12x ROI from SEO: A Romanian E-commerce Story
How a small online store ranked #1 for competitive keywords without backlinks.
📋 Contents
🎯 Niche
Handmade leather goods
💰 Investment
€500 (content writer)
📈 ROI
12x
1. Before: invisible on Google
A Romanian e-commerce store selling handmade leather goods had:
- ❌ 0 keywords in top 100
- ❌ 150 monthly organic visits
- ❌ 2 backlinks (both from own sites)
- ✅ Good products, great photos, fair prices
They tried buying backlinks (€300) – nothing changed.
2. Technical SEO: fixing the foundation
We ran an SEO audit and found 3 critical issues:
🚀 Speed
Mobile: 34/100
→ 89/100
📱 Mobile
Not responsive
→ Fixed
🔗 Structure
Duplicate titles
→ Unique H1
Cost: €0 (did it themselves). Result: Core Web Vitals passed in 2 weeks.
3. Content strategy: answer questions, not just sell
Instead of writing product descriptions, they created buyer's guides:
- 📘 "How to choose a leather wallet that lasts 10 years"
- 📘 "Full-grain vs top-grain leather: which is better?"
- 📘 "Leather care guide: products and techniques"
- 📘 "Gift guide for men who appreciate craftsmanship"
Investment: €500 for a freelance writer (5 articles).
Keywords targeted: "leather wallet guide", "how to clean leather bag" – low competition, high commercial intent.
4. 6-month results
📊 Before vs After
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Organic visits/month | 150 | 8,400 |
| Keywords in top 10 | 0 | 43 |
| Monthly revenue | €500 | €6,000 |
5. 12x ROI breakdown
Investment
€500
Monthly return
€6,000
ROI = 12x in 6 months
"We thought SEO was about backlinks. Turns out it's about answering questions better than anyone else." — Founder
🔍 Want to rank without backlinks?
Start with technical SEO and content that answers real customer questions.
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