Starting work for a renowned client in the financial services industry almost a year ago I was tasked with improving their performance in organic search.
The first hurdle was that their website was in a CMS I’d never even heard of before – Silverstripe.
I conducted a comprehensive website and SEO audit, drew up a long-term SEO strategy with some tactics along the way, and won an SEO retainer for the agency. Then I logged in, improved titles, descriptions, image alt attributes, the knowledge graph, NAP, etc.
But there was one thing I didn’t have access to – the copy.
This went on for a long time, being unable to edit the body copy of their web pages until, one day their web developer was leaving and all of a sudden I had access to the content. I asked him what he’d done to finally allow me access – he said he hadn’t done anything.
Weird.
Full Access
Anyway, now that I had access to the actual content, I was able to clean up the copy, fix the typos, expand acronyms, build internal links, add appropriate HTML tweaks, and generally make the on-page SEO improvements that were vitally needed.
This was almost 8 months after gaining access to their project.
I’d managed to make marginal gains of sufficient progress to keep the client happy, until I reported on the March/April 2026 results.
For some reason, we’d skipped the March results meeting, probably due to clashes in calendars, a new account manager transitioning in, etc. But when we did finally meet up, in early May, I reported on both March and April’s results in the one session.
I combined the data and gave them the good news about April, and with dramatic effect, the even better results for May.
Triple Digit Increases
What we basically had was +834% impressions, and +765% clicks. CTR was down a little but the average position, year-on-year, was up from 24.5 to 8
All that hard work had finally paid off.
Of course, there was a Google March 2026 core update around the time, and that may have rewarded us for all the helpful content work I did and the attention to detail in the website. But ultimately, my SEO work really boosted the client’s site.
And the GA4 data? Well, the sales were up around 300%. Reporting this to them, they loved the drama of my presentation, saying March was good, and April, well… it was even better. Their reactions, the look on their faces and the positive comments were some of the nicest I’ve ever had as a digital marketer. The customer satisfaction alone was more than enough for me.
Secure my Digital Marketing Expertise
If you want me to do your SEO and improve your website’s chances of being cited in AI Search etc., let me know – Call me on 01252 692 765 or leave a message via my contact page.