Hush Puppies: Strong SEO Foundations for Scalable Growth

StudioHawk created a long-term SEO strategy for Hush Puppies focused on scalable growth, internal enablement, and AI readiness. The campaign was structured around five key focus areas: 

Information Architecture & Site Structure 

• Rebuilt the website's collection hierarchy by launching 70+ new pages aligned with specific search intent and SKU depth. This helped improve crawlability and captured long-tail organic traffic across both men's and women's footwear. 

Collection & Product Page Optimisation 

• Optimised copy, metadata, and internal linking across key collection and product pages. Collaborated with developers to create a custom internal linking widget to strengthen topical relationship between pages.

Content & AI Search Readiness

• Introduced blog content focused on sizing and customer education. Upgraded templates to include structured elements like table of contents and product carousels, and related articles. Summary buttons were also tested to improve citation in AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity. 

Schema & Technical Enhancements

• Developed and rolled out advanced schema for products and collections, including brand, SKU, shipping, return policies, and breadcrumb data - aligning the site with emerging structured data best practices. 

Training & Collaboration

• Invested heavily in education and enablement, allowing the internal team to implement faster. This collaborative model reduced delays and helped stretch the impact of their SEO even more. 

Building a Scalable Site Structure

StudioHawk led the rollout of over 70 new collection pages, filling in critical gaps for high-converting terms like men's chukka boots and women's white sneakers. Eacg page was mapped to keyword demand and SKU depth to ensure relevance and usability. 

Internal linking was planned strategically between parent and child collections (e.g. sandals > black sandals) to build topical authority. A custom internal linking widget, developed in collaboration with Hush Puppies' dev team, further enhanced crawlability and UX. 

Optimising Product Pages AI and Conversions 

As AI search began favouring product-level results, StudioHawk focused on improving product pages ahead of a theme rebuild. This included rewriting product descriptions, training the internal team, and embedding conversion elements like sizing details, Afterpay callouts, and Qantas Points. 

Laying Foundations for Informational SEO

While the early campaign focused heavily on structural SEO, later stages introduced a content strategy focused on AI visibility and user education. A key initiative wad the creation of a sizing-focused content hub to address key friction points in customer service.  

StudioHawk developed a blog calendar and collaborated on new templates that featured tables of contents, product carousels, and related articles - helping these blogs serve both users and search engines. Summary buttons were also tested to increase the likelihood of citation in AI-driven platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity. 

Rolling Out Schema for Modern Search

Before working with StudioHawk, the site relied on a basic schema typical of most Shopify themes. StudioHawk introduced comprehensive markup across key page types, including: 

• Product schema with brand, SKU, return policy, and availability 
• Collection schema with organisation data and breadcrumb structure 
• Organisational schema sitewide to improve trust signals and indexing 

These upgrades improved how the site was understood by search engines and helped future-proof the brand against ongoing SERP changes.  

Training and Enablement

Through regular training sessions, documentation, and collaborative execution, StudioHawk empowered the internal Hush Puppies' team to implement content, fix schema, and action on-site changes independently - dramatically improving campaign velocity.