SEO case study: +342% to organic visibility in 12 months

As a digital marketing agency, we spend a lot of time helping clients improve their search visibility, generate qualified traffic, and win more business online.

So naturally, we’ve invested heavily in our own SEO strategy to prove that the tactics we recommend to clients really do work.

Through a combination of content marketing, technical SEO, website improvements, service page optimisation, sector-focused content, and paid search, we’ve significantly improved our organic visibility and search performance.

This article shares the approach we took, what worked, what didn’t, and the results we achieved along the way.

+342% Top 10 rankings

The big numbers

Between May 2025 and May 2026, we have achieved –

A 342% increase in Top 10 keyword rankings (14 to 62)
An 85% increase in Top 100 keyword rankings (207 to 383)
A 44% increase in website sessions (1,622 to 2,349)
Multiple commercially valuable keywords ranking on page one of Google

Most importantly, we’ve made sure to improve visibility for the searches that bring the most value to our business.

Our challenge

Twelve months ago, our website wasn’t performing as well as it should have been. We’d recently launched a brand-new site, and it hadn’t received the ongoing attention needed to maximise its potential from an SEO perspective. Like many businesses, so much time and attention is given to clients that you often neglect your own brand!

We had some strong rankings and healthy traffic numbers, but much of that visibility came from content targeting broad, trend-led topics rather than services we actually wanted to sell. For example, articles about font trends and design inspiration generated traffic, but they weren’t necessarily attracting potential clients looking for branding, web development, SEO, or digital marketing support.

The approach we took

We knew that we operate in an extremely competitive landscape. We weren’t just competing against marketing agencies in Manchester, but we were also competing against –

Branding agencies
Web design agencies
SEO specialists
Digital marketing agencies
Sector-specific agencies
National and international competitors.

Instead of chasing large numbers of traffic, we wanted to focus on attracting the right traffic. Ten high-quality rankings that generate enquiries are far more valuable than one hundred rankings that bring visitors who never convert. Our goal was to attract qualified visitors actively searching for –

Branding services
Website design and development
SEO support
Content marketing
Digital transformation
Sector-specific marketing expertise.

That meant prioritising commercial intent over vanity metrics that only look impressive on the surface.

Our SEO strategy

Building content clusters

One of the biggest changes we made was moving away from standalone content and towards topic clusters. Rather than publishing one-off or disconnected blogs, we built groups of related content around key service areas and sectors.

Our service-focused content included pages and supporting articles around –

Alongside this, we also developed dedicated sector content for –

Each sector page was supported by additional sub-pages (like ‘holiday parks‘ under ‘tourism and hospitality’) and blog content designed to answer common questions, demonstrate our 20 years of expertise, and target relevant search terms.

We also put a lot of time into –

Industry trend articles
How-to guides
Case studies
FAQs
Thought leadership content.

This approach helped us build authority around key themes while creating natural opportunities for internal linking between related content. This meant that instead of individual pages competing against (or ‘cannibalising!’) each other, they instead began working together.

High-value, consistent content

One of the biggest points we stress to our clients is that consistency beats chasing trends.

Rather than producing content just because the topic was popular, we focused on answering questions our potential clients were already asking. We focused on search intent, industry expertise, genuine user value, and commercial relevance.

This led to us creating sector and service specific content around topics such as –

By publishing consistently and prioritising quality over volume, we steadily expanded our topical authority across multiple sectors. Most importantly, we wrote for people first and search engines second.

Improving technical SEO

To support our content strategy, we invested in improving the technical foundations of the website. This included –

Improving site structure
Strengthening internal linking
Enhancing mobile usability
Optimising page metadata
Improving user journeys
Reviewing page performance.

We also spent time improving our Google Business Profile through regular updates, service listings, and profile optimisation.

Technical SEO often gets presented as a silver bullet, but that’s rarely the case!

Technical SEO really works best when it supports great content. Strong foundations make it easier for search engines to understand, crawl, and rank valuable pages, but content remains the driving force behind long-term growth.

