SEO / PPC / Digital Strategy / Ecommerce & Online Lead Generation Case Studies (updated 2025)

 Viewber (2024-) - SEO / PPC / Content Strategy Consultancy

    In 2024 I was engaged to work on SEO and Google / Bing ads. Achievements include obtaining a top 10 ranking on Google UK from 3 test locations (as ranking can very regionally) for the search "property inspection" (for which phrase there are 1K searches per month on Google in the UK ) - the site was not ranking in the top 50 on Google UK when worked commenced.

    As well as the phrases we are tracking we can see the site ranking in Dataforseo data organically for phrases including (this is not an exhaustive list) on Google UK (I do not have baseline rankings as we have not been tracking these search rankings):

 https://www.27oldcomptonstreet .com/ and sister restaurants (2025) - SEO / digital marketing strategy

  I was engaged to work on launch of 27oldcomptonstreet .com  and it's 2 sister restaurants in the competitive market of London's West End in March 2025 - the 27oldcomptonstreet .com restaurant opened on 24.3.25 and in the 28 day period to 24.4.25 the website had 5K clicks from Google organic search alone. There were various challenges with this project including that: 

1. the main recommended local SEO strategy had not yet commenced implementation by the time of the project's end and thus this likely has affected the SEO progress and visibility of the Google Map listings / websites

2. there were delays with (re)verification processing for 64oldcomptonstreet .com which were associated with a drop in Google Map visibility at the end of the project . Note there had also been similar issues with this profile before as well as delays with verification of the 27oldcomptonstreet .com profile during the period of this work which may have affected visibility. Also there was a domain name change done for 40deanstreet .com without giving me prior warning which may have for various reasons affected the visibility of the new domain.

3. we were launching a new local competitor to the other 2 restaurants in the group (literally on the same street as one sister restaurant)!

   As of October 2025 when the project ended I noted 27oldcomptonstreet .com was ranking 2nd below the Google Map for "pasta soho" (1300 searches per month on GOOG in the UK) above Tripadvisor, Opentable etc from the simulated search location of Westminster, UK on Google . This was not an initial target keyword that I had been targeting or reporting on hitherto.

   The 27 website was also ranking 1st (these rankings do not not include Googlle Map listings) for phrases including "affordable italian restaurants london" (with a monthly search volume aka MSV of 480 on Google in the UK) and 3rd below the Google Map for “best pasta soho” (260 MSV) from the search location of Westminster on Google .

 We can also see the 27 site ranking in Dataforseo data organically for phrases (this is not an exhaustive list) on Google UK including:

 We can also see the 27 site ranking in Dataforseo data organically for phrases (this is not an exhaustive list) on Google UK including:

       We could see the content strategy (including building links to this content) we have started to implement on fortydeanstreet .com already bringing traffic to the website: the "restaurants near the prince edward theatre" (a phrase with almost 3K searches per month on Google in the UK with around another 500 searches for related phrases) page's organic Google visibility brought 80 "free" clicks for a 30 day period soon after the content was indexed: costs per click for a Google ad bidding on this phrase can be up to £0.88.

   Local SEO was working for 64oldcomptonstreet .com in the competitive market of Central London, UK. There were issues with the Google Business Profile requiring re-verification during the project but despite this the visibility of their Google Business Profile grew by over 200% year on year for the month of April 2025. 

Local SEO also worked for 40deanstreet .com. For example, the visibility of their Google Business Profile grew by over 170% year on year for the month of April 2025. 

Name redacted (2024-2025) - SEO

    I was engaged to work on SEO by this design agency with offices in Western Europe / USA in mid-2024 and work was focused on 2 key market territories (and 2 locations within those territories). There were multiple challenges with the project (including not all top priority recommendations agreed or implemented during time span of project as well as resource / legacy issues). 

  The work included link building, site content optimisation (including canonicalisation of duplicate content) etc with outstanding tasks remaining at the end of the project (next steps have been paused until their permanent Marketing Director returns to work later in 2025)  . I don't have an NDA but have been asked to seek approval for using them as a case study - it's easier just to anonymise until I do so!

