Why SEO Traffic Fails Without Conversion Strategy (And How Agencies Fix It)

Recently we watched a food packaging companies their traffic spike.

New visitors flood in.

And conversions?

Flat.

Traffic up 76%, revenue up 8%

Here’s the big lesson!

You can rank first for 50 keywords, drive thousands of visitors, and still make no money.

The problem isn't visibility. It's who's visiting and what happens when they get there.

We've worked with e-commerce clients where traffic grew 76% but conversions barely moved.

Then we fixed the actual problems and revenue jumped 222% within eight weeks.

Same site.

Different approach.

The food packaging company that ranked for Christmas recipes

This client sold vacuum sealers, food storage bags, and commercial packaging supplies.

Products people research heavily before buying. Average order value: $50-350.

Their blog was ranking beautifully. Christmas food inspiration. Environmental policies around food packaging. How-to guides about food safety.

All informational. None of it commercial.

They were attracting home cooks looking for recipe ideas, not businesses shopping for packaging equipment. Traffic looked great in Google Analytics. But these visitors weren't buyers. They were tyre kickers who'd never convert.

The content strategy was wrong from the start. They'd built an audience that didn't need their products.

When your product page looks like a B2B enquiry form

Here's what actually stopped people buying:

An enquiry form sat at the top of every product page. The "Add to Cart" button was halfway down the page.

So visitors landed, saw the form, and thought they needed to request a quote. They assumed it was wholesale only. They didn't realise they could just buy it.

The page was saying: "You need to talk to sales first." The business wanted: "Just add it to cart and check out."

A/B testing button colours won't fix this. The whole page needs rebuilding.

The keyword intent shift that changed everything

We pulled their rankings and saw the problem immediately.

They were ranking for:

• "How to store food safely"
• "Christmas food inspiration"
• "Environmental packaging policies"

These are informational queries. People researching, not buying.

We shifted focus to commercial terms:

• "Vacuum sealer"
• "Food packaging supplies"
• "Food bag sealer"
• "Commercial vacuum sealer"

Different intent. Different visitor. Different outcome.

We didn't just optimise existing content for these terms. We rebuilt their focus pages around commercial keywords, aligned the title tags and content structure with what Google rewards for buyer intent, and killed off blog posts that were attracting the wrong audience.

Some content got merged. Some got deleted entirely.

The goal wasn't more traffic. It was better traffic.

From 20 blog posts to one (and why it worked)

Most agencies tell you to publish more. Post consistently. Feed the algorithm.

We cut their output to one post per month.

Publishing 20 blog posts a month sounds productive. It's not if most of them just sit there doing nothing. This client was writing about environmental topics and general food safety. None of it connected to their products.

One high-quality post per month made more sense. Longer. More detailed. Actually about the problems their products solved. Proper internal linking to product pages.

Less content. Better results.

How we actually fix this

Pull every keyword your site ranks for. Separate the informational ones from commercial ones. Most sites rank for dozens of terms that will never convert.

Check what visitors see first on your product pages. If it's an enquiry form, a long paragraph about your company, or anything that isn't the product and how to buy it, that's your problem.

Find blog posts that get traffic but don't convert. Merge similar topics. Delete the irrelevant ones. Stop publishing for the sake of publishing.

Put customer reviews on product pages. Make sure "Add to Cart" is visible without scrolling. Link from blog posts to service pages. Don't assume people know how to buy from you.

Track conversions and revenue, not just rankings and traffic. If your rankings go up but sales don't, something's still broken. Measuring SEO success beyond rankings and traffic is what actually matters.

This client saw changes in 6-8 weeks. Ten months later: traffic up 76%, conversions up 177%, revenue up 222%.

Why this matters for local service businesses

Local service businesses make the same mistakes. They rank for "how to fix a leaking tap" when they need "emergency plumber Gold Coast." They write blog posts about home maintenance when they should focus on their service pages.

Informational content builds authority. It gets you into the consideration phase. But if that's your entire strategy, you're just attracting people who want free advice.

The shift from informational to commercial is what turns SEO into actual revenue. This is how agencies build predictable lead pipelines instead of just chasing rankings that look good in reports.

If your agency only talks about rankings, ask them about conversions.

Ask how many visitors turn into customers.

If they can't answer that, they're measuring the wrong thing.

David Krauter, from Websites That Sell, a digital marketing agency specialising in Web Design, Development, SEO, Google Ads, Meta Ads and Social Media Marketing servicing Australian business owners across Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Sunshine Coast & the Gold Coast - put it this way:

“SEO on the Gold Coast isn't about more traffic. It's about the right traffic, pages that actually convert, and a content strategy built around making money.”

Stop optimising for traffic

If your traffic's up but revenue isn't, your rankings aren't the problem. It's what happens after someone lands on your site.

We build SEO strategies around business outcomes, not vanity metrics. Want to talk about what's actually broken? Let's do it.

Cover Photo by olia danilevich