Industry
E-commerce / Fashion
Location
Lyon, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
Duration
10 months
Challenge
Legacy SEO vendor built links from coupon and deal blogs with thin French content. Google Search Console showed manual action risk signals in link profile samples. Organic revenue from France flatlined despite increased ad spend.
Strategy
Disavow preparation paired with aggressive editorial replacement. We launched seasonal shopping research (French capsule wardrobe spending) and founder story angles tied to Lyon textile heritage. Outreach targeted regional press (Le Progrès) and national lifestyle verticals.
Consumer research placement
Survey of 2,100 French women aged 25-44 on wardrobe spending habits and resale behavior. Elle.fr referenced the study in a sustainable fashion piece with followed link. Regional lifestyle blogs in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes republished with canonical to our research hub.
Internal links from the hub connected to category pages using natural descriptive anchors.
Heritage storytelling
Founder interview pitched as Lyon manufacturing revival narrative, not product catalog. Le Progrès ran a business section feature with link to about page. Story was reprised by a national slow fashion newsletter with 48k subscribers.
Before and after metrics
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| organic Sessions | 12,400 / mo | 21,800 / mo |
| referring Domains | 210 | 186 |
| avg Position | 31.1 | 16.4 |
| ctr | 2.1% | 3.8% |
Performance data
Campaign timeline
Month 1
Link profile cleanup plan
Classified toxic domains. Began editorial outreach before disavow submission.
Month 4
Elle.fr placement
National lifestyle feature indexed with followed link.
Month 10
Revenue share shift
Organic revenue share from France increased 67% year over year.
Outcome analysis
Referring domain count intentionally decreased while quality scores improved. Toxic link ratio dropped below client threshold. Rankings on category terms recovered without manual action. CTR improvements followed SERP snippet alignment with editorial language.