How SEO from Livepage Helped TVOE Multiply Sales in a Highly Competitive Niche

Construction-Sector Breakthrough: How SEO from Livepage Helped TVOE Multiply Sales in a Highly Competitive Niche

The online market for construction materials and tools is one where brands fight for buyers every single day, and just having a huge catalog is not enough anymore. The winner is the one whose website is fast, well-structured, and fully aligned with how people actually search.

TVOE is a major Ukrainian ecommerce project specializing in tools, home and garden equipment, plumbing products, and other related categories. Hundreds of brands, tens of thousands of SKUs, and a constantly expanding catalog bring both huge opportunities and a unique SEO challenge. Every page has to clearly show search engines what it offers, how it stands out, and why it deserves to appear in the results. And as the business grows, so do the risks, many of which are hard to catch in time.

TVOE brand slogan and logo

That’s why the Livepage team was tasked not just with improving the site’s visibility but with building a full SEO ecosystem that would be technically strong, structurally logical, and focused on real sales and profit. This case is about how technical precision, attention to niche-specific details, and a consistent strategy transformed a large website into a stable ecommerce project with a strong organic profit channel even during intense market competition and seasonal fluctuations.

Instrumental Ecommerce: Niche Challenges and Prospects

The online market for construction goods is one of the toughest segments in Ukrainian ecommerce. What makes it unique is that most search queries have a strong commercial intent. People come to Google with a specific goal to find a particular product, often with the exact model or SKU. That’s why search visibility directly determines which site users see first and where they make that key purchase. In this niche, SEO is not just a supporting tactic; it is one of the main channels that drive customer acquisition.

Competing against the big players often feels unfair for mid-sized or niche online stores. That’s why your success here depends less on budget and more on technical accuracy, high-quality content, and a properly built SEO architecture.

Features of competition in the construction niche

Ukraine’s online construction market is dominated by several giants, such as Rozetka, Epicentr, Dnipro-M, and other large chains like Storgom, Vitals, and more. These brands have massive marketing resources. They take over the search results by pushing tens of thousands of SKUs at once, from premium equipment to everyday small tools. Against such competitors, even small issues on niche websites like TVOE can cause noticeable drops in positions.

Example of a competitive SERP for the query “buy a drill driver”

And it is not just about paid ads. The competition also comes from how well their SEO structure is built: how quickly categories and products get indexed, how smart the filter logic is, whether the navigation makes sense, and how strong the internal linking structure is. These details determine not only whether a site can enter the search results but also whether it stays there long-term. All of this shaped our main strategy — build a technically strong, structurally logical website for TVOE capable of competing with the largest marketplaces.

SEO’s role in winning over the customer

In niches like this, SEO becomes a trust-building tool. Customers don’t just search “buy a drill” or “deep well pump” and click the first random result. Once they open a website, they expect it to feel reliable, have clear product descriptions, proper structure, and zero glitches, especially on mobile. Even a small issue like slow loading or incorrect product display can instantly kill a purchase.

That’s why SEO for tvo-e.com.ua focused on improving rankings and creating the right user journey from search to selecting a product and making a purchase. We mainly worked on ensuring search engines clearly understood the site’s logic and that each page had a clear purpose in this structure, whether it is a category, filter, brand page, or product page.

Starting the TVOE Cooperation: First Optimization Steps

We kicked off the SEO promotion for TVOE on January 17, 2025. Even during the initial audit, it was evident that the site had huge potential but also faced many technical challenges. The scale was impressive with over 300,000 pages, hundreds of categories and filters, tens of thousands of products. In an ecommerce project, this volume means that even a single tiny mistake in indexing or site logic can affect the entire system.

Number of TVOE website pages after a Screaming Frog scan

That’s why our goal wasn’t simply to “set up SEO.” We aimed to fundamentally strengthen the website from the inside out: remove technical barriers, improve loading speed, build a correct structure, and prepare a solid foundation for long-term growth. The client was ready to implement recommendations from day one, so the optimization process moved quickly and smoothly without unnecessary delays.

