Marketing Case Studies

Between mid-August and now, we killed/merged 847 blog posts. 23% of all our content. And considering our average cost per post ($ 308.67)...$261,443 worth of content. And the pages we decided to "kill" drove 24,193 (twenty four thousand!) visitors in 2024 (8 months) alone! Was it a scary decision to make? Hell yeah. But the first results are in - and - ladies and gents, it was worth it. Our traffic went up by 16% and we're on our way to hit our highest-ever visitors' count by December. To be perfectly honest - it was a calculated risk. Before pulling the trigger, I've read dozens of case studies of websites that saw a big traffic lift from pruning their low-performing pages - and reducing the number of indexed pages in total. Reading all these case studies led me to believe that even if traffic per number of indexed pages is not explicitly a direct ranking factor in Google's algorithm - it can be an indirect indicator of a website's health and content effectiveness, which may influence rankings. How did we decide what to prune? First of all, we had to decide what we meant by "underperforming": ⚫ Content that was not driving any conversions - we had 1 conversion in a year from these 847 posts... ⚫ Content that was driving hardly any traffic - 665 out of these 847 posts drove less that 10 visits per month in the last 8 months. ⚫ Content that had no Backlinks and was optimized for Zero-Search KWs or KWs with Low Search Value (SV) - Many posts had no significant backlinks or organic search volume - some were produced programmatically as part of our "Zero Search Volume experiment" in 2022-23 - but what worked back then, didn't seem to be working anymore... ⚫ Duplication and Redundancy - despite our efforts to avoid duplicate content, the SERP has changed over the years and some search intents which were considered separate at the time of writing, now were changed or merged. So we did have some duplicate or overlapping content on similar topics that now had to be merged or removed to reduce cannibalization. ⚫ Outdated or Irrelevant Content - Obviously, over the years some posts became outdated (e.g., event-driven content from 2020) or no longer relevant to the target audience or our current upmarket growth strategy (e.g. posts intended for small startups on a budget) What we pruned - top categories: ⚫ programmatically produced posts with programmatically generated keyword combinations (e.g. three-way competitor comparisons that didn't make a lot of sense) that had zero search volume and traffic: e.g.  /blog/walkme-vs-apty-vs-userpilot/ These posts were very cheap or even free to produce in the first place - so we didn't loose a lot of content budget in particular creating them. ⚫ translations into languages where there were no search queries in that language: /blog/fi/appcues-vaihtoehtoja/ (Finnish) /blog/sr/усер-онбоардинг-гамифицатион/ (Serbian) Read the full analysis with a STEP-BY-STEP instruction on how to do content pruning 👇

Unexpected experiment results no. 876 The addition of 'out of stock' urgency messaging (i.e. 'order today, only X left in stock') on a clothing retailer's website led to an 18% decrease in conversion rate. Widely touted as a 'best practice', this approach is often sold to e-commerce retailers within a 'widget' that performs a range of other similar functions, often deployed without testing. While I have seen this strategy work well for other brands, it's crucial to remember, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BEST PRACTICE! (I'm shouting because I can't use italics) Different customers respond very differently to this kind of messaging. For some, it's a nudge when they were close to making a decision. For others, it comes across as pushy, like a timeshare salesperson. It's impossible to second-guess the composition of your customers and predict how they will respond in this respect. The learning here is that we should perhaps move in the opposite direction. What can we do to help our customers take their time over their decision? How can we ensure they have absolutely all the information they need? #cro #experimentation #ecommerce #digitalmarketing #ux #userexperience

Google’s core update wiped out 44% of our keywords. Here’s why we’re not panicking... Algorithm updates are the known unknowns of SEO. You know they’re coming. You know they’ll shake things up. But you never quite know how—or whether your site took a hit because of something you did, or just collateral damage as search results evolve. The December update? It took out 44% of our clients' informational keywords across certain page groups. What did we do? We didn’t panic. We audited. By categorising every page type in our reporting dashboard, we instantly pinpointed where losses clustered—and whether they aligned with (or wildly deviated from) our YoY projections. From there, we sliced and diced every lost keyword to identify patterns: Here’s what stood out: 1️⃣ Many lost keywords were low-value searches we shouldn’t have been ranking for anyway—think tangential topics (or even spam) that diluted our core focus. The update did us a favour. 2️⃣ In 2024, we saw category pages and product pages ranking side-by-side for the same queries—Google had been gradually reducing these duplicates, but the December update slammed the door shut. Here's the thing: - Outside of the lost keywords, 70%+ of keywords had seen improvements. - Leads were stronger than the same period last year. This isn’t a "win" story. It’s a reminder that data cuts through noise. When traffic drops, ask: - What’s actually being lost? - Does it align with business goals? - Where do we rebuild—or let go? Not all traffic is good traffic. Not all losses are failures. And sometimes, algorithms force you to focus on what actually moves the needle. When’s the last time you audited your traffic losses—not just to fix them, but to ask if they were worth keeping in the first place?

