480% more organic clicks for a Shopify store in three months

• +480%organic clicks from Google, starting month to peak month
• +197%impressions in Google Search
• 7.6 → 5.3average position in Google

The challenge

The store sells specialty food products to restaurants, bars and home cooks. It already had products people search for, but clicks from Google stayed at the same low level month after month. When we looked closer, we found five problems.

• Most pages sat low on page oneThe average position in Google was 7.6. Pages in positions six to ten are seen by searchers but get very few clicks, because most people choose one of the first three results.
• The same product had several web addressesA Shopify store shows one product under its own address and again under every collection it belongs to. Without clear signals, Google has to guess which address is the main one, and ranking strength is split between them.
• Collection pages had almost no textCollection pages match the broad searches with the most demand, such as a product category. A grid of products with no explanation gives Google and buyers little to judge the page by.
• Product names did not match how buyers searchChefs, bartenders and home cooks use different words for the same product. Page titles used the names known inside the company, not the words typed into Google.
• Slow pages on mobileLarge images and scripts left behind by apps slowed the store down, mostly on phones, where most food shoppers browse.

What we did, step by step

1. Audited the whole storeWe crawled every page with our own SEO Audit Software and read the Search Console reports, then listed each problem by how much traffic it was costing. Fixing in that order gives the fastest return.Why it matters: Without a ranked list, a team fixes what is easy to see, not what is costing sales.
2. Mapped one main search to each pageFrom Search Console we took the searches the store already appeared for and gave each collection and product one main search to win. This stops two pages of the same store competing with each other.Why it matters: When two pages aim at the same search, Google often switches between them and neither holds a top place.
3. Started with pages closest to the topPages in positions five to fifteen need the least work to move into the top results, so they were improved first.Why it matters: Moving a page from position eight to position three brings far more clicks than moving one from forty to twenty.
4. Rebuilt the collection pagesNew titles and descriptions, a short introduction that explains the category and who it is for, and answers to the questions buyers ask before ordering.Why it matters: Collection pages match the broad category searches, where most of the demand for a store sits.
5. Rewrote the product pagesSearch-friendly titles and web addresses, descriptions that cover use, size and storage, and product data (price, availability) marked up so Google can show it in results.Why it matters: A result that shows price and availability stands out, and the buyer knows what to expect before clicking.
6. Cleaned up addresses and internal linksEvery link inside the store now points to the main address of each product, and related collections and products link to each other, so ranking strength reaches the pages that sell.Why it matters: Links inside a store tell Google which pages are important. Links to duplicate addresses waste that signal.
7. Made the store fasterCompressed images and removed scripts from apps that were no longer used.Why it matters: A slow page loses buyers before they see the product, and speed is part of how Google judges a page.
8. Measured every month and adjustedClicks, impressions and position were checked for each page in Search Console every month, and the next month of work was planned from what had moved.Why it matters: Search changes every month. A plan fixed at the start slowly drifts away from what works.

The result

Organic clicks grew 480% between the starting month and the peak month. Impressions almost tripled and the average position moved from 7.6 to 5.3. Clicks stayed more than 3.6 times above the starting level for three months in a row.

How we measured this

• Clicks, impressions and average position come from the client's own Google Search Console account.
• The chart is an index. The starting month is 100, and each later month is shown against it. An index of 200 means twice the starting month.
• Growth figures compare the starting month with the peak month.
• Only organic search is counted. Ads, email and social media traffic are not included.

Check this on your own website

• Open Google Search Console, go to Performance and switch on Average position. Pages between positions five and fifteen are your quickest gains.
• Open a product from one of your collection pages and read the address bar. If the address contains the collection name, that product has more than one address.
• Read your three largest collection pages. If they show only a grid of products, add a short introduction that says what the category is and who it is for.

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What you can take from this

• Growth in search is rarely even. Here clicks moved little for two months and then jumped in the third, so judge SEO over a quarter, not a week.
• For an online store, collection and product pages are where buyers arrive from Google. Work on those pages first.
• Use Google Search Console to measure. It is free, it is Google's own data, and it shows clicks, impressions and position for every page.

Results differ from one website to another. This page describes one project and is not a promise of the same result.

Client name withheld at the client's request. Figures from Google Search Console.

Maqsood RahmanFounder and CEO, SEO Agency Inc. 25 years in search. The agency has worked since 2018 from Dhaka and New York, for more than 250 SEO clients. He led this project. About the agency