviewNew customer revenue from search reviewed with the founders.
- 03Staged releasesChanges went live in small batches, each one watched in the first days.
- 04Reporting and handoverA monthly review against the agreed targets, and documentation the client's team can work from.
Final deliverables
A second way for new customers to arrive
Shoppers who search for a skin concern now find the brand's guides and collections, and organic search brings in customers who had never seen an advert.
The brand's team has a guide template, a review process and a publishing rhythm it can keep up without an agency writing every word.
- Collections named for how people search
- Guides reviewed by the formulator
- Richer product pages
- New customers from search reported monthly
Handed over to the client
- 01Audit and roadmapFindings ranked by their effect
- 02Implemented changesIn the client's own site, accounts and tools
- 03Tracking and dashboardResults in the client's own figures
- 04Content and campaign assetsTemplates, pages and creative
- 05Documentation and trainingSo the client's team can carry on
Success metrics
How success is measured
| Measure | Outcome | How it is measured |
|---|---|---|
| More non-brand organic traffic | 80–150% | Target range over nine months; brand searches excluded |
| More organic revenue | 30–55% | Target range, compared year on year |
| Lower share of revenue from paid social | 10–20% | Target range; depends on paid budget decisions |
Verified reviews
What clients say about working with us
Verified reviews from our clients, published on Clutch.
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Web Development
Custom Web Development for a Software Solutions Company
We can rely on them to handle almost any task with confidence, as they consistently deliver good results.
Casper Hougaard Jensen
CEO & Co-Founder, Iterator IT Jul 2021 – Sep 2022
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Web Development
Web & Mobile App Development for a Software Development Company
They efficiently organized tasks and deliverables while promptly addressing questions.
Damien Retzinger
Founder, Graycore Jun 2021 – Feb 2023
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Web Development
Website Development for a Software Engineering Company
They have a broad understanding of different technologies.
Eugene Bosikov CEO, Ezibeline LLC Mar 2022 – Ongoing Verified review on Clutch (Eugene Bosikov, opens in a new tab)
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