4× Organic Traffic and 5× Transactions in Six Months: SEO for the Columbia Brand

Solution

Our goal was to ensure stable organic traffic growth and attract leads. To achieve this, we developed and implemented a comprehensive SEO strategy covering three main areas:

The first two areas were relatively straightforward, requiring clear planning and systematic execution. We ensured an increase in high-quality external links from relevant sources and optimized content for queries in priority categories and filters to expand the semantic coverage and improve page relevance.

A more challenging task was technical optimization. This work required in-depth analysis, adaptation to the platform’s functional requirements, and the development of non-standard solutions. More details are provided below.

Website Structure Analysis

We started with an audit. This step is the foundation of all SEO work, as it helps identify issues that can directly affect site performance and search rankings.

We analyzed the current site structure and compared it with competitors. Based on this data, we developed an optimized category hierarchy for columbia.ua, taking into account search demand, query frequency, and user intent.

Why this matters: a clear site structure helps search engines better index pages and allows users to find the products they need more quickly. This positively impacts both SEO and user experience.

During regular site optimization, we identified an issue that was limiting the site’s ranking growth: insufficient internal linking to main categories in the mobile version.
‍

The mobile version lacked internal links to priority categories, which meant they weren’t receiving enough internal link equity. We solved this by adding links to key pages in the footer, improving their indexing and helping redistribute link equity across the site.

Filter Page Optimization

We analyzed search demand and identified the filters users most often use to find products.

Actions Taken

• Enabled indexing for filter pages with stable search demand, such as:
  
  • Seasonal filters: men’s and women’s winter jackets, winter pants, etc.
  • Product type specifics: thermal jackets, thermal boots.
  • Usage or purpose filters: ski jackets.
    
    
• Created unique, helpful content that meets user needs for these pages — optimized headings, meta tags, and descriptions aligned with key search queries.
  
  
• Set up internal linking from relevant categories to the new pages to speed up indexing and improve link equity distribution.
  
  

Why this matters: Filter pages provide additional entry points for potential buyers. Optimizing them allows for extra organic traffic from highly specific queries, which often have strong commercial intent.

Other Technical Improvements

We also implemented a range of technical enhancements aimed at improving how search engine bots crawl the site:

• Optimized pagination pages and configured them so that search engines correctly understand the overall site structure.

‍

Pagination pages are additional category pages that appear when navigating to the “next page” of products (e.g., /category?page=2). Without optimization, they can create duplicates, reducing SEO effectiveness.

• Blocked technical pages of the Horoshop platform that do not add value for indexing.
  Using robots.txt and meta tags, we excluded service pages (e.g., filters with no demand, duplicates, technical parameters) that are not valuable for search indexing.
  
  

Why this matters: crawling is the process by which search engine bots scan site pages to add them to the search index. If technical pages are not blocked, they can consume the crawl budget and interfere with the indexing of priority pages that generate traffic and sales.

‍

• Reduced duplicate pages, which improved indexing quality.

We analyzed and eliminated duplicates caused by pagination, incorrect filter operation, or URL formation. This positively impacted indexing quality and the overall SEO structure of the site.

Results

The Columbia brand case study is a great example of how proper technical site setup can quickly deliver the desired results, regardless of the CMS.

We began implementing changes in September, and by the end of October, traffic had already doubled.

‍

Thanks to the work carried out, the site’s visibility increased significantly — a tenfold growth.

‍

As a result of increased organic traffic, the client saw a significant rise in sales: the number of transactions through this channel grew by 580% in five months.

What’s next?

Our SEO team has a clear plan for the next steps in promoting the site.

We plan to:

• Work on the next 15 product categories.
• Strengthen the external link profile by acquiring more high-quality backlinks.
• Improve site visibility in search engines through ongoing SEO optimization.

Create new content (new texts and the launch of additional traffic-generating filters).