SEO for a Classic Menswear Online Store

About the project

Site type: Online store
Niche: Classic menswear
Location: UK
Language version: English (UK)
Domain age: 21+ years
Engagement period: May 1, 2025 –⁠ Mar 31, 202611 months

Key result

+20%organic traffic

On a site over 21 years old that already had a solid base of search traffic, SEO work on commercial pages grew organic traffic by 20% (almost 11K more visits per month) and improved Google rankings.

These results were achieved despite a limited budget and partial implementation of the recommendations, so there is still room for further growth.

Results over time

Organic traffic from Ahrefs over the course of the project (May 1, 2025 –⁠ Mar 31, 2026)

Ahrefs screenshot: organic traffic over the course of the project, May 1, 2025 – Mar 31, 2026, classic menswear online store

Organic traffic according to Ahrefs

May 202555,652

March 202666,633

20% increase

Detailed breakdown

Problem

The client wanted to increase organic traffic to the online store’s commercial pages.

These problems stood in the way:

Existing pages needed on-page optimization: writing and updating copy, meta tags, etc.
The site structure needed to be expanded, with new optimized pages created
Page templates needed to be reviewed and refined, both to help search engines understand and index them and to improve user behavior metrics
Technical errors on the site

Solution

Competitor and site structure analysis, with suggestions for expanding the site and creating new pages
A technical audit, preparing specs for developers, and monitoring the implementation
A technical audit for AI Overviews and LLMs (GEO/AEO) and specs for developers
A comprehensive audit (conversion and trust factors, usability, E-E-A-T) and specs for developers
An audit of existing content for uniqueness, length, and signs of AI-generated text
On-page optimization: creating new pages with copy, updating and rewriting existing copy, and ongoing work on H1 headings and meta tags
In parallel, off-page optimization:
- Analyzing the backlink profile and disavowing low-quality referring domains
- Building a link plan for priority pages, selecting target sites, and placing links to the site
- Placing naked-URL links (crowd links and directory submissions)
- Analyzing the Google Business Profile and SERM (ORM), and preparing recommendations

Result

After on-page optimization of existing pages, expanding the structure, fixing some of the technical errors, and working on the backlink profile, organic traffic to commercial pages grew 20%. That is almost 11K more visits per month on a site over 21 years old that already had a sizable search audience. Rankings for the relevant keywords in Google also improved.

Factors that limited the pace of growth

Some of the recommendations and specs provided were not implemented, or were implemented with long delays, so the pace of growth was lower than it could have been:

Usability, conversion, and trust factors: reviews with markup, internal linking sections, FAQ, advanced filters, etc.
Technical: XML sitemap, category pagination, structured data, page speed, etc.
Content and structure: slow content production; limited expansion of the structure (in particular, parameter-based filter URLs stayed closed to indexing, although some already existed on the site and could have been used); and no blog written despite a ready content plan and briefs for copywriters
A limited link building budget: competitors were placing links on far more expensive sites

These results came only from the changes that were actually implemented; the spec items that remain unimplemented are untapped potential for further growth.