Savvy Search SEO Case Study: Episode 1

When you run an SEO agency, client work always comes first, and that’s been the story for us at Savvy Search.

We’ve been so focused on getting results for businesses across the UK that our own website has been running on the bare minimum of SEO attention.

So, why share this case study?

Simple: transparency, trust, and proof. 

I want to show you exactly how we approach SEO, not just in theory, but in practice. This is going to be a live experiment where I apply the same process we use for our clients, directly to our own website.

That means you’ll see everything: the good, the bad, and the “needs improvement”, of which there are many at this moment in time. 

By documenting the journey month by month, I’ll create a clear before-and-after picture that shows how SEO works compounds over time and the type of results you can expect when working with Savvy Search.

Think of it as a behind-the-scenes diary of growing an agency website, complete with benchmarks, strategy breakdowns, and lessons learned along the way.

If you’ve ever wondered what SEO really looks like in action (beyond the generic advice you see everywhere), this is for you.

The Goal

I could sit here and say the goal is to bring in clients passively through SEO…

And that’s true to some extent. 

But we need something more measurable, more tangible, and most importantly, achievable.

I’ve been doing SEO for long enough to know these things don’t happen overnight, so we need to set a time frame for our goals. 

Not only am I hard at work ranking the Savvy Search website, but I’ll be spending the majority of my time on client work, so for now, Savvy Search SEO will largely be done in my free time (good thing I love SEO). 

So, the goal. 

Reach 200 organic visitors per month (or the last 28 days) by the end of the year.

Why 200?

Let’s assume a very modest conversion rate of 1%. 

That’s 1% of all traffic from our website turning into a client. 

Given that the majority of keywords I’ll be targeting are service-based, I think that a 1% conversion rate is reasonably achievable (we can do much better, to be honest).

That should roughly equate to 2 new clients per month, a great start for a growing digital marketing agency like Savvy Search. 

With that in mind, what’s our performance looking like now? 

SPOILER ALERT: It’s not great. 

Current Position 

As you’re about to see, I haven’t spent the necessary time conducting keyword research, planning site structure, and optimising content – and it really shows.

That’s about to change. 

But before I get into my “master plan”, let’s take a look at some key figures. 

This is what our performance has looked like over the last 28 days. 

As I’m sure you can see, these aren’t exactly the most impressive numbers, and not the best display of our SEO prowess to potential clients. 

The good news? 

There’s plenty for us to work on, a ton of opportunities for us to seize. 

So, how are we going to pump up these pitiful numbers?

Well, that leads me to my plan. 

The Plan

The plan is a simple one. 

Start from the ground up. 

I’ll be treating our website like a brand-new site, conducting keyword research, mapping these keywords to relevant service pages, writing new content, and optimizing as we go. 

But, for clarity, let’s lay out a roadmap for the work ahead. 

Phase 1: Website Audit

As with any good SEO campaign, you need to take a step back, analyse the website, and discover which areas need improvement. 

Fortunately, I’ve conducted more SEO audits throughout my career than I can remember, and before writing this article, I conducted one for the Savvy Search website. 

To be honest with you, I was pretty shocked at what I saw.

I wasn’t quite aware of how little attention the Savvy Search website has gotten, and I discovered some glaring issues that need to be addressed as soon as possible.

So, what did I discover? 

Well, let me share my new “to-do” list that should fix these issues. 

Keyword Cannibalisation

After looking through Search Console to discover what keywords we’re currently ranking for, I noticed two BIG cannibalisation issues. 

We have two information-type blog posts that are competing for the same terms as two of our service pages, neither of which is ranking particularly well. 

As you can see in the image, our guide on how to choose an SEO company in Scotland is competing against our Scotland SEO service page. 

Similarly, our guide on local SEO in Edinburgh is competing against our Edinburgh SEO service page. 

This was a massive oversight, as this was very clearly going to happen. 

It’s not all doom and gloom though, as there are a few ways to fix this. 

I can either edit the content in such a way that it will no longer compete with our service page, or merge the two and utilise a 301 redirect. 

I’ll need to assess this a bit more to decide which route is the best to take. 

Maintain Business Identity Across the Site

When I first started Savvy Search, we were solely an SEO agency. 

That said, businesses evolve, and we’ve become as much of a web design, UI/UX, and CRO type agency as well. 

This meant that I had to quickly change the homepage from SEO focused to more widely digital marketing-focused. 

The rest of the website is still very much focused on the SEO side of the business. 

I think implementing some brand cohesion and identity across our site will help Google understand who we are and what we do. 

This also leads me on to my next fix. 

Homepage Improvements 

As I said, we went from a strictly SEO business to a wider digital marketing agency. 

This meant I had to change our homepage, which was all built around SEO. 

Here, I essentially did the bare minimum, and our homepage is seriously lacking. 

There’s no content, almost no trust signals, and it really doesn’t do a good job of showing what we’re all about. 

So getting this up to scratch is extremely important, not just for SEO, but for building trust with potential clients too.

It’s worth mentioning here that the header menu needs some work. Our location and industry based service pages should be clickable from here, which they are not currently.

Create a Portfolio Page

Speaking of building trust, we need to showcase what we’re able to do. 

As it stands, our website lacks a high-quality portfolio page where we can display our work. 