We audited an accounting software site with 3,000+ pages doing 10K monthly traffic. Deleted 2,000 pages. 13 months later: 340K monthly traffic. They were competing against themselves for "invoice template" and losing. We forced Google to pick winners. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗪𝗲 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 The site had 20+ variations of "invoice template" pages, 15+ "how to make an invoice" articles, 40+ duplicate templates with minor differences, and 200+ thin pages targeting industry-specific invoices. Google was paralyzed. 10K traffic across 3,000 pages = 3 visits per page average. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗯𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 They had separate pages for: - Invoice template - Free invoice template - Simple invoice template - Professional invoice template - Business invoice template - Invoice template Word - Invoice template Excel Plus 193 more variations. All ranking position 25-60. Zero on page 1. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Export all URLs with traffic data. Group by search intent. Keep the strongest page per group. 301 redirect others to the winner. Merge unique content from deleted pages. 2,000 redirects later, the transformation began. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲 Month 1-2: 10K traffic (Google processing) Month 3: 18K (first movement) Month 4: 35K (rankings improving) Month 6: 74K (hitting page 1) Month 9: 180K (featured snippets) Month 13: 340K (complete dominance) Same domain. Same backlinks. 34x traffic growth. 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰 𝗥𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘀 "Invoice template" - consolidated 47 pages into 1 mega-guide Result: Position 48 → Position 2 Traffic: 500/month → 65K/month "How to make an invoice" - merged 23 pages into 1 comprehensive resource Result: Position 31 → Position 3 Traffic: 100/month → 28K/month 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗘𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗰𝘁 When you consolidate: - Link equity concentrates - User signals improve - Dwell time increases - Google trusts your domain more - Other keywords start ranking organically Unexpected keywords that exploded without targeting: "billing software" (22K searches), "invoicing for small business" (8K), "quotation template" (15K), "receipt template" (31K). Google recognized the site as THE invoice authority and rewarded related keywords. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗪𝗲 𝗞𝗲𝗽𝘁 𝘃𝘀 𝗞𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱 Kept: High-traffic performers (top 10%), comprehensive guides, interactive tools, unique angles Killed: Everything under 50 visits/month, duplicate intent pages, thin location/industry variations, outdated yearly content 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘁'𝘀 𝗝𝗼𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗲𝘆 Initial reaction: "You want to delete 67% of our content? We paid $50K for those pages!" 13 months later: "Can you audit our other sites?" Results silence objections. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝗹𝘂𝗲𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁 Audit ruthlessly. One page per search intent maximum. Merge variations into comprehensive resources. Redirect aggressively. Build topical hubs, not page sprawl. Wait (this takes months). Scale exponentially. 34x traffic growth is possible. You just have to be brave enough to delete.

Just wrapped up one of the most interesting SEO audits I've done in a while. Client came to me with a 61% traffic decline over 12 months. The obvious culprit seemed clear: they'd built a ton of top-funnel content that was just a little too far away from their core product. It was the classic SaaS SEO playbook that has always worked but that we're now told doesn't work anymore. It wasn't AI cutting CTR, either, since it was major rankings that they had lost. I couldn't find the ONE thing that could have caused this drop - there were too many factors and variables. I went in expecting to confirm the hypothesis and recommend a content prune. Instead, the data told a completely different story. I found some technical issues. Toxic backlink spike. Slow Core Web Vitals. Crawl budget waste. But none of it explained a 61% decline. The timing didn't line up, the severity didn't match. I was genuinely stumped. Then I started digging into the content data. Their core product pages—the ones that should've been their strongest assets—had been quietly declining for 18 months before anyone noticed. The TOFU wasn't dragging the site down. It was masking the real problem. Even weirder: the TOFU content had better engagement metrics than their product pages. Lower bounce rates, higher engagement. Users actually liked it. So why did they decline 61% while a competitor with the same TOFU strategy only dropped 19%? Domain authority gap. Competitors had 2.5x more referring domains and sat 5-10 DR points higher. That authority acted as a buffer when the algorithm shifted. The sites with less margin for error got hit hardest. The other piece: topical depth. My client had 24x more keyword coverage around "Instagram" than around their actual product category. They were checking all the E-E-A-T boxes at the page level—first-person experience, screenshots, expert attribution—but they never built the foundational content depth on their core topics that would signal real authority to Google. Meanwhile their competitor publishes annual industry research that gets cited everywhere and earns links naturally. Same TOFU strategy, but with an authority-building engine underneath. A few things I'm taking away: - Surface-level content quality isn't enough anymore. You can do everything "right" at the page level and still lose if you're missing the structural pieces—topical depth, original research, domain authority. - TOFU content isn't automatically bad, even with AI on the loose. The engagement data didn't support pruning it. The problem was what they weren't building, not what they were. - Algorithm hits are rarely one thing. This was cumulative damage across multiple updates, compounded by an industry-wide shift. Every competitor declined—just not equally. - Sometimes the diagnosis is "you need to invest differently" rather than "fix this broken thing." That's a harder conversation but a more honest one.

