I build Shopify stores that rank highly in search results
I specialise in building high-performing Shopify stores in terms of design, lead generation, sales and search engine rankings. I am based in Torquay and provide a first-class service to businesses throughout Devon including Totnes, Paignton, Newton Abbot, Kingsbridge, Exeter, Exmouth, Bideford, Plymouth and even Cornwall.
My primary expertise is in building eCommerce websites on the Shopify platform. I have a great deal of success and experience in optimising content for high search engine visibility and high conversion rates.
“All my clients are happy to receive a call to discuss the value of my services”
As a Shopify Partner I have a deep understanding of the Shopify platform and the stores I have built regularly rank in the top 10% of stores launched in the same week.
Migrating to Shopify
Since the coronavirus crisis, shopping has fundamentally changed. Shopify is now bigger than eBay with a market capitalisation of $120 billion compared to eBay’s $40 billion and Shopify’s Gross Merchandise Volume (GMV) for the second quarter 2020 was $30.1 billion compared to eBay’s $27.1 billion. For the first time, Shopify processed more transaction volume than eBay.
I have helped a number of clients to successfully migrate their ecommerce websites to Shopify from numerous platforms such as WordPress, WooCommerce, eBay and Amazon as part of an omni-channel strategy.
Case Studies
DJM Direct
The Challenge
DJM Direct, a specialist in reconditioned tools and equipment, sought to transform their underperforming Shopify store into a significant revenue channel alongside their successful Amazon and eBay operations. Despite previous investments in Google Ads and SEO, their website struggled to generate meaningful sales, leading to years of neglect.
The Solution
The transformation centred on a complete redesign and restructuring of DJM Direct's Shopify store, encompassing their extensive 1,800+ product catalogue. The mobile-optimised theme was enhanced with conversion-focused product pages and an advanced navigation system for improved product discovery. Trust signals were strengthened through the integration of Judge.me verified customer reviews, while the checkout process was streamlined with automated cart recovery and a mandatory pre-checkout question to capture accurate customer journey and search behaviour data. The comprehensive SEO strategy ensured the store's improved visibility for high-value search terms, particularly in the reconditioned tools market.
The store redesign and restructuring strategy focused on:
Complete catalogue restructuring to optimise 1,800+ product lines
Mobile-optimised theme implementation with conversion-focused product pages
Strategic SEO optimisation targeting high-value search terms
Integration of Judge.me verified-customer reviews system
Intuitive navigation and filtering system for improved product discovery
Abandoned cart recovery system implementation
Checkout optimisation with customer feedback integration
Technical Implementation
Developed intuitive category structures aligned with customer search patterns
Implemented schema markup for enhanced search engine visibility
Created collection pages focused on key product features and buyer priorities
Established clear product naming conventions and attribute structures
Built mobile-responsive designs ensuring seamless cross-device experience
SEO Optimisation
Implemented Judge.me review schema markup to display star ratings in Google Search results
Optimised product and collection page meta data
Created accurate and detailed product descriptions
Enhanced schema markup for products and categories
Improved site structure for better crawlability
Conversion Rate Optimisation
Integrated product-specific verified customer reviews on product pages
Implemented dynamic dispatch notifications showing "Ships Today" for orders before 2:30 PM, automatically calculating next available dispatch day for other times
Built trust through clear delivery promises and real-time availability updates
Added social proof elements through prominently displayed verified customer feedback
Marketing Intelligence
To gather accurate insights about customer acquisition, the checkout process was enhanced with a mandatory field asking customers what they searched for to find the store. This implementation has proven invaluable in understanding true customer journeys, often revealing significant disparities between digital analytics and actual customer behaviour. For instance, while analytics might attribute a sale to a direct Google search, customer feedback frequently reveals earlier touchpoints such as YouTube videos that influenced the purchase decision. This deeper understanding of the customer journey enables more informed marketing decisions and better resource allocation across different channels.
Results
In subsequent months following launch:
73% increase in year-on-year revenue
3.03% conversion rate (18% YoY improvement)
68% increase in returning customer rate (19.19% total)
Achieved #1 rankings for key product searches:
Top reseller ranking for "refurb sealey" (after Sealey themselves)
Outranking the original brands for "refurb baridi" and "refurb dellonda"
#1 position for "refurb draper"
Outranking Draper for "draper refurbished tools uk"
The project transformed DJM Direct's web presence from an underperforming channel into a significant revenue stream, achieving conversion rates twice the Shopify average of 1.4%, placing them in the Top 20% of all Shopify stores.
BARBUOY COCKTAILS
Barbuoy Cocktails experienced a common dilemma where design took precedence over practicality. This issue is frequently introduced by graphic design firms that prioritise form over function. For e-commerce sites, it’s crucial that functionality and user experience lead the design process. Adherence to established online shopping conventions is key to ensuring customers aren’t alienated by a confusing interface. A negative shopping experience not only drives potential customers away but also greatly diminishes the likelihood of their return.
I built an entirely new store for Barbuoy and included features such as buyer-verified review stars and dynamic dispatch promise that displays the projected dispatch day based on a cut-off time. e.g. Before 3pm it displays ‘Ships Today’ and after 3pm it displays ‘Ships Tomorrow’, unless tomorrow is a weekend, in which case it searches for the next available shipping day - taking into account UK bank holidays and displays something like ‘Ships Tues 15th Nov’.
I also built an accordion set whereby each product has bespoke content relating to its ingredients, serving instructions, awards, tasting notes and food pairing suggestions. The accordion set changes depending on the type of product being viewed.
GROW SOW GREENER
I undertook a major overhaul of the Grow Sow Greener store, implementing one of Shopify’s very latest Online Store 2.0 themes (Sense), in order to take advantage of the most recent advances in store features and performance. I completely restructured the collections and navigation and implemented the product filtering feature shown in the image above to make product selection easier for customers.
