AI & Automation
Personas
Ecommerce
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
Last year, I was spending €5,000 monthly on an "enterprise" SEO agency for an ecommerce client with over 3,000 products. The results? Mediocre at best. After months of generic reporting and minimal improvements, I made a decision that completely changed how I approach ecommerce SEO.
I fired the expensive agency and built my own AI-powered SEO system that delivered better results for a fraction of the cost. Here's the reality: most ecommerce SEO services are overpriced for what they actually deliver.
In this playbook, you'll discover exactly how I:
Identified the difference between affordable and cheap SEO services
Built a scalable AI content system that optimized 20,000+ pages
Achieved 10x traffic growth in 3 months using in-house automation
Created a replicable framework that works for stores of any size
Reduced SEO costs by 80% while improving actual results
Whether you're currently working with an overpriced agency or trying to find affordable ecommerce SEO services, this case study will show you exactly what actually works (and what's just expensive fluff).
Industry Reality
What "affordable" actually means in ecommerce SEO
When most store owners search for "affordable ecommerce SEO services," they find a confusing landscape of pricing that ranges from €99/month to €8,000/month. The industry has created this artificial divide where you're either buying cheap, spammy SEO or paying premium prices for "enterprise" services.
Here's what the industry typically tells you about ecommerce SEO pricing:
Entry-level services (€500-1,500/month): Basic on-page optimization and some content creation
Mid-range services (€1,500-5,000/month): Technical audits, content strategy, and link building
Enterprise services (€5,000-15,000/month): Full-service optimization with dedicated account managers
Cheap services (under €500/month): Avoid at all costs - black hat tactics and poor results
The conventional wisdom says you need to choose between quality and cost. Expensive agencies justify their rates by claiming they have "specialized ecommerce expertise" and "advanced strategies." They'll show you fancy dashboards, monthly reports, and talk about "comprehensive audits."
Most agencies structure their services around manual processes that require large teams. They'll assign 3-4 people to your account: a strategist, content writer, technical SEO specialist, and account manager. This overhead drives up costs, but doesn't necessarily drive better results.
The dirty secret? Most of what expensive agencies do can be automated or systematized. They're charging premium prices for work that could be done more efficiently with the right tools and processes.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
When I started working with this particular ecommerce client, they were already paying €5,000 monthly to a "top-tier" SEO agency. The store had over 3,000 products across 8 different languages, so the agency positioned this as a "complex enterprise project" requiring their premium services.
The client came to me because after 6 months with this expensive agency, they were seeing minimal results. Organic traffic had increased by only 12%, and most of that growth was coming from branded searches - not new customer acquisition.
Here's what the expensive agency was actually delivering for €5,000/month:
Monthly 30-page reports filled with vanity metrics
2-3 blog posts per month (generic topics, not product-focused)
Basic technical fixes that should have been completed in week one
Weekly calls that mostly involved explaining why results were slow
The most frustrating part? They had barely touched the product pages - which is where ecommerce SEO actually matters. Out of 3,000+ product pages, only about 50 had been "optimized," and even that optimization was basic meta tag updates.
When I audited their work, I discovered they were treating this like a traditional business website rather than an ecommerce store. They were focused on homepage rankings and generic blog content instead of the long-tail product keywords that actually drive sales.
That's when I realized the fundamental problem: most SEO agencies don't understand ecommerce. They apply the same strategies they use for service businesses to product catalogs, which is why the results are so poor despite the high costs.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Instead of finding another expensive agency, I decided to build our own system. The key insight was that ecommerce SEO is fundamentally different from traditional SEO - it's about scale and systematic optimization, not custom strategies for every page.
Here's the exact system I implemented:
Step 1: Product-First Keyword Strategy
Rather than starting with "competitive analysis" like most agencies, I began by exporting all product data and mapping it to actual search behavior. Using a combination of Google Keyword Planner and product-specific keyword tools, I identified the long-tail keywords that people actually use when shopping.
The difference was immediately clear: instead of targeting "women's shoes" (impossible to rank for), we focused on "black leather ankle boots size 8" and hundreds of similar specific product searches.
Step 2: AI-Powered Content Generation
This is where I completely diverged from traditional agencies. Instead of hiring expensive copywriters to manually write product descriptions, I built an AI content system with three key components:
A comprehensive knowledge base of product information and brand guidelines
Custom AI prompts that generated SEO-optimized product content
Automated translation workflows for all 8 languages
Step 3: Systematic Technical Implementation
Rather than the endless "technical audits" that agencies love to sell, I focused on the specific technical issues that matter for ecommerce:
Automated internal linking between related products
Schema markup implementation for all product pages
URL structure optimization for category and product pages
Site speed optimization focused on product page load times
Step 4: Measurement and Iteration
Instead of vanity metrics in monthly reports, I set up automated tracking for the metrics that actually matter for ecommerce:
Long-tail keyword rankings for product pages
Organic traffic to product categories
Conversion rates from organic search traffic
Revenue attribution from SEO-driven sessions
The total cost of this system? About €1,000/month including AI tools, software subscriptions, and my time for monitoring and optimization. That's 80% less than what they were paying the agency, with dramatically better results.
Scale Focus
AI content generation across 20,000+ pages vs manual optimization of 50 pages
Product-Centric
Long-tail product keywords instead of generic brand terms
Automation
Systematic workflows vs expensive manual labor
ROI Tracking
Revenue-focused metrics rather than vanity reports
The results spoke for themselves. Within 3 months of implementing this system:
Organic traffic increased from 500 to 5,000+ monthly visits - a 10x improvement compared to the agency's 12% growth over 6 months
Over 20,000 pages were indexed by Google with optimized content across all 8 languages
Product page conversions improved by 40% due to better-targeted traffic and optimized content
Cost reduction of 80% compared to the expensive agency while achieving superior results
But here's what really validated the approach: the client started getting inquiries from other store owners asking about their SEO strategy because the results were so visible in their niche. The expensive agency had never generated that kind of attention or word-of-mouth referrals.
Six months later, organic search became their largest acquisition channel, driving more than 40% of total revenue. The return on the SEO investment was clear and measurable, unlike the vague "brand visibility" metrics the agency had provided.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
This experience taught me several critical lessons about ecommerce SEO services:
"Affordable" doesn't mean cheap - it means efficient. The best ecommerce SEO strategies focus on systematic optimization rather than expensive manual labor.
Most agencies don't understand ecommerce fundamentals. They apply traditional SEO strategies to product catalogs, which explains the poor results despite high costs.
Scale is everything in ecommerce SEO. Success comes from optimizing thousands of product pages systematically, not from perfect optimization of a few pages.
AI and automation are game-changers. When used correctly, they can deliver better results than expensive manual processes.
Product-focused keywords matter more than brand terms. Long-tail product searches drive actual sales, not vanity rankings.
Technical SEO for ecommerce is specific. Generic technical audits miss the issues that actually impact ecommerce performance.
Results should be measurable in revenue. If your SEO service can't show clear ROI, you're paying too much regardless of the price.
The biggest takeaway? Don't confuse expensive with effective. The best ecommerce SEO services focus on systematic, scalable solutions that drive actual business results, not impressive-sounding strategies that drain your budget.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS companies looking to implement this approach:
Focus on use-case specific content rather than generic feature pages
Build programmatic SEO systems for template and integration pages
Prioritize conversion-focused content over awareness content
For your Ecommerce store
For ecommerce stores wanting affordable SEO services:
Demand product-page focus over blog content from any SEO service
Look for systematic approaches rather than manual optimization
Insist on revenue-based metrics rather than traffic-only reporting