How Optimum7 Increased Organic Traffic by 104% and Turned Candy Education Into a Booking Engine
The Business
You Make Candy is not a traditional retail shop. It is a hands-on candy-making studio based in Miami, Florida, where guests step behind the counter and craft their sweets with the help of experienced candy makers guiding them through the process. The business hosts birthday parties, family outings, bachelorette celebrations, corporate team-building events, and tourist experiences for people looking for something more interactive and memorable than standard attractions.
The differentiator is experiential retail. Customers do not simply purchase candy; they become part of the experience itself. The company offers both in-studio classes and mobile experiences that bring the candy-making concept directly to private events and venues, making the brand as flexible as it is engaging.
Operating in Miami adds complexity. Tourism shifts throughout the year, competition for entertainment spending is intense, and the audience ranges from local families to international visitors planning special occasions. As a local service business, long-term growth required more than paid ads alone. You Make Candy needed sustainable organic visibility that introduced the brand to people still exploring ideas and comparing activities before making a final decision.
The Objective
The engagement focused on one clear outcome: expand organic reach beyond branded searches by building a structured content engine that attracts new audiences, builds topical authority, and channels qualified demand into bookings.
Success was defined by measurable and durable gains:
Expand organic traffic beyond brand-name queries
Establish authority in candy-making education and party planning
Capture discovery-stage searches before customers choose an activity
Increase keyword coverage and SERP visibility across a broader query set
Build a sustainable content foundation that performs with minimal ongoing intervention
The goal was not incremental lift. It was to transform organic search from a brand-support channel into a consistent source of new customer acquisition.
Key Business Challenges
1. Organic Performance Was Brand-Dependent
Traffic was concentrated around searches that included “You Make Candy” or “You Make Candy Miami.” Growth depended heavily on existing brand recognition and paid acquisition efforts. Without non-branded discovery, expansion potential remained limited.
2. No Content Layer for Discovery
The website lacked educational or research-stage content. People searching for candy-making techniques, party ideas, or alternative Miami experiences were making decisions without ever encountering the brand during those early planning moments.
3. Narrow Keyword Footprint
Search visibility was clustered around a small group of branded terms. Informational and comparison-based queries, the ones that introduce new customers and shape decisions, were largely untapped.
4. Adjacent Demand Was Being Captured by Publishers
High-volume searches tied to candy science, party alternatives, and family entertainment were being served by blogs and national publishers rather than by You Make Candy. This left meaningful discovery traffic on the table.
The Strategic Challenge
The challenge was not simply publishing blog posts. It was earning non-branded visibility in a competitive local market while maintaining brand credibility and steering traffic toward bookings.
The strategy had to:
Win informational queries without diluting brand identity
Align content with modern SERP features such as AI Overviews and People Also Ask
Connect education and comparison content naturally to commercial booking pages
Build authority quickly enough to influence seasonal planning cycles
The objective was to move from passive brand awareness to active discovery participation.
The Strategy
The content strategy was built around intent alignment. Every topic was selected based on how real people search before choosing an activity.
1. Structured Content Pillars
Authority was built through clusters rather than isolated articles. Content was organized into four interconnected pillars:
Candy-making education: temperature stages, lollipop techniques, candy fundamentals
Party alternatives: comparison searches from parents evaluating birthday venues
Miami activity discovery: local and tourism-driven experience searches
Seasonal demand: holiday-driven spikes and family milestone events
Each pillar supported the others. Educational depth strengthened topical authority. Alternative content placed the brand inside real comparison moments. Local and seasonal topics ensured visibility during high-intent planning windows.
This structure improved crawl consistency and created clear relevance signals for search engines.
2. High-Intent Content Execution
Articles were chosen based on demand stability and decision-stage relevance. Evergreen topics such as “Do lollipops expire?” and “What temperature is the hard crack stage?” were prioritized because they attract recurring search volume and answer questions people consistently ask.