   One result has been (working with their marketing team and other stakeholders) to establish and improve top 10 organic Google rankings for core key phrases in February 2025 from the search location of NYC, USA (a key target market) for multiple phrases. This was SEO in a competitive "mega city" search market!

   I'm reporting on non-Google Map rankings below - recommendations to fully optimise Google Map visibility were not fully implemented aspart of the agreed strategy: see a sample of their current rankings below (note that "not recorded" means for this project it was not a key phrase we focused on):

The estimated average monthly cost to rank for their organic keywords in Google Ads in the US is £28K according to SEMrush .com data.The above search results are similar from the locations of LA / SF USA too. The number of phrases the site is ranking for in the top 100 results globally on Google has more than doubled from 5.5K in Sept 2024 to 11.8K in Feb 2025 (semrush .com data): see below:

   Here are some of the Google UK top 10 rankings that have been established / maintained below from the test search location of London, UK :

   The estimated average monthly cost to rank for their organic keywords in Google Ads in the UK is £4K according to SEMrush .com data. We are still seeing ongoing Google USA / UK visibility growth . 

   This was achieved without buying backlinks and has helped to increase the dominance of their parent company in Google search results in both the US & UK markets.

Clarke & Son Solicitors (2024) - SEO &  Digital Marketing Strategy

    In April 2024 I was engaged to do a one-off SEO / Digital Marketing Strategic Review for Clarke & Son Solicitors (based in Basingstoke, Hampshire) . My work has contributed to a near doubling of the number of phrases the site is ranking for on Google UK (according to Semrush data) over the past 6 months and a reversal of a general downward trend in search visibility on GOOG over the previous 4 years. See below

  Reactive Graphics SEO 2014-2025 (case study update 2025)

    In late 2014 Reactive Graphics contacted me to help restore their top 10 rankings for their core key phrase "web design london". At this point they were 239th on Google UK  after a major drop in rankings.

    I did an initial 4 days work including strategic advice, link building and attempted to address any possible legacy negative effects of previous SEO work by 3rd parties on Google, Bing & Yahoo. I then did 5 more days ad-hoc link building and strategic advice (which they informed they have been implementing in-house) over the following years including a new focus on Google Map rankings. Top 10 'ten blue link' rankings were eventually re-established for this phrase around 2018 (as I was not working on this on an ongoing basis I was not monitoring the rankings).

   At time of writing (4.2023) they currently rank for phrases including those below (including Google Map rankings) - this is in the face of huge competition from much larger (international) businesses! 

icslearn .co.uk (2022-23) - SEO &  Digital Marketing Strategy

   In late 2022 I was engaged to work on SEO for 11 websites for this major international (now mainly online) education provider (they had recently acquired one of my clients) who have been established for well over a hundred years. I focused my work on the main websites of their 3 brands . I was not given any KPIs as such and it was general SEO consultancy. Here are some rankings I helped establish on Google UK for icslearn.co.uk.

Cambridge Audio (2023) - Technical / International SEO Review

    In 2023 I was engaged to do a one-off Technical / International SEO Review (it was not a strategy review but an audit with limited scope) for this manufacturer of high-end audio equipment. My work has contributed to a reversing of a downward trend in their Google visibility with a rise in the number of phrases they were ranking for globally in the top 100 results on Google going up from 35K in May 2023 to 52K one year later in June 2024 (a rise of around 50%) - this included a 30% approx rise in the number of phrases the site is ranking for in the top 10 results on GOOG globally (semrush.com data).

   Not all of my recommendations have been implemented according to my recent review and there is still work required to restore their previous levels of visibility.

See below:

Name Redacted (2022-23) - SEO

   In late 2022 I was engaged to work on SEO for 11 websites for a major international (now mainly online) education provider (they had recently acquired one of my clients) who have been established for well over a hundred years. I don’t have an NDA but I won’t name them here for the sake of discretion. I focused my work on the main websites of their 3 brands . I was not given any KPIs as such and it was general SEO consultancy. I reviewed / resubmitted their previous disavowal of low quality links to Google which correlated with a rise in their search engine visibility

ClickGolf .co.uk (2019-21) - SEO

   In late 2019 I was engaged to work on SEO for this golf ecommerce website - my work was paused during the early pandemic and there were issues relating to stock levels recorded in the Google Shopping feed which may have affected rankings for a period during my work –  information about a product and a product line in a product feed (e.g. Google Shopping) may be a ranking factor as described by the Google patent analysed on: https://www.seobythesea .com/2020/01/new-product-lines/ / https://support.google.com/webmasters/thread/74103537?hl=en . My work included a review of their Ebay ecommerce listings as well.

