1. The client
A UK-based Shopify store selling NFC cards — tap-to-share digital business cards for professionals and sales teams. A local ecommerce business competing against national retailers and Amazon listings for the same search terms. The brand name stays private at the store's request.
2. The problem: visibility had stalled
When we started, the site's organic traffic had flatlined at around 640 visits a month. The audit pointed to three overlapping causes: technical SEO issues with pages that should have been ranking not being indexed properly; keyword cannibalization, with collection pages and product pages targeting the same keywords and competing against each other; and low-quality backlinks, with the existing link profile dragging performance down instead of lifting it.
None of these is unusual on Shopify. Together, they are enough to keep a store invisible.
3. Why cannibalization hits Shopify stores so hard
Shopify generates multiple page types that can all target the same keyword: collection pages, product pages, tag pages, filtered URLs. When several chase the same term, Google cannot tell which deserves to rank. Ranking signals — internal links, backlinks, content relevance — split across competing URLs instead of concentrating behind one. The result: none ranks well, and positions the store once held quietly slip away.
That was exactly what was happening here. Collection and product pages were stepping on each other's keywords, and the store was losing ground it had already earned.
4. The fix, part one: technical repairs and on-page optimization
We started with a full technical SEO audit and worked through it in priority order. Indexing problems were resolved first — blocked, orphaned, or buried pages were made crawlable and discoverable again, because there is no point building links to pages Google cannot see.
Then the cannibalization was untangled: each keyword was assigned one primary page. Collection pages were optimized to own the category terms; product pages were re-optimized around their specific variants and long-tail terms. Internal linking was restructured so link equity flowed to the right URL instead of being split.
Finally, page-level optimization — titles, meta descriptions, headings, and product copy were rewritten so every key page matched a clear search intent instead of a vague approximation of one. Technical fixes compound: once Google can crawl, index, and match each page to its term, every link and content piece added afterward works harder.
5. The fix, part two: rebuilding authority
The backlink profile was working against the store. Low-quality links do not just fail to help — they dilute the trust signals around a domain.
We rebuilt the profile the manual way: outreach-driven link building on relevant, real websites — the same prospecting, qualification, and personalized-pitch process behind all our link building work. No link farms, no PBNs, nothing the store would later need disavowed. Over the 6 months, the profile shifted from a liability to an asset, and Ahrefs authority metrics moved with it.
6. Content publishing and Pinterest growth
Two growth channels ran alongside the technical and authority work. Content publishing targeted the informational and commercial keywords the store's pages were missing, giving the site more entry points and more reasons for other sites to link to it. Pinterest growth treated the visual product as what it is — NFC cards are a discovery-engine purchase, and the store's Pinterest presence became a referral-traffic channel that also reinforced the brand's topical relevance.
Neither channel works alone: content gives outreach something worth linking to, Pinterest brings buyers who search the brand later, and technical SEO keeps all of it indexable. One plan, not four.
7. The results
Six months after starting, measured in Ahrefs: organic traffic grew from 640 to 8,000 monthly visits (+1,200%); ranking keywords grew from 1.1K to 3.3K; and positions the store had been losing were recovered — this time on the right pages.
The growth was not one viral spike — it was broad-based: more keywords ranking, on more pages, each in a stronger position than before.
8. In the client's words
At the end of the engagement, the client left this review on Upwork (5.0, Oct 3, 2023 – Nov 21, 2023, 210 hours): “Great work, amazing customer service. Good SEO strategy, which had a very positive impact on our website traffic, ranking and conversion. We will be doing more work with Muhammad again.”
“Great work, amazing customer service. Good SEO strategy, which had a very positive impact on our website traffic, ranking and conversion. We will be doing more work with Muhammad again.”
