Case study Direct client
Bespoke Marketing Solutions
A marketing agency that hired me to do their own SEO
+76%
Organic clicks
353 to 620 over six months
93
Enquiries sitting unseen in the database
Nobody had gone looking
19 in 20
Were cold outreach, not real leads
The bot check had keys but no field on the form
- Client
- Bespoke Marketing Solutions
- Sector
- Digital marketing agency
- Services
- Technical and local SEO
- Engagement
- Monthly retainer, ongoing
The client
Bespoke Marketing Solutions are a digital marketing agency in Bournemouth. They sell SEO. They hired me to do theirs.
That is the whole case study really, and it is the one I would want a prospective client to read. An agency who does this for a living, who can judge the work properly, and who could have done it in house, chose to bring someone in. They have been on a monthly retainer since 2025.
The problem was a familiar one for an agency. They owned Poole and Dorset comfortably, sitting first for seo agency poole and second for seo dorset, but they were stuck on page two across Bournemouth, which is the bigger city and the money term.
The rankings
Bournemouth was the target, after work on internal linking, a cannibalisation fix between their generic service pages and their Bournemouth pages, and a page title collision that was quietly making two pages compete for the same term.
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| seo bournemouth | 37.2 | 18.8 |
| local seo bournemouth | 33.0 | 13.9 |
| seo dorset | 31.9 | 7.4 |
| seo agency poole | 10.4 | 6.3 |
Across the whole site over the same period, average position improved from 30.4 to 21.1 and organic clicks grew 76 per cent. The Dorset and Bournemouth terms came off page three and four onto page one and two, which is where clicks actually start.
Average positions from Google Search Console, the six months to 15 August 2026 against the six months before.
The enquiries nobody could see
Rankings were only half of it. They had told me the site did not generate leads, so I went through the form submissions rather than taking it at face value.
There were ninety three of them sitting in the database, and around nineteen in twenty were SEO and web design cold outreach. The genuine local enquiries were in there, just buried under other people’s spam.
The cause was small and specific. The bot protection had its keys configured but the field had never been added to the form, so nothing was actually being checked. Adding it stopped the automated traffic, and a keyword filter on top of that catches the human outreach that passes a bot check. Real enquiries now arrive where somebody will see them.
What clients say
In their words, not mine.
Aaron built our website and now looks after the search side of it, and it's the first time anyone's shown us numbers that mean something. Enquiries from people searching for the coatings we actually do, rather than our name, have roughly doubled in six months. He built a page for exhaust ceramic coating that ranks on its own, and every month we get a short report in plain English saying what changed and why. Straightforward to deal with, and he tells us when something isn't worth doing.
Aaron has been excellent to work with. His WordPress development skills are first class, with a strong understanding of both the technical side and the practical needs of a live e-commerce website. He works quickly, communicates clearly and, most importantly, knows how to diagnose and fix problems without making things unnecessarily complicated. We've used Aaron for a range of WordPress development work and I've always found him knowledgeable, reliable and easy to work with. Highly recommended for anyone looking for an experienced WordPress developer.
Aaron built our online shop from scratch and it was the first time the brand actually looked like us online. Every pair we sell is a one off and he built the shop around that, so people find the right size and condition quickly. He handled design and build end to end, sorted the pricing and VAT properly, and I can add new pairs and update the site myself without going back to him every time.
We use Aaron for development we would rather not hand to a junior. The work comes back the way it was specced, on the date he said, and it goes out under our name without us having to check it twice.
