SEO for an online store selling men's clothing and accessories
About the project
Ukrainian menswear ecommerce built on OpenCart. Starting amid an active redesign and without prior SEO, we delivered a technical turnaround, scalable content, and a safe link strategy to lift visibility and sales.
Project goals
- Technical optimization
- Increase organic traffic
- Rank priority keywords in Google Top results
Challenges and overall strategy
The site had never been worked on from an SEO perspective. At kickoff, ongoing technical work and a parallel redesign negatively affected progress for quite a while: previously implemented technical fixes and core SEO settings (meta tags, content) were periodically overwritten or lost. Once the final fixes were deployed, the site began to grow quickly.
What we did
Technical optimization
The site runs on CMS OpenCart (Store), which is generally a good platform for SEO and offers several advantages. Initial issues we found:
- SEO-friendly URLs were not configured
- robots.txt was outdated
- Sitemap was generated incorrectly (only English pages were added, although we weren’t targeting the English version)
- Incorrect redirects
- Language versions misconfigured
- Incorrect auto-generation of meta tags for product pages
- Pagination pages not set up
- No Product structured data on product and category pages
- Suboptimal product URL nesting/depth
We prepared a detailed technical spec and implemented the required fixes. Periodically, the SEO meta‑tag generator module malfunctioned, overwriting manual settings, which we had to monitor and correct.
Semantics
At the start, the site already ranked for many queries, but only two product categories were in the Top 10: “Classic men’s suits” and “Wedding suits.” We built the semantic core from scratch because no prior SEO work had been done. We focused on main competitors and the current site category structure. Given niche competition and initial rankings, we prioritized low- and mid-volume queries first.
Site structure
No major structural changes were needed: categories and subcategories already had 2–3 levels of depth, with a maximum depth of 3. Priority was to strengthen main categories and subcategories, then roll out SEO filters (faceted navigation).
Content
There was no text content on any pages. We created copy briefs based on the semantic research and top competitors. Article structures were developed with a combined approach: competitor analysis plus AI assistance.
Usability
A new design was already planned at the start and aimed to fix key UX issues—make the site cleaner, clearer, and more visually appealing. We made small adjustments to the main navigation to make it more user-friendly.
Structured data
We implemented Product schema on product and category pages to enrich SERP snippets and provide users with helpful details like prices and reviews.
Link building
Our backlink growth strategy was based on competitor analysis (quantity, cadence, and donor quality). We used outreach (editorial placements), crowd links, and submissions.
Results (after 7 months)
- Organic traffic +85.7%
- Keywords in Google Top 10: 323 → 433 (+34.06%)
- Visibility (Serpstat): 1.79 → 3.29 (+83.8%)
- Conversion rate +146.9%
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About the project
Ukrainian menswear ecommerce built on OpenCart. Starting amid an active redesign and without prior SEO, we delivered a technical turnaround, scalable content, and a safe link strategy to lift visibility and sales.
Project goals
- Technical optimization
- Increase organic traffic
- Rank priority keywords in Google Top results
Challenges and overall strategy
The site had never been worked on from an SEO perspective. At kickoff, ongoing technical work and a parallel redesign negatively affected progress for quite a while: previously implemented technical fixes and core SEO settings (meta tags, content) were periodically overwritten or lost. Once the final fixes were deployed, the site began to grow quickly.
What we did
Technical optimization
The site runs on CMS OpenCart (Store), which is generally a good platform for SEO and offers several advantages. Initial issues we found:
- SEO-friendly URLs were not configured
- robots.txt was outdated
- Sitemap was generated incorrectly (only English pages were added, although we weren’t targeting the English version)
- Incorrect redirects
- Language versions misconfigured
- Incorrect auto-generation of meta tags for product pages
- Pagination pages not set up
- No Product structured data on product and category pages
- Suboptimal product URL nesting/depth
We prepared a detailed technical spec and implemented the required fixes. Periodically, the SEO meta‑tag generator module malfunctioned, overwriting manual settings, which we had to monitor and correct.
Semantics
At the start, the site already ranked for many queries, but only two product categories were in the Top 10: “Classic men’s suits” and “Wedding suits.” We built the semantic core from scratch because no prior SEO work had been done. We focused on main competitors and the current site category structure. Given niche competition and initial rankings, we prioritized low- and mid-volume queries first.
Site structure
No major structural changes were needed: categories and subcategories already had 2–3 levels of depth, with a maximum depth of 3. Priority was to strengthen main categories and subcategories, then roll out SEO filters (faceted navigation).
Content
There was no text content on any pages. We created copy briefs based on the semantic research and top competitors. Article structures were developed with a combined approach: competitor analysis plus AI assistance.
Usability
A new design was already planned at the start and aimed to fix key UX issues—make the site cleaner, clearer, and more visually appealing. We made small adjustments to the main navigation to make it more user-friendly.
Structured data
We implemented Product schema on product and category pages to enrich SERP snippets and provide users with helpful details like prices and reviews.
Link building
Our backlink growth strategy was based on competitor analysis (quantity, cadence, and donor quality). We used outreach (editorial placements), crowd links, and submissions.
Results (after 7 months)
- Organic traffic +85.7%
- Keywords in Google Top 10: 323 → 433 (+34.06%)
- Visibility (Serpstat): 1.79 → 3.29 (+83.8%)
- Conversion rate +146.9%