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Marqade INC

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How We Expanded DIY.com’s Organic and AI Search Visibility

Managing search visibility across thousands of ecommerce pages means targeting different categories, products, and customer searches with a clear strategy. Through technical SEO, category and product optimization, internal linking, structured data, and AI search improvements, we helped DIY.com strengthen its presence across the UK market and emerging search platforms.

Campaign Duration:

1 Year

Primary Market:

United Kingdom

Focus:

Enterprise Ecommerce SEO and AI Search

diy-banner-statics-03

7.7M

Organic Traffic

$1.5M

Organic Traffic Value

50.9K

AI Overview Visibility

7.5K

ChatGPT Visibility

About DIY.com

DIY.com is the online home of B&Q, serving the UK market across building materials, decorating, gardening, kitchens, bathrooms, and home improvement. Its large catalog covers broad category searches, such as “garden furniture,” as well as specific product queries, such as “cashmere dining chairs.”

With thousands of categories and product pages, the site needed to maintain visibility across different search journeys while responding to changes in product and seasonal demand.

google.com
"garden furniture"
"laminate flooring"
"cashmere dining chairs"

The Challenge: Managing Scale and Search Intent

The main challenge was connecting a large ecommerce catalog with the different ways customers search.

01

Broad & specific searches

Broad terms such as “laminate flooring” and “garden furniture” required strong category-level visibility. More specific searches needed the right product or subcategory pages to appear, so users had a clearer idea of what they wanted.

02

Seasonal demand

Seasonality added another challenge. Demand across gardening, decorating, and home improvement changes throughout the year, shifting attention between categories and products.

03

Catalog optimization

Across a catalog of this size, the priority was to identify which page types needed attention and how each could better support a specific search journey.

About Future Home Loans (1)

How Marqade Responded

Over the one-year engagement, Marqade implemented technical SEO improvements, optimized key category and product pages, strengthened internal linking, enhanced structured data, and improved content for AI-driven search.

The work focused on addressing search gaps across a large ecommerce catalog while tracking changes in organic rankings, page visibility, and AI search presence throughout the engagement.

Project Scope Across a Large Ecommerce Catalog

The one-year engagement covered a complex ecommerce environment with 104,899 organic pages represented in the reporting data. Our work focused on how category pages, product pages, internal linking paths, structured data, and AI search visibility worked together across the wider catalog. Rather than applying the same approach to every page, we focused on the areas most relevant to search performance and product discovery.

Student Housing Providers

Web Pages Analyzed

We reviewed how organic traffic and visibility were distributed across a large set of pages, helping identify where high-traffic pages and lower-volume catalog pages contributed differently to overall search performance.

Student Housing Providers

Category and Subcategory Optimization

We worked across priority commercial categories and deeper subcategory paths to better align important pages with broad and mid-level product searches.

Student Housing Providers

Product-Level Search Optimization

We refined product titles, specifications, page content, and search alignment to better support more specific queries where users were looking for particular products, styles, colors, or attributes.

Student Housing Providers

400+ Internal Links Added and Optimized

We strengthened more than 400+ internal links across advice content, category pages, subcategories, and relevant product pages. The work improved pathways to priority commercial pages and created clearer discovery routes across deeper parts of the catalog.

Student Housing Providers

Structured Data Improvements

We refined product and availability markup to make important product information clearer and more consistent for search platforms.

Student Housing Providers

AI Search Optimization

We improved content structure and AI search readiness across key page types, supporting wider visibility in Google AI Overviews, and tracked ChatGPT results.

What the Search Data Revealed

Before setting priorities, we reviewed how organic visibility was distributed across markets, pages, and search terms. Three patterns helped shape the direction of the work.

Organic Search Visibility Was Concentrated in the UK

The market data showed that 97% of organic traffic came from the UK, compared with 1% from the US. The same organic search snapshot recorded 7.7M in traffic and an estimated traffic value of $1.5M.

This made the UK the clear priority when reviewing category demand, product searches, and wider organic visibility.