   There were multiple other challenges including sister websites with (partial)  duplicate content. Despite this after 6 days work over 14 months the UK search visibility in terms of the number of phrases the site was ranking for in the top 100 results on Google UK  was the highest on record according to Semrush: 

Royal Museums Greenwich - Online Marketing research report 2019

   I was engaged in mid-2019 to do a one-off Online Marketing research report for the Event Venue Hire and Online Shop business areas of RMG .co.uk. As part of my work I noted an incomplete (and partial) website consolidation project merging nmm .ac.uk with rmg .co.uk - in which the 'old' homepage URL of http://www.nmm .ac.uk/ (which had around 1.4K backlinks) had not been redirected to the corresponding page on rmg .co.uk . 

   My work contributed to a rise in the number of phrases they were ranking for globally in the top 100 results on Google going up from 175K in June 2019 to 317K one year later (a rise of around 80%) - this included an approximate doubling of the phrases the site ranked for in the top 10 results on GOOG. See Semrush data below:

Name redacted due to Non-Disclosure Agreement - White Label SEO & PPC - 2021 - 2022

   In early 2021 I was engaged by a marketing agency to provide expert white label digital marketing (SEO and PPC) consultancy services for a distillery / tourist attraction (can't say the name as I've a non-disclosure agreement). They also had social media (advertising) and influencer marketing input from the agency I worked for too. I did around 10 days work in total including work on a partner business.

   My work contributed to a rise in total annual sales (pre-pandemic in 2019 of c.€2.6M - they were acquired in early 2019) to c. €5M for 2021 which according to their annual report was due to a significant rise in alcohol sales.

   For the period since my ongoing work started (May 1, 2021-Jul 22, 2022) compared to the pre-covid period: (May 1, 2018-Jul 22, 2019):

• Organic website Traffic was up 166% (88,075 vs 33,157 visitors)

• Website Referral Traffic was up 320% (14,414 vs 3,429 visitors)

    There were multiple issues and challenges in the project e.g. the (configuration of the?) website CMS not allowing 'easy' amendment of certain key pages, the attraction being shut for around 1/3 of the year in 2021 (due to Covid restrictions) and issues with delivery to the European Union post-Brexit that meant that the spirits sold on their online shop were only available for shipping to the following countries for over three-quarters of the year in 2021: Bosnia, Iceland, Norway, Serbia, Ukraine, the UK and Channel Islands. Issues with delivery to the EU post-Brexit as well as other issues had contributed to a drop in around 2/3 in the total value of UK whisky exports to the EU in January 2021 compared to the previous year. 

  It also appears that the result of our marketing and advertising activity contributed to a dramatic rise in brand related searches too according to Google Keyword Planner data. My involvement ended when the agency was acquired in early 2022. 

See semrush.com data on the number of phrases the site is ranking for in the top 100 results on Google UK below: 

National Caravan Council - SEO / PPC Consultancy - 2020 to date

   One of the “low hanging fruit” goals of my ongoing work I set was working to obtain first places Google rankings for the singular version of core key phrases e.g. ‘caravan show’ & ‘motorhome show’ (they have 2 shows with separate websites - I have been working across their portfolio of around 30 websites).

     In Sept 2020 https://mcshow.co.uk was ranking 2nd for core key phrase ‘motorhome show’ (1.9K  searches per month on google in the UK– was 2.4K in Sept 2020 - both numbers include the plural variant ) . It is now ranking first for this phrase at time of writing (August 2022). This contributed to advance ticket sales of over 100K for the 2022 Show which took place at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham. 

    In addition https://ccmshow.co.uk/ was ranking 3rd for core key phrase ‘caravan show’ (for which there are 1.6K searches per month on google in the UK – 1.9K in Sept 2020 both including the plural variant ) . It is now ranking first for this phrase.

