Context
Niche: outdoor and hiking gear e-commerce.
Market: United States.
Starting point: 1,200 SKU Shopify store, ~7,000 organic visits/mo, dominated by branded queries. Almost no rank for generic intent ("best lightweight tent", "ultralight backpack under 2 lbs").
What we found in the audit
- 800+ product pages with thin content (40-80 words manufacturer descriptions).
- No category-level content for top-of-funnel queries.
- Internal linking flat — every page linked to homepage and footer, no topical clusters.
- Site speed average: LCP 3.8s, INP 280ms (both red).
- No structured data: missing Product schema with reviews, ratings, prices.
What we did
1. Topical authority build
Identified 8 main topical clusters (tents, backpacks, sleeping bags, footwear, etc). For each — pillar page + 12-25 supporting articles answering specific buyer questions ("how to choose a 3-season tent", "ultralight vs lightweight").
2. Product page upgrade
Each SKU got: 250-400 words of unique copy, comparison block with 3 alternatives, FAQ section, technical specs as structured data, customer photo gallery.
3. Internal linking
Built topical cluster structure: pillar → supporting articles → product pages. Every article links to relevant products; every product page links to its category pillar.
4. Core Web Vitals
Image CDN with WebP/AVIF, lazy loading below the fold, JS code-splitting. Result: LCP 1.6s, INP 140ms (both green).
5. Structured data
Product schema with offers, aggregateRating, review snippets. Result: rich snippets appearing in 80% of indexed pages within 2 months.
Results
| Metric | Before | After 8 mo. | Δ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organic traffic/mo | 7,000 | 28,700 | +310% |
| Product pages in top-10 | 40 | 800+ | ×20 |
| Top-of-funnel articles in top-10 | 0 | 140 | +140 |
| Organic revenue/mo | $42k | $172k | ×4.1 |
| Avg. LCP | 3.8s | 1.6s | −58% |
Timeline & budget
8 months. Team: senior SEO strategist, content team (2 writers + editor with outdoor expertise), front-end developer for performance work, technical SEO specialist.
What was tough
Content velocity was the bottleneck. We started at 4 articles/week, but quality suffered. Cut to 2/week with deeper research. Took longer to ramp but the long-term ranking signals were stronger — no Helpful Content Update demotion when it rolled out in month 5.