Content formatting emphasized:
Clear hierarchy and concise answer blocks
Direct responses to common questions
Clean structure to support AI-driven SERP placements
This increased eligibility for features such as AI Overviews and People Also Ask, expanding visibility even when click-through behavior varied.
3. Local SEO Reinforcement
Because You Make Candy operates in a tourism-heavy city, geographic alignment was essential. Content was optimized for Miami-modified searches related to party planning, birthdays, bachelorette events, and family outings.
This ensured that discovery-stage visibility remained commercially relevant and connected to real booking intent rather than floating as disconnected informational traffic.
4. SERP feature optimization
Traffic without structure creates leakage. Every article was built to support booking pathways:
Educational guides connected to class reservations
Party-alternative posts linked directly to birthday and mobile event services
Miami-focused pages fed into location-based booking pages
Internal linking strengthened crawl paths while guiding readers naturally from curiosity to action.
5. Content Architecture and Internal Linking
Traffic without direction creates friction. Every article was built to support crawl efficiency and funnel progression:
Educational pages connected to class and experience bookings
Alternative content routed readers toward birthday and mobile party services
Miami-focused pages linked into booking-intent pathways
Cross-linking strengthened cluster authority and improved crawl paths
The result was structural alignment: discovery content feeding commercial pages, without compromising credibility.
Results
The strategy delivered measurable gains in traffic volume, keyword visibility, and non-branded discovery.
Key Performance Metrics
Traffic Growth (December YoY)
Total sessions: +104.09% (8,588 vs. 4,208)
Engaged sessions: +75.41% (4,487 vs. 2,558)
Total users: +122.8% (6,733 vs. 3,022)
First-time visitors: +170.6%
Growth was not limited to returning visitors. The majority of lift came from new audiences discovering the brand through non-branded queries for the first time.
Keyword and Visibility Expansion
106 keywords ranking within the Top 100
2 keywords in Top 3
7 keywords in positions 4-10
20 keywords in positions 11-20
578 total ranking movements year over year
The overall impression footprint expanded from approximately 75,000 impressions to over 580,000, representing nearly an eightfold increase in visibility.
Top-performing pages included:
Hard crack stage temperature – 193,326 impressions
Do lollipops expire? – 123,516 impressions
Complete lollipop guide – 68,547 impressions
These pages generated substantial net-new clicks compared to the previous year, confirming genuine expansion rather than redistribution of existing demand.
Breakout Content Performance (Search Console)
In the last 3 months, newly published content has become a measurable driver of organic performance compared to the same period last year.
The view below isolates click performance by page, showing current-period clicks, prior-period clicks, and net change. It confirms these pages delivered net gains within the comparison window.
Net Click Gains by Breakout Pages (Search Console)
To make the impact easier to scan, the same breakout pages are summarized below by article title, with impressions and clicks for the same comparison window.
Engagement Quality Signals
Increased traffic translated into stronger engagement:
Event count: +78.16% (43,325 vs 24,318)
User engagement events: +59.1%
Session starts: +100%
This indicates that visitors were not only arriving but also interacting, exploring content, and progressing toward booking-related actions.
Strategic Outcome
The engagement transformed You Make Candy’s organic presence from brand-dependent to discovery-driven.
Evergreen education content now functions as a steady acquisition layer. Party-alternative content places the brand directly inside real comparison moments. Local alignment ensures that informational visibility connects to actual booking intent.
Instead of relying heavily on paid channels to introduce the experience, You Make Candy now benefits from a compounding organic engine that:
Expands reach beyond branded demand
Captures families and planners earlier in the research phase
Builds credibility before purchase intent forms
Supports booking growth with lower long-term acquisition cost
Organic search shifted from a passive support channel to a strategic growth asset, one that continues to strengthen as authority deepens over time.
Fill out the form to request a Custom Marketing or Conversion Optimization Strategy for your Website.
Let's Talk
A digital marketing strategy is the path to profitability. Optimum7 can help you set the right goals, offer and implement creative and technical strategies, and use data and analytics to review and improve your business’s performance.