Ahref Evidence img
diy-graph-2

Traffic Was Spread Across a Large Page Set

The page-level report covered 104,899 organic pages. Of these, 73.4% fell within the 1–1,000 traffic range and collectively accounted for 27.5% of total organic traffic.

At the other end of the distribution, the highest-traffic band accounted for 45% of total organic traffic.

The pattern showed why the strategy could not focus only on a small set of top-performing URLs. High-traffic pages made a major contribution, while a much larger group of lower-volume pages supported visibility across the wider catalog.

Search Intent Changed Across Categories and Products

The ranking data showed clear differences between broad category demand and specific product searches.

Terms such as “laminate flooring,” “garden furniture,” and “plywood sheets” reflected broader category-level demand. Searches such as “watering hole wallpaper” and “cashmere dining chairs” pointed to more specific product needs.

This distinction helped separate opportunities by category, subcategory, and product page, rather than treating the entire catalog the same way.

MARQADE SEARCH SIMULATOR
Click terms to test search ranking
Tracked Keywords
Watering Hole Wall... #1
Cashmere Dining C... #1
Christmas Lights Cl... #1
Egyptian Cotton Paint #2
Laminate Flooring #3
Plywood Sheets #4
Garden Furniture #5
Google Snippet Preview
Watering Hole Wall Fountain
https://www.diy.com/garden/water... ▾

Watering Hole Wall Fountain | Official DIY.com

Bring a calming water feature to your garden with the Watering Hole wall fountain. Easy to install, weather-resistant, and self-circulating.
Position: #1 Category: Garden & Leisure Product Intent
Cashmere Dining Chairs
https://www.diy.com/dining... ▾

Cashmere Dining Chairs | Official DIY.com

Upgrade your dining space with Cashmere dining chairs, featuring soft upholstery, solid oak legs, and a timeless silhouette.
Position: #1 Category: Furniture Product Intent
Christmas Lights Clearance
https://www.diy.com/christmas/ligh... ▾

Christmas Lights Clearance | Official DIY.com

Save big on Christmas lights this season. Shop clearance strings, icicle lights, and outdoor displays while stocks last.
Position: #1 Category: Seasonal Product Intent
Egyptian Cotton Paint
https://www.diy.com/paint/egypti... ▾

Egyptian Cotton Paint | Official DIY.com

Egyptian Cotton is a soft, warm off-white shade, perfect for living rooms and hallways. Available in matt, silk, and satin finishes.
Position: #2 Category: Paint & Decor Product Intent
Laminate Flooring
https://www.diy.com/flooring/lam... ▾

Laminate Flooring | Official DIY.com

Explore a wide range of laminate flooring in oak, walnut, and grey tones. Durable, easy to clean, and simple to install yourself.
Position: #3 Category: Flooring Category Intent
Plywood Sheets
https://www.diy.com/building-materi... ▾

Plywood Sheets | Official DIY.com

Shop plywood sheets in a range of sizes and thicknesses, ideal for construction, flooring underlay, and DIY projects.
Position: #4 Category: Building Materials Category Intent
Garden Furniture
https://www.diy.com/garden/furnitu... ▾

Garden Furniture | Official DIY.com

Transform your outdoor space with premium garden furniture from DIY.com. From wooden dining sets to comfortable rattan sofas and weather-proof loungers.
Position: #5 Category: Garden & Leisure Category Intent

The Action Plan: Core Optimization Areas

Building on the search data, we focused on specific gaps across category visibility, product discovery, internal linking, crawl paths, and AI search readiness. The approach varied by page type rather than by applying the same SEO changes across the entire catalog.

Student Housing Providers

Matching Category Pages With Commercial Search Demand

We mapped broader commercial searches to the category and subcategory pages best suited to satisfy them. This helped separate high-volume category demand from more specific product searches and reduced the risk of multiple page types competing for the same intent.

 

For priority areas such as Laminate Flooring, Garden Furniture, and Plywood Sheets, we refined heading structures, on-page copy, metadata, and internal relevance signals. The goal was to strengthen the page most closely aligned with each search rather than spreading relevance across overlapping URLs.