Initial goals and client expectations

The client came to us with a clear and realistic vision of what they wanted to achieve. Their top priorities were steady organic traffic growth, more website purchases, resolving technical issues that were slowing the project, and ongoing support.

During the first month, we ran an in-depth competitor analysis for TVOE and, together with the client, outlined the main growth directions. We also identified the pain points that required urgent SEO attention, including technical site health, laying the foundation for a basic SEO architecture, and optimizing pages with the highest sales potential.

Part of TVOE’s competitor analysis

Unlike traditional advertising channels, SEO was viewed here as a long-term investment, that is, a strategy designed to deliver consistent results and decrease the client’s dependency on paid traffic in the future.

Building the SEO strategy

Our first step was a full technical optimization of the website. A detailed technical audit revealed hundreds of pages with 404 errors, recurring 500 server issues, unnecessary 301 redirects, and many smaller problems that, combined, were blocking the site’s potential. For example, a huge number of product images were extremely heavy (several megabytes each), which caused slow loading or complete failure to load. This is a critical issue for an online store where every extra second of loading time means losing conversions and ranking potential.

Typical technical tasks for TVOE at the start of cooperation

After approving the work plan, our team moved to fix these issues and improve the overall site health. We optimized the sitemap.xml and robots.txt files, added proper canonical tags, removed irrelevant orphan pages, corrected pagination problems, added alt texts to images, and more. At the same time, we started implementing schema markup for Google (product pages, categories, and service pages) and social networks (Telegram, Twitter, Facebook, etc.). Since most of TVOE’s offline stores are located in Kyiv, further optimization was also focused on this region. All of these improvements helped make the site clearer not only for users but also for search engines.

Example of an Open Graph schema markup for TVOE’s homepage

Also, we upgraded the product pages, as this was the most crucial step in the user journey to purchase. We added essential functional blocks like “Frequently bought together” and “Recently viewed” and provided recommendations for future improvements, such as “Customers who bought this item also bought,” “Top queries,” and “Reviews and questions.” We implemented automatic internal linking inside product characteristics and other content blocks to make navigation easier for users and improve page rankings. Further, we recommended adding “compare” and “wish list” features, which were basic yet essential elements for a smooth shopping experience.

Suggested placement of the “Recently viewed” block for the TVOE website

One of the key achievements at this stage was discovering a critical issue with the shopping cart. During the audit, we found that items added to the cart weren’t showing up until the user fully refreshed the page. A tiny detail, but one that literally blocked purchases from being completed. Once the issue was fixed, the number of transactions increased noticeably.

Cart-display bug on TVOE website

At the same time, we started forming the semantic core of the website. Since the start of cooperation, we have already collected more than 780 keyword phrases for about 114 categories, covering both priority and secondary areas defined by the client.

Semantic core breakdown by categories for the TVOE website

We paid special attention to category filters, which often generate additional organic traffic in this niche. Our workflow looked like this: once the semantic data was approved, we immediately created manual meta tags for selected categories, and after some time, delivered technical tasks to optimize those pages and write relevant SEO copy.

Semantic core breakdown by categories for the TVOE website

As a result, the site’s performance began to shift as early as February: average daily clicks grew from 40–50 to 90–110. By the end of March, the website hit a new daily record of 149 clicks and more than 6,000 impressions in search. However, the most important part wasn’t just traffic; it was the real business outcome — organic profit surged by almost 450%.

Technical “Storm”: Issues That Stopped the Website’s Growth

By the end of Q1 2025, the TVOE project became a textbook example of how a well-built SEO strategy should work: the website was gaining momentum, graphs were steadily moving upward, and profit from organic traffic kept growing. But just when it felt like we would finally hit a solid growth trajectory, the project ran into a major technical crisis.

First record in March and drop after technical failures

By the end of March, we’ve reached our highest results since the start of cooperation. Technical optimizations, improved product pages, updated meta tags, and a revamped structure for category pages — all delivered visible impact. This record confirmed that the initial strategy was working exactly as expected. But everything changed just a few days later.

The breaking point happened when the site migrated to a new server and updated its Laravel framework. Since TVOE had outgrown the old infrastructure, the migration was a logical move. The update revealed a new critical issue — Google started indexing duplicate product pages containing the index.php parameter in their URLs, and later, even more complex versions with /public/ nested inside.

Duplicate URLs showing up in search results for TVOE website

At the same time, following the client’s request, we started categorizing product offers. As the catalog expanded, the number of landing pages also grew, split by various parameters. The problem was that many of these category pages were simply empty. Some new categories even duplicated existing ones, “stealing” target traffic from well-optimized main categories. On top of that, filtering created its own complications: filter anchors contained incorrect URLs ending with a trailing “/”, each of them redirected to the URL without the “/”, and all filters were open for indexing, including sorting by novelty and price.

All of this created massive confusion for search engines, as Google couldn’t understand which page was the primary version, and the site’s positions started to drop. Traffic declined, followed by impressions and clicks.

This period was especially painful because it overlapped with the spring season, the busiest time of the year for selling tools, pumps, lawnmowers, and other garden equipment. As visibility dropped, traffic took a serious hit.

Impact of Google’s March update and more complications

The situation got even tougher after Google’s March update, which traditionally shakes commercial niches. The big focus this time was strengthening E-E-A-T factors (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) and fighting low-quality or duplicate content. The update pushed down many commercial websites with technical or content inconsistencies, even minor ones. For large ecommerce projects, that meant any slip-up, from incorrect canonical tags to duplicated URLs, could instantly affect rankings. It became a double blow for TVOE: a mix of external algorithmic pressure and internal technical issues caused a sharp drop in positions across high-volume and branded queries.

User trends on the TVOE website before and after the “technical crisis”

Another serious issue emerged with the shopping cart — products simply didn’t show up after being added for some users, especially on Safari for macOS, so even those who found the right product couldn’t complete their purchase, which directly impacted conversions. And even though the share of macOS users was small, they still represented valuable profit potential, especially for a store with both high-ticket and low-ticket niche items. Given the accumulated issues, we immediately sent all warnings and technical recommendations to the client’s team and emphasized that full recovery would take time.

Despite all the difficulties, this phase turned out to be important for both teams. We clearly saw how quickly a website can react to external and internal challenges and confirmed how crucial it is to have a “backup strategy” ready for unpredictable situations like this.

SEO Recovery: A Strategy to Pull the Website Out of Crisis

After analyzing the reasons behind this tough “technical storm” and the aftermath, we realized we had to do more than just regain lost positions and stabilize the website. We needed to build a foundation for future growth. It was clear that after fixing the technical issues, Google would need time to re-evaluate the site and start perceiving it again as a reliable source of relevant content and niche products. That’s why the second stage of SEO work focused on deep technical optimization, content updates, improving structure and usability, and rebuilding the website’s visibility and trust.

Technical optimization of the site

First, we continued cleaning up the website’s technical landscape. We fully eliminated duplicate pages with /index.php/ and /public/ first by blocking them through robots.txt, and then by adding 301 redirects to each page’s proper canonical version. Over the next 2–3 months, this helped restore proper indexing and remove unnecessary confusion for Google’s crawlers.

Summary of page dynamics with /index.php/ nesting for the TVOE website

We also optimized the sitemap.xml file by removing invalid URLs that returned 3xx/4xx/5xx codes and adding missing canonicals to the links listed in the sitemap. At the same time, we fixed Google’s issues reading the file, as its size and a “Missing XML tag” error prevented the search engine from properly processing key pages of the website.