Ecom SEO Case Study: 61% YoY Organic Revenue Growth in 4 Months for a Liquor & Beverage Brand The Problem: This brand came to us frustrated with: - A lack of clear reporting from their previous SEO consultant - Feeling they should be ranking higher on Google - Losing ground to competitors - Struggling to move new products, leading to warehouse space issues Underperforming YoY metrics The Red Flags We Found: Our initial audit uncovered some puzzling data: ✅ YoY Organic Traffic +338% (Great!) 🤔 YoY Organic Revenue +10% (Not so great...) ⚠️ Domain Rating dropped from 28 to 24 ⚠️ Over 24,000 keywords lost or declined in rankings So, how was traffic up over 300% but revenue barely moved? And why was their DR falling? The answer: Ranking for the wrong keywords + low-quality backlinks. They were driving traffic—but for informational keywords, not the high-intent, revenue-driving ones. With the holiday season approaching fast, we launched a full SEO Audit & Action Plan. Key Issues We Found: 🚨 404 errors & no-index issues 🚨 Keyword cannibalization 🚨 Pages lacking backlinks & poor internal linking 🚨 Low CTR & thin content 🚨 Site structure issues & unnecessary redirects The Fix: ✅ Built a Keyword Database to target commercial & transactional opportunities ✅ Developed a Content Strategy to improve blog, collection & product pages ✅ Conducted a Backlink Audit to improve authority ✅ Manually reviewed the site for hidden SEO roadblocks The Results (4 Months In): 🚀 61% YoY organic revenue growth 🚀 Over 2,300 new page 1 rankings for commercial keywords 🚀 DR improved from 24 → 34 🚀 Reduced reliance on paid ads & improved product turnover This brand is now less dependent on Meta & Google Ads and moving new stock faster than ever. Looking for similar results? Let’s chat.

🚨 Mini SEO Case Study: Casino Project, Click Data, and Canonical Chaos 🎰 I've been waiting for this casino project to re-rank for a while—and it’s finally showing strong signals. This case is deeply tied to click data, canonicalization behavior, and Google’s probabilistic vs deterministic ranking signals. Let’s break it down: 📌 1. The “Language of Clicks” This website has content in multiple languages. Yet, the primary user behavior is always the same: → They land via Google → They click immediately on "Sign up" or "Bonus" This tells us something crucial: Click behavior is language-agnostic. The dominant term in page stats is always the online casino brand name, which is universally recognized across languages. That means the "main money term" ranks based on click data relevance, not content language. ⚠️ Here's the kicker: If the site ranks in one language first, Google may select that version as the canonical, even if it's not the intended main URL. This can lead to an unintended page becoming the primary ranking page—even outranking the homepage! 🧠 What about “Historical Data”? In Koray’s framework, historical data doesn’t just mean existing in the index—it means accumulated post-click signals (engagement, satisfaction, conversions). New websites with weak historical data often lose control of canonicalization—especially across languages. If a "wrong" URL collects stronger click data, and then gets redirected back to the homepage, its ranking signals and URL ID-based history flow gradually to the new target. But it takes time. Canonical corrections happen slowly. Sometimes, Google-selected canonicals from wrong country TLDs (.de, .fr, .in) or languages still dominate until enough signals shift. 📌 2. Probabilistic vs Deterministic Factors Some things are predictable, some aren’t. I've said since the day I introduced Topical Authority: “A website that wins just 3 BCAU updates per year can outrank a 20-year-old site.” So the deterministic part of SEO: Create coverage Build historical data Feed click-based satisfaction Be ready for the next update The probabilistic part: When will the update reflect? When will the HCU penalty lift? When will canonicalization refresh? Many sites penalized in Sept 2023 only recovered on August 15, 2024. Almost 11 months with no positive movement. It’s like watering a garden for months, and on a random sunny day—🌲 you see a forest. If you're practicing Holistic SEO, the forest will grow. That’s deterministic. But Google’s update cycles? That’s probabilistic. 🔮 What’s next? Maybe soon we’ll see 30 BCAUs a year instead of 3. Google’s new energy deals and future quantum chips (like "Willow") will power faster evaluations. More updates = more chances to win. 💡 Want to dive deeper into real SEO—not SXO, AIO, or buzzwords? 🔗 Join the Holistic SEO Newsletter: https://lnkd.in/dp8mGy8E #SEO #TopicalAuthority

