How We Helped a Luxury Spa Brand Rank Higher & Grow Faster

Our client is a luxury spa and wellness resort brand known for its natural hot springs, rejuvenating treatments, and destination retreats across the U.S. While their offline reputation was stellar, their online presence didn’t match the premium experience they provided in person.

They approached LazyMetrics with a clear mission:

“Help us show up higher on Google, attract more guests organically, and convert more visitors into bookings.”

The Problem

After a deep dive using SEMrush, Ahrefs, and a hands-on UX audit, we identified several critical issues holding back the brand’s digital performance:

1. Poor Visibility for Non-Branded Keywords

The website ranked well only for its brand name. For high-intent terms like “spa resort in [location],” “healing hot springs,” or “luxury wellness retreat,” the site was nowhere to be found.

2. Thin and Underperforming Content

Service pages lacked depth, location pages weren’t optimized for SEO, and the blog had almost no content targeting long-tail queries. The brand wasn’t answering the questions potential guests were asking on Google.

3. Website Design Issues

Beyond SEO, the website suffered from design flaws that impacted both user experience and conversions:

  • Unclear navigation structure
  • Weak call-to-actions (CTAs)
  • Mobile usability issues
  • Inconsistent visual hierarchy
  • Slow load times and cluttered layouts

This not only hurt SEO performance it also discouraged visitors from exploring or booking.

4. Low Authority and Backlink Profile

The brand had very few backlinks, especially from niche-relevant sources. Competing against other national wellness resorts without strong domain authority made ranking even tougher.

Our SEO + UX Overhaul Strategy

To help this spa brand rise above the noise, we launched a multi-phase SEO and design improvement campaign, focused on these 5 pillars:

1. Strategic Keyword Research & Content Expansion

Using SEMrush and Ahrefs, we uncovered high-opportunity keywords across three key verticals:

  • Spa services and experiences
  • Location-based travel and tourism queries
  • Informational searches (e.g., “benefits of hot springs,” “what is a wellness retreat”)

We then:

  • Built dedicated landing pages for services, packages, and locations
  • Created SEO-rich blog articles around trending wellness topics
  • Answered user questions through long-tail blog content and FAQ sections
  • Internally linked everything into a strong site architecture

2. Full Website Design & UX Improvements

After our SEO audit, we rebuilt several key areas of the site to enhance user experience and boost conversions:

  • Revamped site structure for easier navigation
  • Improved content layout for better readability and engagement
  • Added strong, clear CTAs across service and booking pages
  • Ensured full mobile responsiveness
  • Optimized visual flow with a clean, elegant, and relaxing aesthetic
  • Minimized clutter and distractions to guide users toward bookings

The refreshed site not only loaded faster and looked better but also supported the SEO goals more effectively.

3. On-Page SEO Enhancements

We optimized all core pages with:

  • SEO-friendly meta titles, descriptions, and header structures
  • Internal linking between services, locations, and blog articles
  • Clear keyword targeting and user intent alignment
  • Rich media (images, videos, alt-text) to support engagement

We also used structured data to enhance visibility in search results with review stars, service types, and local business schema.

4. Technical SEO Cleanup

Behind the scenes, we fixed a range of issues:

  • Improved Core Web Vitals (page speed, responsiveness, layout stability)
  • Fixed crawlability issues using a clean sitemap and robots.txt
  • Resolved broken links and redirected outdated URLs
  • Ensured proper indexing through Search Console coverage management

5. Authority Building via Link Outreach

To support all the above work, we ran a link-building campaign targeting high-trust sources:

  • Wellness blogs and magazines
  • Travel influencers and destination review sites
  • Local tourism directories and resource pages
  • Competitor backlink gap closure via outreach and digital PR

These backlinks helped raise the site’s authority and pushed our newly optimized content higher in search results.

The Results

After implementing our full-funnel SEO and UX strategy, the brand saw measurable success across all key metrics:

📈 Organic Traffic & Keyword Growth

  • +9,000 monthly visitors added
  • Total organic traffic: 57,000 (valued at $10.4K/month)
  • +25,200 organic keywords gained — now ranking for 39,700 total keywords

🔗 Authority & Backlink Growth

  • Domain Rating improved to 55
  • Referring domains jumped from ~590 to 1,200+ (+609)
  • Backlinks grew to 3,100+, with 1,600+ new links acquired

🚀 Overall Site Health

  • Site Health Score: 98/100
  • Broken links reduced to just 3
  • Mobile and speed performance greatly improved
  • All critical crawl and indexing issues resolved

Final Thoughts

This case study proves that SEO success isn’t just about keywords and links. It’s about improving the entire user experience both for Google and for your real-life customers.

By combining:

  • Smart, high-converting content
  • Keyword-driven SEO strategy
  • Data-informed design improvements
  • Link building and technical cleanup

LazyMetrics helped this luxury spa brand become more discoverable, more trusted, and ultimately more booked.

Now, their organic growth is sustainable and their digital presence finally reflects the premium experience they deliver in person.