SEO Case Studies, With the Screenshot for Each
Most SEO case studies are a percentage with no denominator. This page is the Ahrefs panel for thirteen projects, uncropped, with the numbers read straight off it.
Eleven worked and two did not, and all thirteen are here. The two that did not are written up the same way as the rest, because a set with no failures in it has been curated before you see it.
Where the work was done
These are contract projects across several years. The audiences are mostly United States, with some United Kingdom and Canada, and in one case Sweden and Germany. The panels show the market for each one.
Search does not behave differently by country. What differs is the language mix, the working week, the competition depth and the size of the prize, all of which this site covers elsewhere.
What the set demonstrates is that the method is not theoretical. Technical work, category pages, internal structure and patient content took a Domain Rating of 21 to four times its traffic, and took a parenting site from nothing to ninety-five thousand sessions a month.
The first Qatar results will appear here with the same panel and the same dates as soon as they exist.
How to read a chart like this
Four numbers matter on each panel and the rest is decoration.
Organic traffic
is Ahrefs estimating monthly sessions from ranking positions. It is an estimate, it is usually conservative on branded terms, and it is the same estimate applied to everybody, which makes it comparable even when it is not exact.Traffic value
is what that traffic would cost as ads at the same volume. It is the most useful single figure on the panel, because five thousand sessions in a category where a click costs eleven dollars is a different business from fifty thousand where it costs nine cents. It is why the men's fashion project, which doubled, is worth less per month than the pharmaceutical one, which barely moved.Top three
counts the terms sitting in the first three organic results. Positions four to ten collect a fraction of the clicks, so this number moves the revenue while total keyword count mostly moves the ego.Domain Rating
is a link-strength score from zero to one hundred. It is the number providers quote when they want to sell links, and the car rental project below is the argument against that, because it is the lowest DR in the set and among the strongest results.
The shape of the line matters more than any of them. A step means something specific changed and held. A steady climb means compounding. A rise that flattens and slides means the work stopped.
What is missing from this page
There are no client names, because the work was done under contract and the panels are shown by sector instead. There are no conversion or revenue figures, because those sit in analytics accounts that belong to those clients and are not mine to publish. Traffic is what can be evidenced, so traffic is what is claimed.
There are also no percentages in the headlines. The chart and the panel are there and you can work out the multiple yourself, which is the point of showing them.
Start with your own numbers
The most useful thing on this page is not any of the panels. It is that you can run the same read on your own site in ten minutes and see which of these shapes you have.
A free audit does it properly: what is wrong, what you can fix without paying anyone, and what you cannot. Two working days, four fields, and the reply is written by hand.
All thirteen, newest work first
Each panel is the Ahrefs screenshot for that project, shown whole. The line above it is traced from the same chart so the shape is scannable.
Two years to January 2024
- Organic traffic
- 95.3K
- a month
- Traffic value
- $15.3K
- a month
- Top three
- 1.1K
- terms
- Domain Rating
- 44
- 1.2K domains
Parenting and family content
Flat at almost nothing for eighteen months, then 0 to 95,000 sessions a month in about nine. The long flat stretch is the part worth looking at: this is what the first year of a content play looks like before it compounds.
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- United States 70.8%
- India 11.6%
- United Kingdom 5.4%
Ahrefs Site Explorer, unedited. Open full size.One year to April 2024
- Organic traffic
- 35.4K
- a month
- Traffic value
- $49.9K
- a month
- Top three
- 313
- terms
- Domain Rating
- 39
- 461 domains
Pharmaceutical manufacturer
A step rather than a climb: a flat year, then a jump in September that held. The highest traffic value of the set at $49.9K a month, on only 461 referring domains, which is what a strong commercial category looks like.
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- United States 93.1%
- Canada 5.0%
Ahrefs Site Explorer, unedited. Open full size.One year to April 2024
- Organic traffic
- 33.5K
- a month
- Traffic value
- $13.3K
- a month
- Top three
- 792
- terms
- Domain Rating
- 54
- 843 domains
Fine jewellery retail
Roughly a tripling across the year, with a dip in the first two months before it turned. 792 terms in the top three on a Shopify store, which is the platform people are most often told cannot do SEO.
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- United States 98.8%
- United Kingdom 0.4%
Ahrefs Site Explorer, unedited. Open full size.Six months to April 2024
- Organic traffic
- 27K
- a month
- Traffic value
- $9.6K
- a month
- Top three
- 553
- terms
- Domain Rating
- 28
- 2.1K domains
Crypto trading platform
Close to doubled in six months on a technical brief rather than a content one. Domain Rating 28, which is low for the traffic, so the work was structural.