Unfortunately, most of our clients at the moment are white-labeled for other agencies, so we can’t necessarily take the credit for those. 

That said, we do have work we can share, and this case study can be a big focus point of our portfolio.

Technical Fixes

I also discovered a few broken links here and there, as well as a few pages missing some meta details. 

Nothing too crazy here, just a bit of tidy up that shouldn’t have any major impact on our SEO results, but every little helps, and it’s good to keep on top of these kinds of things. 

Phase 1: Fixing Immediate Issues

We’ll kick this campaign off by addressing the easy-to-fix issues that will enable us to have a solid SEO foundation to build upon.

This includes improving the homepage, fixing any broken links, adding missing meta information, and maintaining a solid brand identity across the website. 

I think the most crucial fix early doors will be addressing the cannibalization that’s already occurring. 

I’ll be optimising our service pages down the line, and the website mustn’t be competing against itself to rank for our primary commercial intent keywords.

Once we’ve built our proverbial foundation, we can then really get to work on the areas that should move the needle. 

Phase 2: Keyword Analysis & Mapping 

A good keyword strategy can make or break an SEO campaign.. 

Uncovering the right keywords is akin to discovering a goldmine; choosing the wrong ones? 

Well, that can leave you buried deep within the SERPS, never to be found. 

Given we’re a fairly new business and our website is much newer with less authority than our competitors, I’ll need to focus on hyperlocal, long-tail keywords. 

These will have less competition, and we’ll stand a much better chance of ranking. 

Once I’ve found these keywords, I’ll then map them out to our existing service pages, as well as future service pages that we’ll post further down the line. 

Phase 3: Re-Optimisation of Service Pages 

Now we know what keywords to target, it’s time to optimise. 

Given our lackluster SEO performance at the moment, I’m going to start over with completely fresh content. 

I’ll be writing all new content for our service pages, using tools such as Surfer SEO to ensure our pages are well optimized for our target keywords. 

Phase 4: Industry-Specific Targeting 

As it stands, the Savvy Search website has a few service pages for different areas, such as Edinburgh and Glasgow…

But that’s leaving a ton of untapped keywords on the table. 

Not only can we target different areas of Scotland, but we can target specific industries as well. 

Of course, it’s not as simple as creating a ton of service pages for every industry imaginable. 

So, what makes a good industry for us to target?

• This should be an industry we want to work with. Ideally, these will be professional service businesses, where their average customer value is decently high. This allows us to charge fairly for our work, while still providing an exceptional ROI for our clients. 
• The target keyword shouldn’t have too much competition. This will likely mean finding longtail, fairly niche keywords, but that’s fine. Getting some traffic from a low search volume keyword is better than getting no traffic from a highly searched, but highly competitive keyword. 

Once I’ve mapped out a list of industries/ keywords we can target and stand a good chance of ranking for, I can then build and optimise the relevant service pages. 

Phase 5: Content for Topical Authority 

Lastly, the site needs more content in general. 

We’re sitting at 10 published blog posts (this may even go down when I fix the canibalisation issue), but we need more. 

We need to show Google what this website is about, that we know what we’re talking about, and that we’re a trustworthy website that’s worth displaying in the SERPS. 

If only we could publish a monthly, high-quality case study that perfectly fixes this issue ;). 

Aside from this case study, the Savvy Search knowledge base will be updated on a weekly/ bi-weekly basis with high-quality, helpful guides. 

Ideally, these will be optimized around keywords, but at this point, building up trust and topical authority is the most important thing. 

Of course, there’ll be additional work here and there, which I’ll be sure to mention as we go. 

But as it stands, that’s the plan of action

Why We’re Sharing This

So why am I putting all of this out there? 

Well, there are a few reasons.

First, I want to show SEO in action. 

It’s one thing to talk about strategy in theory, but it’s another to actually see the steps, the results, and the bumps along the way. By documenting the process month by month, you’ll get a real-world view of how SEO actually works over time.

Second, I want to make this useful for you.

If you’re a business owner or marketer, you’ll be able to take the lessons we learn here and apply them to your own site. Whether it’s a win we score or a mistake we make, there’s something in it for anyone trying to grow their online presence.

Third, it’s about trust. 

At Savvy Search, we tell clients that SEO is a long game, built on consistent, strategic actions. By applying the same process to our own site, we’re proving that we practice what we preach. 

No smoke, no mirrors, just the same roadmap we’d roll out for you…

And of course, there’s also a bigger picture here. 

This case study helps us build topical authority and demonstrate the depth of our expertise, which feeds directly into Google’s EEAT signals (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness).

In other words, by documenting our own SEO journey, we’re strengthening the credibility of the Savvy Search site itself will provindg value to our readers.

Truly a win-win for everyone. 

What’s Next for the Case Study?

Well, now that we have our goal established and the roadmap laid out, it’s time to get to work. 

I’ll be back in a month’s time with an update, where I’ll break down all the work that’s been done and the effects that it has had on our SEO performance. 

I’ll be sharing the full process, the exact tools we use, and the insights we uncover.

So, if you’re curious about how this journey unfolds, make sure to follow along!

And if you’d like to see this same process applied to your own business website, drop me a message. 

We’d love to help you turn SEO from a mystery into measurable results.