 I've also worked on the launch of https://findmyleisurevehicle.co.uk/ - I've done on-page and off-page SEO which has contributed to their current good Google.co.uk rankings (outranking larger competitors such as Autotrader) - see below (dataforseo .com data):

https://www.daytona .co.uk/ SEO Consultancy - 2020

     I did a one off SEO / online marketing strategy review for this leisure brand with racetracks in Surrey, Buckinghamshire and Staffordshire. My work has contributed to obtaining top 5 results on Google UK for the core key phrases "go karting birmingham" and "go karting london" for which phrases there 10K and 27K monthly searches respectively (the baseline rankings were 13th and 31st).

Smartdebit .co.uk (/ Access Group PaySuite) SEO & PPC Consultancy 2017 - 2022

   I was assisting this financial services company with their SEO & PPC including after they were acquired by Access PaySuite . I didn't manage the PPC campaigns but assisted the Marketing Manager with monitoring etc) efforts including link building and strategic advice. They were acquired in 2021 and my work was taken in house soon after. This work contributed to the following results: 

At time of writing (8.2022) here are their rankings for core key phrases:

   This is in the face of stiff competition from huge international entities like Go Cardless and Bottomline - an indicator of the competitiveness is that a Google Ads click can cost up to £29 for the phrase "direct debit services"  and there are 7 ads displayed for this phrase on Google today  . This area is highly competitive and rankings had fluctuated. We have also had to deal with various issues like suspected "negative SEO" by a competitor. Success might be characterised in a market like this as "maintaining your position".

 In Feb 2020 they recorded the highest number of inbound leads they had received since having a CRM at 152 (the second-highest was July 2020 at 149 and the third-highest September 2020 at 144). This was in the context of reduced marketing staffing in the last few years (toward the end of the project there were 0 marketing staff in post and I was feeding back to the sales director) & in the Covid era dramatically reduced PPC budgets (up to a 40% reduction but actual spend had been recorded at an even lower level).

www.acacialearning .co.uk / .com SEO - 2019 - 2023

    My ongoing work for this further & higher education provider started in Sept 2019 and I did 10 days work to date of the ranking report below (Feb 2021) which had included work on another of their websites. This work included strategic advice, on-page optimisation, inbound link building & content syndication. 

   Here were their organic Google.co.uk rankings for their core key phrases from a test location of Birmingham, UK in Feb 2021:

   They were London-based (now Glasgow) and these results varied slightly around the UK from my in-depth testing, but from a test from the search locations of the major UK cities they ranked 3rd or higher for the example query ‘cipd level 3' nationwide. They ranked first for this phrase in London, Manchester, Southampton, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, Belfast, Plymouth, Hull & Aberdeen! In the locations they ranked first at this time they even outranked cipd.co.uk (the site of Chartered Institute of Personnel Development) for these searches too .

    These exact rankings only lasted for a period of time from early to mid 2020 - Cipd.co.uk has regained it's first position for many of these phrases & Google has since started incorporating more locally relevant (non-Map) results into SERPs .

   For example here's the current results from Birmingham with results from  https://www.coventrycollege.ac.uk/ &  https://www.bmet.ac.uk/ in the first page search results for "cipd level 3" (this is the Google Ad Preview tool which we can use to see SERPs from a named location):

https://ads.google.com/anon/AdPreview?activeTab=1&lang=en&loc=1006524&device=30000&st=cipd+level+3

    We can see in the Google Analytics data below how we have seen a sustained boost in their organic traffic since June 2020 (for some reason I can only find data going back to Feb 2020) - they changed domain in 2021.

uploadagency .com SEO - 2020 

    I did 1.5 days one-off SEO consultancy for this UK-based global social media influencer management and merchandising company focused on optimisation of meta titles and descriptions on this site . 

    This has contributed to them establishing top 10 rankings on Google in various locations including the  UK /USA for multiple core key phrases e.g. "youtuber management company" (for which phrase there are 110 monthly searches in the USA on Google).

tmwillsandprobate .co.uk/  SEO Consultancy 2019-2025

   I helped launch this Private Client Solicitor website in May 2019 and according to whatsmyserp.com the rankings have been in flux with rankings in the top 10 on Google UK for the general term 'wills and probate solicitors' ( for which there 480 searches per month on GOOG in UK) as well as 'wills solicitors london' (170 searches per month) which were established but have slipped at time of writing.

