The SEO Audit that helped reverse a 60% drop in organic visibility
A ecommerce SEO audit case study for Classroom Secrets
HOW THE REBUILD OF A SUBSCRIPTION SITE
SERIOUSLY DENTED SEO VISIBILITY
INTRODUCING CLASSROOM SECRETS...
Classroom Secret's is one of the UK's leading EduTech businesses providing resources and worksheets to schools and students alike.
Their new custom built site consisted of over 68k URLs, 18k worksheets and 3k categories, but switching it on caused a 60% drop in visibility in Google. See the site at classroomsecrets.co.uk
THE CHALLENGE
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Audit the website (and associated subdomain)
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Understand the reasons behind the drop in visibility
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Provide clear guidance for how to restore visibility
Over the years Classroom Secrets has only gone from strength to strength so the drop in visibility was completely unexpected.
Was it a result of errors in the SEO migration? Errors with the code of the new site? Or had core algorithm updates unhappily coincided with the new site switch on? it was my job to find out.
THE INITIAL APPROACH...
The first job was to compare performance before switching on the new site and performance once the new site had gone live. This meant looking at...
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What content had been added?
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What content had been deleted?
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What content had been edited since the switch over?
I then compared, using Google Search Console, what the patterns were for the site being indexed to explain what had caused such a drop in visibility.
Cross referencing the dates the switch on happened we were quickly able to rule out a core algorithm update. Likewise, I reviewed the redirect maps for the SEO migration and everything was correct there.
It turned out the root cause was a massive drop in indexed URLs caused by somebody leaving a sitewide 'noindex' tag on the site for much longer than it should have been. It had already been removed, meaning you would expect pages to quickly recover. Instead, months later, thousands of URLs pages were 'ready' to be indexed, but were still being ignored by Google.
It turns out, there were multiple reasons for this. Each one of them was small but combined they had a significant cumulative effect. The combined issues were continuing to prevent Google's ability to crawl and index the site which would have allowed for the previously noindexed pages to be restored in Google.
KEY CHALLENGES
1. NOINDEX TAGS ADDED
Adding a sitewide noindex tag to a site will rapidly remove URLs from search engines
5. LIMITED INTERNAL LINKING ON PDP'S
Missing links between interconnected PDP's (and PLP's) will limit discovery of new pages
2. 'INVISIBLE' MAIN NAVIGATION
The way a main nav is coded is crucial for search engines to (re)discover and crawl core pages
6. LIMITED INTERNAL LINKING OF PLP'S
Missing links between interconnected PLP's will prevent discovery and indexing of new URLs
3. TOO MANY LINKS IN MAIN NAVIGATION
Even if a main nav is visible, it should only signpost to the key pages, not everything on site
7. MISSING BREADCRUMBS
Lack of breadcrumbs (plus lack of schema) will restrict Google's ability to find URLs to see changes
4. INCORRECT XML SITEMAP
The code of an XML sitemap has to be correct in order for Google to see changes to pages
8. CANONICAL CONFUSION
Google will choose incorrect canonical URLs if content is not logically added and linked to
THE RESULTS
While the SEO Audit (delivered April 2025) took several months to be implemented, changes have begun to be made to the site and overall SEO visibility is continuing to increase to over 27k organic searches a month.
Data from SE Ranking
ADDITIONAL BENEFITS
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Once fully implemented, the SEO audit will provide a solid technical foundation of the site to build on going forwards
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The SEO audit provided a useful framework for managing future agile website upgrades in line with best SEO practices
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The SEO audit gave the team a clear benchmark for how well the site is performing relative to their commercial goals
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The SEO audit gave the team the necessary clarity and detail for what to prioritise on the site to maximise SEO oppourtunity
“Dan is extremely thorough and knowledgable and gave really helpful advice to our team. He's a really nice guy as well and that just makes him a pleasure to work with"
Claire Riley
Co-Founder of Classroom Secrets
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IS YOUR STORE NOT GENERATING THE SALES IT SHOULD?
Ecommerce SEO can be complicated, particularly when you're planning a site rebuild. For a clear and honest insight to see what may be holding your store back, contact me for a no-obligation initial 30 minute conversation about your website and its SEO performance.