A specialist hobby retailer, scaled to 12 international markets.
How we rebuilt Modelers Central's organic visibility and international Google Ads architecture, turning a niche Australian hobby retailer into a 12-market e-commerce business.
Where Modelers Central was when we walked in.
Modelers Central are Australia's leading retailer of wooden model ship kits: an established specialist with a large catalogue, a niche audience, and a clear ambition to scale beyond the Australian market. By mid-2022 their organic traffic had been declining for over a year, sliding from a 2020 peak around 12k/mo to roughly half of that, while international expansion remained mostly aspirational rather than operational.
The brief was two engines built in parallel: rebuild the organic foundation (technical SEO + category architecture + international site translations) and rebuild the Google Ads programme with precise targeting across the AU and US markets. Two years in, the combination grew organic 400%, revenue 233%, and opened the catalogue to twelve international markets.
- Multi-year organic decline from 2020 peak, traffic down to ~5k/mo by mid-2022
- Large product catalogue requiring systematic technical SEO optimisation
- No international site structure despite global expansion ambitions
- Google Ads burning budget on high-cost niche keywords without conversion discipline
- Site navigation + internal linking inefficient for both crawlers and buyers
- Category page templates not optimised for the catalogue's breadth
Three moves that turned a declining retailer into a global e-commerce engine.
- 01
Rebuilt category pages + internal linking
Architecture for a catalogue at scale.
We redesigned the category page layouts and rebuilt the internal linking structure to handle the catalogue's breadth. Crawl efficiency improved, on-page UX improved, and the site became navigable for both search engines and buyers: the foundation everything else needed.
- 02
Built international with 12 language translations
Same catalogue, twelve markets.
International expansion was the leverage. We implemented site translations across 12 languages with proper hreflang structure, so each market got native-language content backed by Modelers Central's full catalogue. The addressable audience expanded by an order of magnitude almost overnight.
- 03
Re-engineered Google Ads across AU + US
Precision targeting on a high-cost niche.
Specialist hobby keywords are expensive, and unforgiving of broad-match. We restructured the Ads programme around precision audiences (existing modellers + adjacent enthusiasts), tightened negative-keyword discipline, and continuously optimised across both AU and US markets. Cost-per-acquisition dropped 50% as efficiency compounded.
- Technical SEO audit + category architecture rebuild Phase 1
- Internal linking + crawl efficiency overhaul Phase 1
- Keyword research across AU + US markets Phase 2
- 12-language site translations + hreflang structure Phase 2
- Google Ads re-engineering (AU + US) Phase 2
- Audience segmentation + bidding optimisation Phase 3
- Monthly performance + market expansion reporting Ongoing
The full picture, by the numbers.
Quarterly average organic sessions. The pre-engagement decline from 2020-mid-2022 is visible at the start of the chart. Engagement begins mid-2022; the climb to the Feb 2024 peak is the combined effect of the SEO foundation work and the 12-language international expansion.
How the global expansion actually happened.
Two years of partnership across three workstreams: technical SEO + category rebuild, international site expansion, and a re-engineered Google Ads programme.
Category architecture Rebuilt the catalogue for crawl + conversion
Modelers Central carry a deep catalogue: kits, supplies, tools, parts, educational resources. The previous category architecture didn't reflect how modellers actually navigate the catalogue, and the internal linking was inefficient for both crawlers and buyers.
- Category page templates redesigned for the catalogue's breadth (filters indexable, on-page UX rebuilt)
- Internal linking restructured into hub-and-spoke clusters per major product category
- Schema markup (Product, Offer, BreadcrumbList) implemented for every relevant page type
- Crawl budget reclaimed by deduplicating parameter variants and pruning thin pages
The foundation work was unglamorous, with no immediate visible traffic lift, but it was the prerequisite for everything that compounded later. By the time the international expansion went live, the architecture could scale across twelve markets without re-engineering.
International expansion 12 language markets, one catalogue, native-language content
The biggest leverage came from international. The Australian market for wooden model ship kits is bounded; the global market is an order of magnitude bigger. We built the structure to address it.
- Site translations implemented across 12 languages with proper hreflang annotation
- Currency + shipping rules localised per market, not just translated
- Local-language category pages reusing the global catalogue with market-specific copy
- Search Console + analytics segmented per market so we could optimise each independently
The international markets were what took organic traffic from a recovery story into a true growth story. The 400% organic traffic claim is from this work: opening up 12 new audiences who could now find the catalogue in their native language, on a site that converted them as effectively as the AU one.
Google Ads layer Precision targeting across AU and US markets
Hobby keywords are niche and expensive. The previous Ads programme was burning budget on broad match without enough discipline to make the spend efficient. We re-engineered the structure around precision targeting in both AU and US.
- Account structure rebuilt around product category + market intersections
- Audience segmentation: existing modellers, adjacent enthusiasts, gift-purchase intent
- Negative-keyword discipline cut the long tail of low-converting hobby queries
- Continuous A/B testing on ad copy, bidding strategies, and landing-page variants
Cost-per-acquisition came down 50% as the targeting tightened. That efficiency funded the international expansion of the Ads programme: same budget, twelve markets, sustainable unit economics. Revenue grew 233% across the combined SEO + Ads engine.
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Want a similar result?
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