   This site is currently (November 2020) ranking in the top 10 on Google UK for 'probate solicitors london' (90 searches per month). This data does not include Google Map rankings.

   My work has included SEO strategy definition, creation of Google Map listings and manual inbound link building.

     I have only done around 2 days work on this site thus far (I have also been working on their 2 sister sites). My work is ongoing and includes on-page optimisation in the plan of work (this has been implemented thus far along similar lines to the sister sites).

I have worked alongside the web designers https://www.webworksuk .com/ on this.

Citibase .com SEO Consultancy 2016

    In early 2016 I assisted their web design agency with a redesign of Citibase .com (launched on 22/03/2016), the main website of one of the UK's largest providers of serviced office space to SME firms.

    This alongside strategic advice including highlighting major issues with their Google Map listings which they began to resolve internally contributed to Citibase's best ever sales quarter with revenue from new contracts surging more than three-fold in the three months to the 31st of July 2016 (click to view story on the Evening Standard website).

    This also has resulted in the number of phrases they are ranking for in the top 100 results on google.co.uk increasing from 577 in Feb 2016 to 744 in Sept 2016 (an increase of around 1/3) according to Semrush data:

     This work did not include inbound link building and was 2 days in total.

 Name redacted due to Non-Disclosure Agreement - White Label SEO & PPC - 2021 - 2022

  In early 2021 I was engaged by a marketing agency to work on white label digital marketing for a large housebuilder in the North and Midlands

 I did a total of 8 days work on SEO / PPC and digital marketing strategy . There were various issues with this project inc. online reputation management & resource / project management internally at the agency.

  For the period Jan 1-Dec 31, 2021 compared to previous period (Jan 2-Dec 31, 2020) SEO work contributed to a 6% rise in Organic Traffic (77,307 vs 73,178) and Direct Traffic was up 20% (39,639 vs 32,961) - the latter may relate to Google My Business optimisation (https://searchengineland.com/seeing-organic-visits-gmb-290186).

   R.e. rankings core key phrases in "organic" Google search. In this work I established first position for "new builds chesterfield" ( 720 searches per month on Google in the UK) which the site was not ranking for when ongoing SEO work commenced (July 2021)

    I established number 1 rankings for "new builds derby" (720 searches) & "new builds droitwich"  (140 searches) and top 10 rankings for "new builds matlock" (50 searches) & "new builds radcliffe-on-trent" (20 searches).

Londoncallingarts .com & Culturecalling .co.uk / culturecalling .com SEO Consultancy 2015 - 2019

   Here were the results of my first 8 days work (4 days on each - this included PPC set up / enhancement and the first day for each was a site / strategy review) in total for Londoncallingarts .com & Culturecalling .co.uk:  

    At time of writing (6.11.16) londoncallingarts .com is ranking 'organically' in the top 10 on google .co.uk for the general term “arts marketing” (with the search location set as the UK). 

    At time of writing (6.11.16) culturecalling .co.uk & londoncallingarts .com are both in the top 5 on google .co.uk for “arts marketing agency” (with the search location set as UK). 

   R.e. Baseline Search Engine Rankings – the only significant rankings I could find for both sites were (after link building work had begun on the sites on 23.7.15) were 36th for 'arts marketing' and 33rd for 'arts marketing agency' for londoncallingarts .com on google .co.uk. 

    All search rankings may be personalised to some degree but I tested rankings on 11.11.16 with http://google.com/AdPreview to depersonalise them. 

 I also worked on their magazine website culturecalling .com - launched in 2016 the results of my work contributed to the following result: when they brought the SEO function in-house in Feb 2019  the site was ranking for 5,559 phrases in the top 100 results on Google UK (semrush .com data):

   I also worked on their magazine website londoncalling.com - the results of my work including strategic review contributed to the following results. The number of phrases the site was ranking for in the top 100 results on Google UK (semrush .com data) went up from 178 in Jan 2016 to 7,605 in Feb 2016 - it was merged with culturecalling.com in 2019 . There were some legacy issues with this domain which may have worked to minimise it's search visibility for a period of time. See below: