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Migrating 3 sites + rebuilding topical authority to double visibility

An ecommerce selling plants and fruit trees was carrying a serious architecture problem: it had 3 separate sites on the domain (the root, a store on one subdomain and a blog on another) and needed to consolidate everything into a single coherent structure without losing the topical authority it had built up. The strategy included a triple migration to WordPress plus an architecture rebuild, consolidating the store on the root domain.

The starting point

The challenge

The initial situation was complicated by the fragmentation of the domain:

  • Three sites on the same domain:the root (with topical content), a store on one subdomain and a blog on another.
  • Accumulated topical authorityon the root that could not be lost.
  • The store on PrestaShopwith technical limitations that made scaling SEO difficult.
  • Competing against established playersin the green and fruit tree sector with years of SEO behind them.
  • “Three projects in one”:the overall impression made it hard for Google to understand what the domain actually was.
The strategy

How we approached it

The project was, in reality, a simultaneous SEO migration of 3 sites with a twofold goal: consolidate the store on the root domain (where most of the topical authority sat) and rebuild the structure so Google could understand at a glance what the site was.

1

Triple migration to WordPress

Migration from PrestaShop to WordPress plus redistribution: the store to the root domain, the earlier tactical content to a subdomain. Matching the highest-traffic URLs, clean-up, controlled 301 redirects and thorough post-migration QA.

2

Rebuilding topical authority

Clear signals and a hierarchical architecture Google can parse. Topic clusters by botanical family with internal linking that communicates authority over each category.

3

High-ticket transactional categories

New commercial categories with their own content, focused on high-ticket products (fruit trees, premium species). Product + Offer schemas, with Google Merchant aligned.

On that foundation: an initial audit, keyword research, technical base and Core Web Vitals, a blog built to push traffic towards transactional categories, thorough crawl and indexation monitoring, and contextual backlinks to reinforce the consolidated domain’s new topical authority.

Results

Visual results

Organic traffic and ranking keyword growth over the course of the project (Ahrefs screenshots, client brand anonymised):

≈11,500organic visits/month (Ahrefs)
+~75%traffic after the migration
≈14,000ranking keywords
Ahrefs graph showing organic growth for a plant and tree ecommerce after consolidating 3 sites
Organic traffic (Ahrefs)Visibility doubled after consolidating 3 sites into one and rebuilding topical authority.
Ahrefs graph showing the plant ecommerce's ranking keywords broken down by position range
Organic keywords (Ahrefs)Three sites consolidated without losing visibility: keyword volume stays stable and the high positions hold.

Because this was a consolidation of 3 sites into one, the challenge wasn’t starting from zero but not losing visibility in the migration. The result: organic traffic rises from ~6,500 to ~11,500 visits/month (around +75%) while the keyword base stays stable at around 14,000-15,000, with ~5,000 in the top 20. A clean migration, then growth.

The outcome

What we achieved

  • Visibility doubled.Visibility doubled after consolidating 3 sites into one and rebuilding the domain’s topical authority.
  • Rankings in top high-ticket categories.Consolidated rankings for the sector’s most profitable commercial categories (fruit trees, premium species) — the ones delivering the most sales and the best margin.
  • A triple migration with no losses.Three sites migrated, redistributed and consolidated without losing authority, and with improved crawling and indexing.

Shall we talk about your project?

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