A puzzle brand came to us after working with two well-known SEO agencies. They had spent over $100k on two separate 12-month contracts. Results: Zero meaningful rankings. The second agency got so desperate they tried running Google Ads. An SEO agency, running paid ads... because they couldn't figure out SEO. The sad thing is, most of the problems came down to basic execution. These superstar agencies didn't know how to follow through. When we took over, we discovered that 7 additional collections had been created... But they were never published. Some poor junior SEO did all that work to write the copy. Then the agency just... didn't hit publish. One of those unpublished collections targeted "wedding anniversary gifts puzzles." If you Google "wedding anniversary gifts" you'll find jewelry, vacations, clothes. Not puzzles. That collection was never going to rank. But "wedding anniversary puzzles"? 40 searches a month. Super easy to win. We made the swap. Updated the content. Optimized the meta title and H1. They ranked #5 practically overnight. Within 5 months: - 747% increase in organic revenue - 195 money page keywords on page one (started with zero) The difference came down to perspective. The previous agencies wrote off small-volume keywords as "not worth it." We saw them as low-hanging fruit with high conversion rates. Sometimes the keywords no one else wants are exactly the ones that'll make you money.

A lot of SEO “wins” are sometimes attributed to timing or luck. But when you look at the data closely, the pattern is usually clearer than people want to admit. Initial SEO gains often come from the basics: on-page cleanup, technical fixes, and some early off-page signals. That creates momentum. But the 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 results, the kind that actually change the slope of the curve, tend to show up later. Usually after implementation gets deeper. On one Shopify collection page we worked on, the early lift came exactly where you’d expect: titles, headers, foundational improvements. Solid. Predictable. The real growth came after we moved past surface-level optimizations and executed changes competitors weren’t touching. Things like:  • rewriting collection copy to match how people actually evaluate products  • restructuring the page to reduce decision friction  • aligning SEO intent with conversion behavior instead of treating them separately None of that shows up as a single checkbox in an audit. But when those changes went live, the impact was obvious. SEO didn’t just improve. Key event data followed. That’s the part that compounds. SEO results aren’t magic. They’re the outcome of collaborative execution over time, especially when SEO, UX, and CRO stop operating in silos. You can usually tell exactly when that shift happens. The graph rarely lies.

We generated a 511% organic search traffic increase for a fintech client by doing the exact opposite of what every SEO expert teaches. Most B2B companies are doing SEO backwards. They chase broad keywords that sound impressive in board meetings. "Financial software." "Business solutions." "Enterprise technology." Their actual customers are searching for things like "accounts payable automation for mid-market companies" and "cash flow management for growing businesses." Our Noble Studios team helped a fintech client who was stuck in this exact trap. Their previous agency had them ranking for all the obvious terms. Traffic looked decent on paper but the leads weren't converting. So we threw out the playbook and started over. We sat in on sales calls, analyzed their best customer conversations and dug into the specific problems people were trying to solve. Then we built content around those exact phrases. Here's what we saw: 511% increase in organic search traffic 520% boost in non-brand traffic 416% more top 3 keyword rankings The breakthrough was getting the right people to find them: People who already knew what they needed and were ready to talk. Your customers use messy, specific language when they search. They describe problems they're actually facing and search like humans dealing with real business challenges. Meet them there. Full case study linked in comments.