How PLP Optimisation Moved 9 Out of 10 Target Keywords to Page 1 in 6 Months

The Challenge

The Sports Edit is a multi-brand activewear retailer on Shopify competing against major players in a highly competitive search space. Despite having strong product ranges from brands like ON and Sweaty Betty, TSE was struggling with non-brand keyword visibility ranking on page 3+ for high-value commercial terms that their customers were actively searching for.

The Results

Within 5 months (October 2025 – February 2026), the optimised PLPs saw significant ranking improvements across all target keywords:

• "Gym trainers" (14,800 monthly searches): position 27 → 11
• "On running shoes women" (1,900 monthly searches): position 16 → 8
• "Black Friday trainers" (1,600 monthly searches): not ranking → position 9
• "7 8 leggings" (720 monthly searches): position 17 → 6
• "Black Friday trainers sale" (720 monthly searches): position 32 → 2
• "On running clothing" (590 monthly searches): position 16 → 4
• "Womens yoga top" (480 monthly searches): position 30 → 8
• "Black Friday gym clothes" (320 monthly searches): position 34 → 7
• "Women's on running trainers" (260 monthly searches): position 6 → 2

9 out of 10 target keywords now rank on page 1, with several moving from page 3+ to the top 10. Bigger projects including PDP template changes, navigation improvements, and blog content are still to come, meaning these results represent the foundation, not the ceiling.

What's Next

With the on-page fundamentals now delivering, the next phase focuses on PDP template optimisation, navigation improvements, and blog content targeting long-tail queries in the activewear space, all of which will compound the gains already made.