Issues with reading the sitemap.xml files for TVOE by Google’s system

To improve page loading speed, we optimized images by reducing their size without losing quality and providing targeted recommendations for code-level adjustments (based on the homepage and product page examples). We also implemented alt-text templates for product images, which strengthened the site’s semantic structure and improved accessibility for both users and bots.

Graphic display of page speed performance issues for the TVOE website

A major part of the work included updating structured data. Our team implemented additional markup for categories, product pages, and contact pages, helping search engines display richer snippets. This boosted the CTR of key pages and made them more attractive in search results.

Updated snippets for product and category pages on the TVOE website

Product pages and category optimization

Once the technical side stabilized, we moved back to content and UX improvements. We started by updating meta tags and content for key categories. This kicked off the second optimization wave with top spring categories like “Sprayers,” “Lawnmowers,” “Trimmers,” and more.

Product category keywords in the top 10 according to SE Ranking

The updated content helped us cover most high- and mid-frequency search queries in the niche, while the improved page and filter structure allowed us to capture users from low-frequency segments as well.

Example of placing SEO-optimized content on category pages

We also ran a kind of A/B test on how the brand name should be used in meta tags and across the site. Since the domain is tvo-e.com.ua, but users searched for “ТВОЄ”, “TVOE”, and “ТВОЕ”, we tested various formats for the Ukrainian and Russian versions of the site. The results showed the best strategy is to use “ТВОЄ,” with occasional mentions of “TVOE,” while the Russian version performs best with “ТВОЕ” and rare mentions of the English spelling. This approach improved page relevance, boosted branded-query CTR, and helped avoid competing with other websites that had similar names.

Comparison of TВОЄ/TВОЕ/TVOE queries during A/B testing

One of the key indicators of how effective these updates were was the growth of non-branded traffic. More and more users were landing on the website not via branded searches like “tvoe,” but via queries such as “buy cordless saw” or “scheppach btr6500 dehumidifier”. In other words, the site started competing not for brand searches, but for real commercial user intent.

Growth of non-branded queries for the TVOE website

Content and structural improvements

After restoring the core positions, we shifted our focus to improving the website structure and presenting content in a way that’s genuinely useful for visitors. First, we prepared a structured technical specification for optimizing the homepage, as well as the brand and store pages. These pages needed to be not only visually appealing but also functionally strong from an SEO standpoint, with logical navigation, deeper internal linking, and additional blocks that could help improve behavioral ranking factors. For the homepage, the updates included header and footer optimization, improvements to how product cards were presented, updates to the company logo and slogan, and setting up additional internal linking blocks in the form of recommendations.

Examples of technical specifications for homepage optimization on the TVOE website

Later, we made a complete redesign concept for the brand pages. The first brand we tackled was Procraft since TVOE is the official distributor of these products, and the brand’s first physical store opened in Kyiv. Our task was to prepare recommendations for a brand page that considered branded traffic, required certifications, and local search intent. This helped strengthen the website’s positions for product-line-specific brand queries.

Heatmap of TVOE users by geography

At the same time, we started optimizing the website for AI. We created a dedicated llms.txt file to improve how AI bots read the website’s content, and we updated the format of SEO texts to make them easier for AI systems to process.

Ahrefs summary of TVOE citations in AI systems

This is the direction we plan to develop further. Our team is now preparing several unique solutions for the Ukrainian market that will strengthen TVOE’s organic presence in systems like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Grok, and others.

Off-page optimization and link building

Despite the crisis, we never paused external SEO work. Our off-page strategy remained consistent, and each month we published up to 4 high-quality backlinks on relevant, trustworthy websites. Every 3–4 months, we also cleaned up the backlink profile by removing potentially harmful or toxic domains.

Dynamics of the TVOE backlink profile

This approach allowed us not only to maintain search engine trust but also to steadily grow the site’s authority. As a result, the website wasn’t affected by the recent August Google Spam Update, which targeted link profiles.

Record After the Temporary Drop: Results in Numbers

Our systematic approach delivered significant progress. By summer 2025, the website’s metrics began to steadily recover and show upward trends. The site regained its lost positions and, in September, surpassed its previous record for search clicks and impressions.