Student Housing Providers

Improving Discovery of Deep Product Pages

Specific product searches required a different approach. We reviewed how deeper product pages matched searches around product names, styles, colors, and specifications.

 

For terms linked to products such as Watering Hole Wallpaper, Cashmere Dining Chairs, and Egyptian Cotton Paint, we refined product titles, technical details, and page content to better reflect exact search intent. We also reviewed crawl depth so commercially relevant product URLs were not dependent on long or unclear discovery paths.

Student Housing Providers

Redistributing Internal Authority Across the Catalog

We reviewed how authority moved between advice content, category hubs, subcategories, and product pages. The focus was on identifying commercially important pages with weak internal pathways and improving how relevant pages connected to them.

 

As part of this work, we added and optimized more than 400+ internal links across the catalog. Links from supporting advice content were directed toward priority commercial categories where contextually relevant. We also strengthened breadcrumb paths and connections between related products to improve discovery across deeper sections of the site.

Student Housing Providers

Structuring Product Information for Search and AI Systems

We reorganized key product information so important details were easier for search engines and AI systems to identify. Product descriptions, specifications, attributes, and supporting content were structured more consistently rather than leaving critical information buried in uneven page layouts.

 

We also refined product and availability markup to improve how key attributes were represented. This created clearer machine-readable signals across product pages while supporting visibility in both traditional search and AI-driven results.

Organic Visibility Recovered Across Key Ranking Groups

The six-month ranking trend showed a noticeable decline beginning in late March. The downward movement continued through April and reached its lowest point around mid-May. Following the rollout of our core SEO updates, organic positions began to recover through June and continued to rise into early July. The timing of this recovery aligned with the implementation of our category, product, internal linking, and technical SEO improvements. The recovery was visible across multiple ranking groups rather than a small set of isolated terms. Keywords in the Top 3, positions 4–10, and positions 11–20 moved upward during the period, indicating broader improvement across the site’s organic visibility.

organic-visiblity-diy-01

Strong Positions Across Product and Category Searches

Our optimization work helped improve DIY.com’s rankings for searches tied directly to the products and categories it sells. We tracked key terms across the catalog to measure performance for both specific products and broader category searches.

The campaign helped secure #1 rankings for Watering Hole Wallpaper, Cashmere Dining Chairs, and Christmas Lights Clearance. Broader terms also reached strong positions, with Laminate Flooring ranking #3, Plywood Sheets #4, and Garden Furniture #5.

These results show how our optimization work strengthened DIY.com’s presence across exact product searches and broader category terms.

Search Term Current Google Position
Watering Hole Wallpaper #1
Cashmere Dining Chairs #1
Christmas Lights Clearance #1
Egyptian Cotton Paint #2
Laminate Flooring #3
Plywood Sheets #4
Garden Furniture #5
Maintaining a Strong Position
  • Ranked toward the upper end of the competitor set for organic traffic and estimated traffic value.
  • The scale of organic pages highlights DIY.com’s extensive keyword coverage across the UK market.

Maintaining a Strong Position in UK Organic Search

The keyword positions formed part of a much larger UK search presence. In the UK competitor view, DIY.com recorded 7,449,163 in organic traffic across 98,567 organic pages, with an estimated traffic value of $1,523,351.

The competitor chart also placed DIY.com toward the upper end of the comparison set for organic traffic and estimated traffic value. This wider view provides context for the individual rankings, showing the scale of the site’s search presence across the UK market.  

organic traffic

7,449,163

Recorded in UK competitor analysis.

organic pages

98,567

Pages contributing to search visibility.

traffic value

$1,523,351

Estimated commercial presence value.

Backlink Growth Supporting Organic Search

DIY.com’s organic presence was supported by a strong and established backlink profile. The volume of backlinks highlights the website’s overall authority and the level of external recognition it has built over time. For a large ecommerce website with thousands of categories and product pages, this backlink strength provides important support for broader organic search visibility and performance. 

