In mid-2025 we took on a niche e-commerce client selling artisan woodworking tools. Their domain was four years old, had 47 pages indexed, ranked for exactly zero non-branded keywords in the top 50, and pulled in roughly 200 monthly organic visitors—essentially all from their brand name. Six months later, they were hitting 12,000+ monthly visitors and ranking on page one for 340 target keywords. This is the full story of how we did it.
Where We Started: The Baseline Audit
The site had one major content page (a blog that hadn't been updated in 14 months), an unoptimised product catalog (78 products across 6 categories), and no internal linking structure. PageSpeed Insights showed a desktop LCP of 6.2 seconds. Google Search Console had 0 impressions for non-branded terms.
The domain had 11 referring domains—almost entirely from directory submissions and a single product review. No content assets, no organic brand mentions, no keyword targeting whatsoever. This was a blank slate with one major advantage: a legitimate brand with real products, enthusiastic customers, and genuine subject-matter expertise.
Month 1: Technical Foundation
Before any content work, we fixed the infrastructure. LCP dropped from 6.2s to 1.8s after converting images to WebP, implementing lazy loading, removing two unused third-party scripts, and migrating to a properly configured CDN. Core Web Vitals moved from all-red to all-green within 3 weeks.
We also resolved a canonical tag mess (products were accessible at three different URL patterns), submitted a clean sitemap to GSC, fixed 23 broken internal links, and implemented proper schema markup (Product, BreadcrumbList, Organization). None of this immediately moved rankings—but it meant Google could now properly crawl, understand, and index the site.
Month 2: Topic Cluster Architecture
We built a complete keyword map around the client's expertise: hand tools, Japanese woodworking, tool maintenance, joinery techniques. Using search volume data and SERP analysis, we identified 8 pillar topics, each with 6–10 supporting cluster articles. That was 80+ pieces of planned content, prioritised by traffic potential and commercial relevance.
The pillar pages were built first—long-form (2,500–4,000 word) definitive guides targeting head terms like "Japanese woodworking chisels" and "hand tool woodworking for beginners." Each pillar page internally linked to the cluster articles beneath it, and cluster articles linked back up to their pillar, building a coherent topical authority signal.
Months 3–4: Content Velocity
We published 42 pieces of content across months 3 and 4: 8 pillar pages, 28 cluster articles, and 6 commercial comparison pages targeting high buyer-intent searches. All content was written by the client's founder and edited by our team—authentic expertise that search engines could verify through the author's existing online presence.
Rankings started moving at the 6-week mark. Articles like "How to sharpen Japanese chisels" and "Difference between mortise and bench chisels" hit page one within 3 weeks of publication. More competitive terms took longer, but the internal linking structure meant topical authority was building site-wide from day one.
Months 4–5: Link Building
Content without links plateaus quickly in competitive niches. We ran two campaigns simultaneously: a digital PR outreach to woodworking publications and YouTube channels (7 links from DR 40–70 sites), and a guest posting campaign targeting home improvement and craft blogs (11 links from contextually relevant DR 30–55 domains).
We also identified 3 pages that mentioned the brand without linking, and 12 resource pages in the woodworking space that linked to competitors but not our client. Outreach to those 15 targets netted 9 additional links over 6 weeks. Total link acquisition: 27 new referring domains in 8 weeks.
Month 6: Optimisation and Compounding
By month 6, the early content was generating enough click data to inform optimisation. Pages ranking in positions 4–12 got updated title tags, improved meta descriptions, and content enhancements based on what GSC showed searchers actually clicking. Eight of those pages moved into positions 1–3 within 30 days of updating.
The compounding effect became visible in month 6's data: the site was now earning passive links from woodworking forums and Pinterest boards referencing the articles. Organic branded searches increased 400%, and the email list grew from 200 to 2,100 subscribers—an audience that amplified every new piece of content published.
What the Numbers Actually Showed
Month 1: 200 → 280 visitors (technical fixes, no content yet). Month 2: 280 → 520 (early pillar pages indexed). Month 3: 520 → 1,900 (cluster content gaining traction). Month 4: 1,900 → 4,800 (links starting to arrive, topical authority building). Month 5: 4,800 → 8,400 (link campaign fully deployed). Month 6: 8,400 → 12,200 (optimisation cycle plus compounding).
Revenue from organic traffic followed a similar curve, reaching 4x the pre-engagement baseline by month 6. The client's conversion rate from organic traffic (2.3%) exceeded paid traffic (1.7%), consistent with organic visitors having stronger purchase intent when arriving via content they actively sought out.
The single most important factor wasn't any individual tactic—it was sequencing. Technical foundation before content. Content architecture before content production. Content volume before aggressive link building. Skipping steps or doing them out of order would have produced far slower results. The other non-negotiable was real expertise: every article was written by someone who genuinely knows woodworking tools. That authenticity shows up in dwell time, link acquisition, and brand search growth in ways that generic content simply cannot replicate.
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