Outdoor & hobby · Anonymous case study
Expanding Organic Search Visibility for an Outdoor & Hobby E-commerce Brand
An e-commerce SEO case study from an outdoor and hobby brand, with more of its products, categories and hobby topics showing up in Google.
- Business
- Outdoor & hobby e-commerce brand (name withheld)
- Model
- Direct-to-consumer e-commerce
- Measured
- Last 6 months vs previous 6 months
6.75K
Google Search Console clicks during the latest six-month period.
447K
Search impressions recorded during the latest six-month period.
+46.4%
Compared with the previous six-month period.
+72.6%
Compared with the previous six-month period.
Source: Google Search Console, last 6 months vs previous 6 months. CTR moved from 1.8% to 1.5% and average position from 8.3 to 9.2 (see below). The business isn’t named.
The business
A specialized e-commerce brand in a focused niche
This is an outdoor and hobby brand. Its range covers apparel, headwear, socks, optics, straps, field accessories, guides, books, bundles and gifts, positioned around the hobby, the outdoors and conservation. It also publishes stories and educational content for hobbyists.
So hobby e-commerce SEO had to cover more than product pages. People can reach the site in several ways, and each should lead somewhere useful:
- Product search
- Category search
- Informational search
- Hobby topic
- Content
- Product discovery
The starting point
Where we started: a niche with two kinds of search
The business operated in a specialized product category where search demand spans both commercial product queries and informational hobby topics.
The Search Console baseline for the previous six months was 4.61K clicks, 259K impressions, a 1.8% CTR and an average position of 8.3. The aim was to show up for more searches, and a wider range of them, while still sending people to the products.
The challenge
What needed to change
Product and category coverage
Expand the product and category searches the site could appear for.
Hobby search intent
Strengthen relevance around the way hobbyists actually search.
Content to commerce
Connect informational content with the commercial pages it relates to.
Internal linking
Link related products, categories and articles so each supports the others.
Long-tail demand
Capture more of the specific, lower-volume searches a niche depends on.
Topical relevance
Build broader relevance around the hobby and outdoor interests.
Beyond branded demand
Grow visibility without relying only on people who already know the brand.
Goals
What success looked like
- More organic clicks and impressions
- Broader keyword visibility
- Stronger product and category discovery
- Wider topical search coverage
- Continued visibility across relevant hobby searches
Revenue, transactions, conversion rate and customer numbers aren’t reported because those figures weren’t provided. Only search metrics are shown.
The strategy
Connecting product discovery with search intent
In a niche like this, informational searches introduce people to the hobby, and category and product pages catch them when they’re ready to buy. The strategy linked the two.
- Products
- Categories
- Hobby topics
- Informational content
- Internal linking
- Product discovery
- Organic visibility
What we did
Seven workstreams
What was done, and why a specialized online store needed it.
Technical SEO
A store with many products, collections and articles needs a structure search engines can crawl and understand consistently.
- Crawlability and indexability
- Site architecture
- Canonicalization
- Metadata
- Technical page quality
- Internal linking
E-commerce SEO
Most of the revenue-side work sat here. Category and collection pages were treated as the main targets for commercial searches, with product pages capturing more specific intent.
- Product page relevance
- Category page optimization
- Collection architecture
- Search intent and commercial queries
- Product discovery paths
- Internal linking between products and categories
On-page SEO
Each page was matched to the searches it should answer, so products, collections and articles didn’t compete with each other.
- Titles and meta descriptions
- Heading structure
- Page relevance and semantic coverage
- Search intent
- Product and category optimization
Content SEO
In a hobby niche, informational searches introduce people to the category long before they buy. Content covered the subjects hobbyists search for.
- Hobby topics and how-to content
- Buying guides and field guides
- Optics and equipment
- Outdoor locations
- Outdoor interests and lifestyle
Internal linking
Articles were connected to the categories and products they relate to, and back to related reading, so informational and commercial intent support each other.
- Hobby content
- Relevant category
- Product
- Related content
Topical authority
A niche brand earns relevance by covering its own subject consistently. Off-topic SEO articles add little.
- Hobby
- Optics
- Equipment
- Apparel
- Guides
- Outdoor lifestyle
- Conservation
Authority and off-page SEO
Authority building ran alongside the on-site work, focused on relevance to the hobby and the outdoors.
Search architecture
How the store and its content fit together
Product categories
- Apparel
- Headwear
- Optics
- Accessories
- Guides
- Bundles
Supporting content
- Hobby topics
- Buying guides
- Field guides
- Outdoor locations
- Outdoor & lifestyle
Google Search Console
Organic search visibility expanded
Last 6 months: 6.75K clicks, 447K impressions, 1.5% CTR, average position 9.2. Previous 6 months: 4.61K clicks, 259K impressions, 1.8% CTR, average position 8.3.
Analysis
What changed in organic search
- Clicks: 4.61K → 6.75K. About +46.4%.
- Impressions: 259K → 447K. About +72.6%.
- CTR: 1.8% → 1.5%. Down 0.3 percentage points.
- Average position: 8.3 → 9.2. Down 0.9 positions.
Impressions grew faster than clicks, which suggests the site was appearing for a broader set of searches. One possible explanation for the lower CTR is that the new visibility included searches that don’t produce clicks at the previous rate. So we read the result as wider search coverage. Click efficiency did not improve across the board.
Semrush
A broader organic keyword footprint
Semrush shows an expanding organic keyword footprint through the period, with steady growth from July into September. Organic listings account for 90.4% of the tracked SERP position distribution, AI Overviews 8.2% and other SERP features 1.4%. These are shares of tracked positions. They don’t measure traffic.
Market
SEO built around a hobby niche
Outdoor products SEO in a hobby niche has to follow how buyers search, which covers hobby topics, buying guides, field guides, optics, equipment and apparel. The strategy combined that commercial and informational intent, so content about the hobby and pages that sell to it reinforce each other.
Before and after
E-commerce SEO results, before and after
| Metric | Previous 6 months | Last 6 months | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clicks | 4.61K | 6.75K | +46.4% |
| Impressions | 259K | 447K | +72.6% |
| CTR | 1.8% | 1.5% | −0.3 percentage points |
| Average position | 8.3 | 9.2 | −0.9 positions |
Source: Google Search Console. The strongest gains were in impressions and clicks. CTR and average position moved slightly lower. The site reached more searches, but rankings did not improve across the board.
The lesson
E-commerce SEO is bigger than product pages
For a specialized e-commerce brand, ranking individual products is only part of e-commerce organic traffic growth. Category pages, articles about the hobby and good internal links give customers more ways to find the brand.
Here that meant linking what hobbyists search for to what the store sells, so a reader of a buying guide is one click from the right optics.
Services used
SEO services behind the growth
- E-commerce SEO
- Technical SEO
- On-page SEO
- Content SEO
- Internal linking
- SEO consulting & strategy
- Content strategy
- Off-page SEO
Related
Related SEO services
See also SEO for online stores or all case studies.
Is your store showing up when customers search?
Product pages are only one part of e-commerce search. A good SEO plan links your products, categories and content so shoppers can find all of it.