Supporting SEO with Google Ads

We also took an integrated approach to paid and organic search, as we find that too often businesses treat SEO and Google Ads as completely separate activities.

In reality, the two channels work extremely well when used together. For example, Google Ads helped us –

Test messaging quickly
Identify high-converting keywords
Understand search behaviour
Generate performance data faster.

The insights gained from paid campaigns helped shape our organic strategy, allowing us to prioritise keywords and content opportunities with more confidence.

The results!

12 months after our SEO strategy kicked into action,

Our Top 10 keyword rankings grew from 14 to 62, a 342% increase.
Our Top 100 keyword rankings grew from 207 to 383, an 85% increase.
Website sessions increased from 1,622 to 2,349, a 44% uplift in traffic.

While traffic growth was encouraging, the rankings themselves told a more important story, as we were becoming visible for the searches most closely aligned with our services. For example –

Technology marketing agency moved from position 35 to position 5
Web agency Manchester moved from position 51 to position 4
Manchester digital agency moved from position 6 to position 5
Hospitality marketing company moved from position 25 to position 7
Pitch deck design agency moved from position 10 to position 7
Private equity marketing entered the rankings and reached position 4

These numbers represent searches made by businesses actively looking for the services we provide, and have led to a stark increase in inbound leads, and – by extension – new business.

What drove the biggest improvements?

Sector-led content

Our sector content became one of the strongest contributors to growth.

By creating dedicated content for industries such as technology, hospitality, charity, and professional services, we were able to build deeper topical authority while demonstrating genuine expertise. The addition of supporting sub-pages strengthened this even further.

Long-tail keywords

Rather than targeting only broad, highly competitive phrases, we focused heavily on long-tail opportunities.

Keywords such as –

Technology marketing agency
Charity marketing campaigns
Private equity marketing

-often carry stronger commercial intent and provide a more realistic route to page one visibility.

Internal linking

Internal linking plays a much bigger role than many businesses realise!

By inter-connecting blogs to service pages, sector pages, and supporting content, we helped search engines understand the relationships between topics while guiding users through relevant journeys.

This strengthened the overall authority of key pages and improved engagement throughout the site.

Website quality signals

We also made continual improvements to the user experience. These included –

Better navigation
Clearer page structures
Faster loading times
Improved mobile experiences
More intuitive user journeys.

Good SEO doesn’t stop when someone clicks through from Google. The experience they have once they arrive matters too. If your site is too frustrating to navigate, potential clients will go elsewhere!

What didn’t deliver instant results

If there’s one thing we’d stress, it’s that SEO rarely moves in a straight line. And – as cheesy as it sounds – consistency really is key.

There were pages that started to climb quickly, and others that seemed to sit still for weeks before anything really happened. As anyone who works in search knows, rankings can dip and rise again before they settle.

That can be frustrating at the time. It’s easy to want quicker wins, especially when you know the work is good, but SEO tends to reward patience.

What made the difference for us was sticking with it. Each new article, internal link, and technical improvement added something to the bigger picture, even if we couldn’t always see the impact immediately.

And when those results do land, they tend to stick!

After a year of focused effort, several lessons became clear –

SEO works best when content supports business goals
Topic clusters outperform isolated blog posts
Commercial pages need supporting content around them
Technical SEO is essential, but it isn’t enough on its own
Internal linking is often overlooked and undervalued
Consistency creates momentum.

Most importantly, rankings only matter if they attract the right audience.

Could our SEO results work for your business?

Every business is different, but the principles behind successful SEO remain the same. The strongest strategies focus on –

Understanding search intent
Creating (genuinely) useful content
Building topical authority
Improving technical performance
Maintaining consistency over time.

Whether you’re a tech company, hospitality brand, charity, professional services firm, or something entirely different, the fundamentals still apply.

Talk to us!

The results we’ve achieved over the last 12 months came from a clear strategy, intentional content (like this very blog!), and consistent execution.

If you’d like to improve your organic visibility, generate more qualified enquiries, and build long-term authority online, we’d love to help.

Why not get in touch with our friendly team to discuss your SEO strategy, request an audit, or explore how we can help your website grow.