Comparison of clicks and impressions in Google Search Console

In fall 2025, the website set two new daily records: 156 clicks on September 10 and 201 clicks on September 29, beating the previous March record. This wasn’t just a sign that the project had recovered; it was proof that deep, well-planned optimization works even in a highly competitive niche.

Looking at the last 6 months, we see clear growth across key metrics, despite the crisis period. Total clicks increased by 38%, while impressions grew by 81%, highlighting a major expansion of the website’s search visibility.

Traffic and impressions trends over the last 6 months for the TVOE website

For a project with this many pages and such strong competition, even a few percentage points of growth are huge. It means tens of thousands of extra impressions and hundreds of additional site visits every month. Even more importantly, this growth was organic. And the site started generating a lot more traffic from product-specific queries: users began landing directly on product pages, bypassing the homepage entirely. Right now, about 70% of the site’s organic traffic comes from product pages.

Organic traffic trends according to Google Analytics

Google Analytics data confirms this trend. After the traffic drop in March, numbers gradually stabilized and began showing steady growth from April through September. The organic curve confidently mirrors the Google Search Console trend, proving that all recovery channels are aligned. Overall, the number of users increased by 26.51%, while new users grew by 23.54%.

Traffic and new user trends over the last 6 months for the TVOE website

In August, traffic surpassed the previous season’s level, and in September, it reached its highest point of the year. This became possible thanks to the combined effort of both teams — our systematic SEO updates for categories and product pages, restoring proper indexation after technical issues, and the client’s strong work on brand awareness.

How the SEO strategy impacted purchases and profit

The recovery of rankings immediately influenced business performance. As early as the summer season, the client recorded growth compared to spring: purchases increased by 71%, and profit by 63%. Notably, these sales came specifically from organic traffic. Comparing the last 6 months with the previous period, total conversions grew by 77.73%, including purchases up 96.47% and phone calls up 108.7%.

Conversion and profit trends over the last 6 months for the TVOE website

This trend made a strong impression on our client. What’s important is that this growth is happening even in product categories where no ads were running and the assortment remained unchanged. This is a direct effect of proper SEO: the website became more visible and capable of generating sales organically, without additional promotional efforts.

It’s also worth noting that actual profit and purchase numbers are even higher than reflected in analytics. Some customers place orders via online chat or phone calls, which standard Google Analytics tools don’t track. Therefore, the real SEO impact on the business is even more substantial than Google’s data suggests.

Road Ahead: How TVOE Grows with Livepage

After a period of intensive recovery, the TVOE project has entered a new stage of stable growth and scalable results. SEO is now not just a traffic channel but a fully developed system that supports the business during seasonal peaks and helps attract buyers even without heavy advertising.

Our next steps focus on expanding reach for informational and mixed intent queries. Specifically, developing the blog and author pages (we have already prepared recommendations for them), expanding the semantic core for new categories and filters, and improving internal linking across the site. We also intend to develop the AI direction by testing new interaction formats with AI-driven bots that power search results and help the client generate profit from sales.

TVOE is also actively expanding its product range and starting collaborations with new brands. The company already has around 20 official distribution certificates, opening up new opportunities for developing brand pages similar to the Procraft section we launched. Such pages not only capture traffic from branded product queries but also increase user trust in the website overall.

Today, TVOE has not only regained its visibility but has secured a stable presence in search results across key categories. Every optimized page now generates both traffic and conversions, proving the effectiveness of our jointly built and fully aligned SEO system. At this point, TVOE is a large ecommerce project that has evolved into a holistic platform with a comprehensive SEO ecosystem delivering sustainable growth in traffic, sales, and brand visibility. For us at Livepage, this case became a strong example of how even a technically complex website with an extensive catalog can turn into a story of stable long-term growth. The key is systematic, strategic, and coordinated work with the client’s team.