  • 1.4M backlinks were recorded during the reporting period.
  • +36.7K backlinks were gained during the reporting period, showing positive link growth.
  • 11.1M all-time backlinks accumulated historically across the domain.
Backlink Growth Diy chart

Growing Visibility Across Generative Search

Following our structured data enhancements, content improvements, and AI search optimization work, DIY.com recorded measurable growth across Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT. The results developed at different scales across the two platforms, so we evaluated visibility and page coverage separately rather than treating them as directly comparable.
google-icon-logo-svgrepo-com

Search Engine

Google AI Overviews

A 343% Increase in Google AI Overview Visibility

During the engagement, Google AI Overview visibility increased from 11.5K to 50.9K, a 343% increase. The number of pages appearing in AI Overviews also grew from 5.9K to 15.4K, extending visibility across a much larger portion of the DIY.com catalog.

Before and After: Google AI Overview Growth

Metric Before After Change
AI Overview Visibility 11.5K 50.9K +39.4K
Pages Appearing 5.9K 15.4K +9.5K
chatgpt

Search Engine

ChatGPT

ChatGPT Visibility Increased Alongside Page Coverage

During the same period, ChatGPT visibility increased from 7.1K to 7.5K, while the number of represented pages grew from 7.1K to 7.9K. Although the absolute visibility increase was smaller than the growth recorded in Google AI Overviews, the wider page coverage showed that more of the DIY.com catalog appeared across tracked ChatGPT results.

Before and After: ChatGPT Coverage Growth

Metric Before After Change
ChatGPT Visibility 7.1K 7.5K +400
Pages Represented 7.1K 7.9K +800
The gains for ChatGPT were smaller in absolute terms than the increase recorded in Google AI Overviews. However, growth in both visibility and represented pages showed broader catalog coverage across the tracked results.

Market Reach Across the UK and International Markets

The UK remained DIY.com’s main organic market, but the website also attracted search traffic from several other countries. This wider reach shows that product and category pages were being discovered across markets outside the site’s core UK audience.

Australia recorded 14.9K in organic traffic, followed by the Russian Federation at 13.2K and South Africa at 8.2K. Spain and Canada also contributed 8.1K and 7.9K, respectively.

These markets accounted for a smaller share of total organic traffic, but they still contributed to the website’s overall search presence. The data show that DIY.com maintained its primary focus on the UK while also reaching users in several international markets.

Market Reach Across Diy

The Final Results

Through technical SEO improvements, category and product optimization, stronger internal linking, structured data enhancements, and AI search work, Marqade helped strengthen DIY.com’s performance across traditional and AI-driven search. The final results reflect gains across organic rankings, UK search visibility, and emerging AI platforms.
Organic Traffic

7.7M

Monthly organic sessions drive consistent growth.

Organic Traffic Value

$1.5M

Monthly traffic value delivered through organic search.

Google AI Overview Visibility

50.9K

Times DIY.com appeared in Google AI Overview results.

ChatGPT Visibility

7.5K

Times DIY.com was visible in ChatGPT responses.

Organic Traffic Share From the UK

97%

The UK remains the core market for organic search visibility.

Rankings for Multiple Product Searches

#1

Top position achieved for several high-intent product searches.

DIY.com strengthened its presence across traditional search and emerging AI-driven discovery through a combination of technical SEO, ecommerce architecture improvements, category and product optimization, internal linking, and structured content.

The one-year engagement shows how a large retail website can improve discovery across a complex catalog while adapting to changes in how users search through Google and AI platforms.

This is more memorable than another summary of 7.7M, $1.5M, and 50.9K. It explains what the campaign achieved and why the work matters.

See Where Your Store Is Losing Search Traffic

Large ecommerce catalogs often lose visibility through weak category targeting, deep crawl paths, disconnected internal links, and content that is difficult for search and AI platforms to interpret. We identify these gaps and show where stronger technical, content, and AI search improvements can create new opportunities.
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