The Challenge
When I started working with this client, their website was honestly a mess. They were selling certification courses using WooCommerce like it was an online store. It was frustrating for their customers, especially hospitality companies trying to register multiple staff for courses in different states.
To register more than one person, they had to order the same course multiple times and pay separately for study materials for each employee. It was painful for the customer and time-consuming for the client, who had to constantly explain how to use the site.
We scrapped the whole system, rebuilt the website, and set up custom registration forms that let users register multiple staff in one go, assign materials, and check out, without calling the office every time. That change freed up their time and unlocked a ton of revenue that was stuck behind a broken process.
What We Did
SEO
Once the site was up, we went to work on improving their SEO. They were already ranking okay, but I found money keywords they weren’t hitting and optimized from there.
Over time, their organic traffic grew from 2,000 to 5,500 visits/month, and online sales went from R285K to R1.14M monthly. Keep in mind, that’s just online sales — it was about a third of their total revenue.
All of this came from a R19K monthly spend on SEO.
Paid Ads
We tested Google Ads for 7 months, with a small R9,500/month budget focused on Alabama. We averaged 231 clicks, 33 conversions monthly, at R3,040 per conversion, and hit a 428% ROI. It worked — but they wanted more revenue from the R19K spend, so they decided to stop the ads and focus fully on SEO.
Final Thoughts
This client was easy to work with, and over four years we built a great working relationship. The only thing I wish we could’ve changed was the marketing budget. With R2.28M in revenue a month, R19K in marketing was limiting, especially if they wanted to scale more aggressively.
That said, we made it work. 11,900% ROI on SEO, a website that actually worked, less time spent explaining things to customers, and a smoother process all around. Simple changes, done properly, can make a huge difference.
