SUCCESS STORIES

City Beach: Reclaiming Visibility Through SEO Mastery

Even iconic brands can get lost in the search shuffle.

In 2024, City Beach, one of Australia's go-to names in streetwear, noticed its organic performance slipping. Traffic was down, rankings were dropping, and there wasn't an obvious fix.

StudioHawk stepped in to uncover why. With a comprehensive SEO audit and a focused recovery strategy, we helped City Beach reclaim its visibility, and it's edge in the eCommerce market.

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36%

Increase in Organic Impressions

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40%

Lift in non-branded clicks YoY

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Growth in Organic Revenue Share

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The Need

City Beach's organic traffic was in decline. Visibility across key categories and collection pages was dropping, and internal teams were seeing reduced ROI from previous SEO efforts. StudioHawk was brought on board with two distinct goals:

Phase 1: Recovery Mode

Reverse the negative organic trends
Return to a neutral performance baseline
Re-establish strong technical SEO foundations

Phase 2: Growth Mode

Achieve 10-20% YoY organic growth
Scale content and authority across AU, UK and US
Increased non-branded keyword visibility
Drive revenue via high-intent search

This wasn't just fixing technical bugs - it was about regaining ground in one of the most competitive SEO niches online.

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The Plan

To meet both phases of the campaign, we designed a comprehensive SEO roadmap built around four strategic pillars:

Technical SEO Audit & Fixes
We started with a deep dive audit and quickly uncovered a major barrier: pagination issues were blocking search engine crawlers from accessing deeper product pages. Fixing these issued was critical to unblocking site-wide discovery.
AI-Powered Content Strategy
With over 100 collection pages needing unique, region-specific content, we built a customer ChatGPT bot to scale high-quality content tailored to each market. This enabled rapid rollouts across AU, UK and US sites - without sacrificing quality or budgets.
Navigation & Taxonomy Overhaul
We rebuilt City Beach's top navigation and content architecture to align with user behaviour and keyword intent, ensuring that high-value pages were easier to find and index.
Internal Linking & Authority Flow
We implemented a strategic internal linking framework that strengthened the authority of key pages and boosted performance across the site's content ecosystem.

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The Execution

Here's how the strategy came to life over the 12-month campaign.

Technical SEO First
We resolved pagination and crawlability issues that were preventing Google from accessing hundreds of deeper product pages.

Content Rollout at Scale
Using our custom ChatGPT content creator, we generated high-quality, region- specific copy for 100+ collection pages - each one designed to target long-tail, commercial-intent keywords.

Intelligent Navigation Rebuild
The navigation menu was restructured based on actual user search behaviour, leading to a better UX and stronger category page performance.

Internal Linking Frameworks
We rolled out internal linking strategies that connected high-value pages, distributed link equity, and helped Google understand topical relationships across the site.

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One of the key SEO implementations for City Beach was introducing below-the-fold (BTF) content blocks on high-value collection pages.

Previously, these paged had little or no crawlable content - meaning they missed ranking opportunities for long-tail, commercial-intent queries like "hi-top sneakers" or "men's streetwear shoes."

We rolled out SEO-optimised content across 100+ collections using our custom ChatGPT bot. The content was tailored per region (AU,UK,US) and built to enhance indexability without disrupting the user experience.

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Overcoming Challenges

This wasn't a straight path to success. A few of the hurdles we had to navigate:

Brand Competition
City Beach doesn't just sell Nike - they compete with it. The same applies to other stocked brands like Adidas and New Balance. Competing for visibility against brand-owned stores and large marketplaces (e.g., ASOS, JD Sports) meant we had to avoid traditional head-term battles and instead focus on long-tail, intent-driven keywords and collection-based optimisation.

Changing SERPs
Search results began shifting toward product listings and shopping carousels, reducing visibility for traditional collection pages. We adapted quickly, targeting long-tail and information queries that still surfaced traditional organic results.

Regional Complexity
With three different markets - AU, UK and US - our content had to be unique, relevant, and culturally aligned. A single copywriting approach didn't work. Our custom ChatGPT bot ensured localised copy for each region, avoiding duplication and improving engagement.

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The Results

By the end of the 12-month campaign, City Beach didn't just stabilise - they grew.

Organic Visibility

+36% Increase in Total Impressions
+20% More clicks, with non-branded clicks up by nearly 40%
+15% More Sessions, signalling improved engagement
+8% Uplift in Organic Revenue Share, tied directly to SEO improvements.

From a performance freefall to YoY growth, the turnaround was real and measurable.

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Conclusion

City Beach's SEO campaign shows what's possible when you pair deep technical expertise with clear, scalable execution.

Through a combination of:

Strong foundational fixes
Innovative AI-powered content generation
Intent-focused architecture
Regionally tailored SEO strategies

We were able to help City Beach not only recover but grow in a fiercely competitive environment.

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Increase in organic traffic

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Increase in new organic users YoY

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Growth in ranking keywords

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In-depth SEO audit

Uncover weaknesses and opportunities to overtake the competition and gain market share

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Expert traffic analysis

Discover quick wins to boost  your visibility for your most valuable search terms

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Custom SEO roadmap

Get clarity and confidence with an SEO strategy aligned with your goals, industry, and unique challenges

Client success:

36%

Increase in Organic Impressions

40%

Lift in non-branded clicks YoY

Growth in Organic Revenue Share

“City Beach elevated its global search visibility, re-engaged key markets across AU, UK, and US, and laid scalable SEO foundations in one of the most competitive eCommerce categories.”

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City Beach: Reclaiming Visibility Through SEO Mastery

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