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- United States 59.4%
- United Kingdom 6.9%
- Germany 5.8%
Ahrefs Site Explorer, unedited. Open full size.Six months to March 2024
- Organic traffic
- 26K
- a month
- Traffic value
- $7K
- a month
- Top three
- 174
- terms
- Domain Rating
- 42
- 640 domains
Cleaning and hygiene supplies
A step up in December, then genuinely volatile: the last three months swing by a third either way. 26,000 sessions on only 2,900 keywords means a small number of pages carrying nearly all of it, which is a concentration risk worth naming.
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- United States 90.2%
- Canada 8.0%
Ahrefs Site Explorer, unedited. Open full size.Two years to April 2024
- Organic traffic
- 25.1K
- a month
- Traffic value
- $5.4K
- a month
- Top three
- 704
- terms
- Domain Rating
- 40
- 830 domains
Dental and medical clinic
Up roughly sevenfold over two years, then down about a quarter from its September 2023 peak. It is in the set because that decline is the honest half: traffic that has stopped being maintained goes backwards, and the chart shows exactly when.
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- United States 68.4%
- United Kingdom 8.5%
- India 7.3%
Ahrefs Site Explorer, unedited. Open full size.One year to April 2024
- Organic traffic
- 24.2K
- a month
- Traffic value
- $11.5K
- a month
- Top three
- 477
- terms
- Domain Rating
- 37
- 1.8K domains
AI services, SaaS
The one genuinely multi-market project here, and the most relevant to a Qatar business selling across the Gulf. Four countries carrying real share, which only works when the hreflang and the country targeting are right.
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- United States 40.4%
- Sweden 20.8%
- Germany 16.6%
Ahrefs Site Explorer, unedited. Open full size.One year to March 2024
- Organic traffic
- 22.3K
- a month
- Traffic value
- $18.1K
- a month
- Top three
- 952
- terms
- Domain Rating
- 40
- 2.8K domains
Logistics and freight
Flat across the year, and that is the result. It dipped through the middle and recovered, ending roughly where it started while referring domains nearly doubled. Holding position in a category that was moving is not nothing, but it is not growth and is not sold as growth.
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- United States 94.6%
- Canada 1.2%
Ahrefs Site Explorer, unedited. Open full size.One year to April 2024
- Organic traffic
- 17K
- a month
- Traffic value
- $31.1K
- a month
- Top three
- 543
- terms
- Domain Rating
- 21
- 241 domains
Car rental
About four times the traffic in a year, from a Domain Rating of 21 and 241 referring domains. The clearest case in the set for the argument that authority is not the gate most people are told it is. $31.1K of monthly traffic value on the lowest DR here.
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- United States 99.6%
Ahrefs Site Explorer, unedited. Open full size.One year to April 2024
- Organic traffic
- 13.7K
- a month
- Traffic value
- $11.9K
- a month
- Top three
- 259
- terms
- Domain Rating
- 43
- 480 domains
Parking services
Noisy, modestly up, and the referring domain count is falling in the last quarter, which is links being lost faster than they are being replaced. A chart worth showing precisely because it is unremarkable.
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- United States 91.5%
- Russian Federation 2.3%
Ahrefs Site Explorer, unedited. Open full size.One year to April 2024
- Organic traffic
- 13.6K
- a month
- Traffic value
- $14.1K
- a month
- Top three
- 456
- terms
- Domain Rating
- 53
- 1K domains
Industrial manufacturing
A steady half again across the year in a low-volume B2B category. 373,000 backlinks against 1,000 referring domains, which is a ratio worth understanding before anybody quotes you for link building.
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- United States 78.1%
- United Kingdom 7.3%
- Italy 2.0%
Ahrefs Site Explorer, unedited. Open full size.One year to April 2024
- Organic traffic
- 11.9K
- a month
- Traffic value
- $3.5K
- a month
- Top three
- 219
- terms
- Domain Rating
- 51
- 857 domains
Men's fashion and apparel
Roughly doubled across the year, on the lowest traffic value in the set at $3.5K. Apparel terms are cheap per click, so the traffic is worth less than the same volume elsewhere, and judging this one on sessions alone would flatter it.
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- United States 68.0%
- United Kingdom 10.8%
- Hong Kong 10.2%
Ahrefs Site Explorer, unedited. Open full size.Six months to April 2024
- Organic traffic
- 9.7K
- a month
- Traffic value
- $9.9K
- a month
- Top three
- 541
- terms
- Domain Rating
- 37
- 442 domains
Remodelling and renovation
A little over three times the traffic in six months, and 541 terms in the top three on 4,700 tracked. A local services category, which is the closest of these to how a Qatar trade business actually earns enquiries.
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- United States 95.8%
- Canada 1.2%
Ahrefs Site Explorer, unedited. Open full size.