I also implemented the Judge.me buyer-verified reviews app and ensured review stars are shown beneath each product on the collections pages and above-the-fold on product pages.
To ensure high ranking for the primary landing pages, such as the collection pages, I added optimised narratives with internal linking. These actions have generated a YoY increase of 147% in visitors, 121% increase in revenue and a 73% increase in average order value.
In testing via a VPN to obfuscate location and IP address, with a clean browser in an incognito tab and not logged in to Google, to ensure no search history or cookies would influence the search result, Grow Sow Greener ranked top for all their primary search query targets (example below):
GILBOYS
Gilboys migrated to Shopify from WordPress and have been extremely successful selling on Shopify, Amazon, eBay and Etsy with an omni-channel strategy. Massive sales growth has been driven by our implementation of an aggressive SEO strategy that includes building great, informative content, regular posting of instructional videos on their YouTube channel and automated publishing of verified-buyer reviews on social media.
TORBAYMX
TorbayMX was a ‘green site’ Shopify build as they had never sold online previously. Their inexperience meant that this needed to be a very hands-on project. I managed just about every aspect of setting up the online business, from ordering the correct label printer and setting up the shipping rates and processes to shooting new product imagery and setting up the email system. Where the product imagery and descriptions provided by suppliers was poor, I shot new product images and wrote Search Engine Optimised (SEO) product descriptions. As this is a highly competitive market, I implemented just about every trick in the SEO & Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) playbook. An example would be adding the line “Ships Today (48Hr Tracked)” next to the price if the local time is before the same-day shipping cut-off deadline of 3pm - else it says “Ships Tomorrow (48Hr Tracked)”.
Within two weeks (4th April 2022) TorbayMX was ranking No.3 in Google Search Results for “Alpinestars tech 7 boots black uk size 11”.
RIVIERA HORTICULTURE
Riviera Horticulture had set-up their Shopify store themselves and were struggling with Google ranking, page loading speeds and conversion rates.
I implemented an up-to-date Online Store 2.0 theme (Empire) and added User Experience (UX) enhancements such as a verified-buyer review system (judge.me), product filtering, display layout options and predictive search.
I also added bespoke code to display when the customer can expect the product to be despatched.
AMPRO
AMPRO, the legendary British boxing equipment brand had been dormant for a number of years and required a modern ecommerce platform. I designed and set-up their Shopify store, including removing backgrounds from product images and cropping and resizing all images to ensure a consistent feel across the site.
The client required a ‘On This Day’ section that would automatically display a blog article about important events in boxing history. In order to accomplish this we created blog articles for significant dates and set the ‘publish date’ for future related dates in the coming year.
AMPRO scheduled ‘On This Day’ blog posts
UNIQUE BABY GIFT BASKETS
This was a migration project from WooCommerce on WordPress to Shopify. We successfully migrated all 279 products and rebuilt the tag structure to enable filtering by product type in each collection. In the ‘Twins’ collection we felt an improved User Experience would be to enable filtering by gender or gender mix.
We implemented a url redirects map to ensure all the existing live urls in Google’s index and across recent social media posts redirect to the appropriate pages on the new Shopify store prior to switching over the domain on the nameservers.
KANTHA BEACH
Kantha beach had been selling via DMs on Instagram but such was the demand that they needed a more organised back-end system for processing all the orders. They also had many customers on Instagram asking if they had an online shop where they could browse the entire range of products.
The brief was for a clean and simple design and we settled on the most basic free Shopify template, Debut.
To ensure an optimal conversion rate I added bespoke code to display when the item will ship. Prior to 3pm the message displays “Ships Today” and after 3pm it displays “Ships Tomorrow”, unless the day is a Friday or a holiday, in which case the next shipping day is displayed.
I also implemented the Judge.me buyer-verified reviews system and ensured the review stars appear immediately under the product title and when clicked scroll the page to the reviews.
BRIDIE & BERT
Bridie & Bert were not happy with the new store that had been built for them by a graphic design agency and requested my help to bring it up to a professional standard.
I undertook a number of remedial measures including product categorisation restructuring to ensure adherence to the Shopify Standard Product Taxonomy, collections and product pages redesigns and numerous technical SEO tasks. I also implemented the Judge.me verified-customer review system to ensure review stars would display in Google Search Results.
AIR INDUSTRIES
Industrial compressors are not the sexiest products in the world, but customers are not buying them for their looks. What was important to Air Industries was that customers could view the products from every angle in detail and that the product specifications would be clear and displayed in an easy-to-read layout.
They were already selling via an eBay shop, so I implemented a plug-in that would automatically import all the products to Shopify and then reformatted the product descriptions for both SEO and improved legibility. e.g. formatting the data into easily readable tables that dynamically scale to the screen size they are viewed on.
BEEBEE & LEAF
The BeeBee & Leaf was newly acquired and the new owners of the business wanted to re-organise the structure to better reflect the customer’s decision-making process when buying beeswax wraps.
I implemented an up-to-date OS2.0 theme (Pipeline), restructured the products, collections and menu system, implemented judge.me buyer-verified reviews system, added a ‘you might also like’ section on the product pages and added a ‘how did you hear about us’ feedback box and a ‘spend £x more for free shipping’ feature at checkout.
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Client Testimonials
You might need my SEO expertise when:
Your products or services are not ranking well in search results for queries related to your market
Your website appears to be getting visitors, but no-one is calling or buying
Your products are not ranking well on platforms such as Google, Amazon, Youtube, eBay, Etsy etc
Your social media posts are not reaching enough people or not driving enough sales