Case study
The content was getting found. The categories needed to do the selling.
Shindigs had years of content, a large product range and substantial existing search visibility, but organic performance had been declining for 18 months. Its authority was fragmented across hundreds of articles, overlapping URLs and weak internal pathways, while the category pages responsible for product discovery and revenue were not getting enough support.
The challenge
Shindigs had accumulated more than 200 blog posts across years of publishing. Some overlapped. Some competed with category pages. Others attracted visibility without providing a meaningful path into the products Shindigs actually sold.
But the bigger problem sat deeper in the ecommerce structure. Category pages were not organised strongly enough around the way customers browsed and searched. Subcategory relationships were unclear. Internal links were scattered across the site rather than deliberately concentrating relevance and authority around important commercial destinations. So even when Shindigs earned search visibility, the architecture did not always help it flow towards the parts of the site responsible for revenue.
Too much of the site's search value was sitting away from where customers could buy.
- 18 straight months of organic traffic decline
- 200+ blog posts, many overlapping or competing with category pages
- Unclear category and subcategory relationships
- Internal links scattered, with no deliberate path into commercial pages
The result
A stronger commercial architecture made the whole search footprint more valuable.
The content reduction gets attention because it is counterintuitive. But the growth did not come simply from deleting pages. It came from rebuilding where the remaining search authority flowed. Traffic is measured to the September and October 2024 peak, which includes seasonal lift.
- +150%
- Organic traffic Pre-engagement baseline to Oct '24 peak
- +207%
- Top-3 ranking keywords Published case study
- +40%
- Revenue Published case study
- 200+ → ~40
- Editorial assets Content audit
The insight
The site did not need more authority. It needed the authority it already had pointed in the right direction.
The opportunity was to stop thinking about individual pages in isolation. Category pages, subcategories, products and editorial content needed to operate as one connected search system: a stronger category hierarchy, clear ownership of each commercial intent, deliberate internal-link pathways into those pages, consolidation of content competing for the same searches, and removal of pages that no longer contributed anything useful.
The blog reduction was part of the architecture strategy, not the strategy itself.
The strategy
Put the commercial architecture at the centre of the site.
- Rebuild the category structure.The category experience was reorganised around clearer product relationships and customer demand. Important commercial categories were strengthened, subcategory pathways clarified and ambiguity between similar destinations reduced. The objective was to make it obvious which page should rank for which commercial search, and easier for customers to move from that page into the right products.
- Rewire the internal links.Internal linking was rebuilt around the new category hierarchy. Editorial content supported relevant commercial categories, categories connected logically to subcategories, and high-value destinations received more contextual support from related parts of the site. That gave users and search engines a clearer hierarchy, and let existing authority flow toward the pages most closely connected to revenue.
- Remove content competing with the structure.More than 200 posts were reviewed against search demand, overlap, usefulness and their relationship with the commercial architecture. Strong content stayed, useful overlapping content was consolidated, and weak or competing pages were removed or redirected. The final library was around 40 pieces, each with a clearer role supporting the wider site.
The architecture
From scattered authority to a connected commercial search system.
Before
200+
Articles, scattered across the site
After
~40
Supporting assets, linked into the category hierarchy
- Useful editorial content
- Primary category
- Subcategories
- Products
What we did
Category architecture. Rebuilt commercial category and subcategory relationships around how customers searched, browsed and shopped.
Internal linking. Created deliberate pathways between relevant editorial content, priority categories, subcategories and products so authority reinforced the commercial hierarchy.
Content consolidation. Reviewed 200+ articles, consolidating, redirecting or removing content that overlapped with stronger pages or no longer supported a meaningful search opportunity.
Search experience. Improved category navigation, product surfacing and browse pathways so customers arriving from organic search could move more easily from discovery into products.
The takeaway
The breakthrough was not having fewer pages. It was making the important pages stronger.
Shindigs had already accumulated years of content and search equity. Too much of that value was fragmented across the site instead of reinforcing the categories where customers actually browse and buy. We rebuilt the commercial hierarchy, concentrated internal links around it and removed content that diluted those signals.
The result was a smaller editorial footprint, a stronger category structure and a 40% increase in revenue. Less content helped. Better architecture did the heavy lifting.
More work
Construction Backyard Grannys Different pages given clearly defined roles across the customer decision. SEO & search performance · Content & search experience 
eCommerce Fieldfolio Marketplace architecture rebuilt around how buyers searched. Search strategy & intelligence · SEO & search performance · Content & search experience