SUCCESS STORIES

Bondi Sands: Building SEO That Travels

Being a household name in Australia counted for nothing overseas. As Bondi Sands expanded into the UK and US, its search presence came with it, fragmented, diluted, and underperforming across every new market. 
 
Amplifying what already worked at home wasn't enough. Bondi Sands needed a strategy built for each region on its own terms. StudioHawk partnered with them to turn three seperate markets into one coordinated growth engine. 
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94%
increase in keywords - Australian market
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105%
increase in keywords - UK market
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54%
increase in keywords - US market
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Bondi Sands is an Australian self-tan and skincare brand born on the beaches it's named after. 
 
Know for products like its Self Tanning Foam and Everyday Gradual Tanning Milk, Bondi Sands has grown from a local favourite into a name stocked in major retailers across Australia, the UK and the US, competing in one of the most saturated categories in beauty. 

 


The Need

Under the surface, a strong Australian brand was carrying weak SEO foundations into three new markets at once. The site had technical debt, structural gaps, and content that leaned on brand recognition rather than how shoppers actually searched. StudioHawk's brief was to fix the foundations and build a strategy that could scale.   

The key challenges:
  • Legacy URL duplication across international versions.
    • Duplicate URLs across regional sites were splitting authority and confusing search engines about which version to rank, cannibalising performance before growth could even begin. 
  • Category and intent mismatches in the UK and US.
    • Category structures that worked in Australia didn't reflect how UK and US shoppers actually searched, leaving clear gaps in coverage.
  • Weak internal linking to pages outside navigation.
    •  High-potential pages sitting outside the main navigation had little internal support, making them hard for both users and search engines to find.
  • Technical SEO issues across regions.
    •  Javascript redirects and cross-region routing problems were quietly wasting crawl budget and sending users to the wrong site version.
  • A content strategy built around brand terms, not user intent.
    • Content leaned too heavily on Bondi Sand's own branded language rather than the generic, high-volume terms shoppers were actually searching.

The Plan

We framed the strategy in both regional and unified terms, targets specific enough to hold every market accountable, broad enough to scale as one coordinated campaign. 
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Double keyword rankings in every market
Set a clear 12-month target to double the number of ranking keywords across AU, UK and US, giving every region a measurable growth benchmark.
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Build one holistic strategy across geographies
Designed a single SEO framework flexible enough to scale across all three markets, rather than treating each region as a seperate campaign.
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Outrank marketplaces and generic competitors
Targeted the large marketplaces and category-generic competitors that had been capturing demand Bondi Sands should have owned.
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Strengthen architecture and intent mapping
A dedicated landing page for each major tattoo style, targeting the specific search intent behind each one.

The Execution

With the foundations set, work moved into build mood, fixing what was broken, then scaling content and authority across every region at once.

 

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Architecture and IA Overhaul
Resolved a hidden URL duplication issue splitting authority across four regions, then restructured categories and repositioned branded pages around intent-led terms, like shifting "wash off tan" to the more commonly searched "instant tan", while building internal links to surface high-potential pages hidden outside navigation. 
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Content Rollout
Front-loaded 20 high-traffic pages, each built around clear search intent to guide users through their tanning journey while showcasing complementary products, creating a content experience that felt useful, natural, and lifted visibility across multiple product lines at once.  
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Technical and International SEO
Cleaned up legacy JavaScript redirects that were duplicating pages and wasting crawl budget, then corrected misconfigured routing sending UK users to the EU site, tightening hreflang and regional settings so every fix was mapped against real projected revenue impact. 
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Link Acquisition
Built authority through niche outreach to health, beauty and wellness publishers rather than traditional Digital PR, directing links into optimised inner pages with carefully diversified anchor texts to compete directly with marketplaces and category leaders.
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A premium brand built on more than product quality. 
 
Bondi Sands' positioning as "Australia's #1 Self Tan Brand" reflects the strength StudioHawk needed to protect and extend into new markets, where brand trust alone wasn't enough to guarantee visibility.  

 


The Challenges Overcome

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One overlooked technical flaw undermining four markets at once

A single duplicate URL path was splitting ranking signals across every region simultaneously, meaning no market could gain ground while it went unaddressed. Untangling it required auditing the site's full international structure before any growth work could begin.  

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A local error with global consequences
An incorrectly configured regional setting was quietly funnelling UK shoppers to the wrong storefront entirely. It went unnoticed until conversion data revealed the pattern, a reminder that international SEO problems don't always show up where you'd expect to find them.  
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Winning searches the brand hadn't earned yet
Bondi Sands ranked well for its own name, but that recognition didn't extend to the generic, high-volume terms driving category demand overseas. Closing that gap meant rethinking page structure and language around what international shoppers were actually typing, not what the brand assumed they'd search. 

The Results

Growth across every market: By the end of the engagement, the transformation was clear across all three regions. Ranking keywords grew 94% in Australia, UK keyword rankings rose 105%, and US market visibility increased 54%, proof that a single coordinated strategy could scale across genuinely different search landscapes. 
 
More than a vanity metric: These gains weren't superficial. Stronger keyword footholds translated directly into greater market authority and better organic acquisition across three of Bondi Sands' most important regions, turning fragmented international visibility into a coordinated growth story.     
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94%
Growth in ranking keywords - AU
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105%
Growth in ranking keywords - UK
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54%
Growth in ranking keywords - US

The Conclusion

In one campaign, StudioHawk turned Bondi Sands' fragmented international presence into a coordinated growth story across three markets at once, fixing the technical debt quietly undermining every region, then rebuilding content and structure around how people actually searched.
 
A 94% jump in ranking keywords in Australia. +105% growth in the UK. And +54% in the US, three very different markets, moving in the same direction at the same time. A brand that once relied on reputation alone now competes on search terms it hasn't even tried to own before. 
As of early 2023, we have been actively engaged with Studio Hawk as our preferred SEO Agency Partner. Throughout this period, our collaboration has yielded numerous successes in both our SEO, content and technical strategies. The experience of working alongside the team, including Jenna, Lachlan, and Georgia, has been highly rewarding. Without hesitation, we wholeheartedly endorse Studio Hawk as an exceptional and dependable agency.
Tyler Velasquez
Global eCommerce Manager at Bondi Sands
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