How The Body Shop grew non-brand organic traffic by 33% while brand search fell

Migrating to Shopify, then building the category, content and AI-search foundations to be found for what customers are actually searching for.

The Body Shop Vitamin E Moisture Day Cream

33% rise in non-brand organic keywords

27% increase in top 3 keyword rankings

Fastest growth in AI Overview appearances

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The Challenge

The Body Shop is one of the UK's best-known beauty brands, but in 2025 it faced two problems at once. The business was replatforming to Shopify, and branded search interest was in steady decline following its period in administration. UK branded clicks were down 37% year on year.

An SEO strategy that depended on brand demand was not going to work. The Body Shop needed to be discovered for the needs, ingredients and benefits customers search for, in a category where compliance rules restrict the claims that can be made on page. It also needed to protect organic performance through a full platform migration.

What We Did

NOVOS first supported the January 2025 migration to Shopify, then moved onto an ongoing on-page and technical SEO retainer from April 2025. Two growth strategies, each with a prioritised action plan, shaped the work.

Non-brand category expansion. We identified benefit, audience, need and ingredient searches with no landing page and briefed 20 new collection pages, from Skincare for Red Skin to Hyaluronic Acid Skincare, alongside a subscription landing page.
On-page optimisation at scale. Metadata and intro copy across 108 collection pages, 13 product pages and the homepage, plus FAQs added to the majority of collection pages to target long-tail queries, People Also Ask and AI Overviews.
Technical foundations. A navigation revamp separating bath and shower from body care and surfacing men's ranges, core category links in the homepage and footer, cross-category internal linking on every collection page, breadcrumb, sitemap and pagination fixes, and old subdomains removed from the index.
Content. Internal links from top-performing blog posts into commercial pages, blog copy optimisation, and a content backlog of 34 briefed pieces built around skin concerns and ingredients.
AI visibility. Monthly LLM visibility and citation tracking across ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot and AI Overviews, feeding content priorities.

The Results

Between April 2025 and July 2026, non-brand organic performance grew consistently while the wider market for the brand shrank.

Non-brand organic sessions up 33% year on year over 12 months, and up 57% over the last six months.
Top 3 keyword rankings up 27% since the retainer started, and up 39% year on year.
20 new category pages now rank for 483 keywords, 132 of them on page one, and have driven 90,000 sessions and £33,000 revenue across all channels.
Head terms moved to position one: face cream (15 to 1), body lotions (8 to 1), bath gift sets (28 to 1), body mist spray men (12 to 1), night cream (48 to 3).
Navigation and internal linking work moved the five head category pages from an average position of 27 to 14, then from 11 to 5.
Fastest growth in AI Overview appearances of any competitor tracked after FAQs went live, and The Body Shop now ranks second for AI visibility against its competitor set, appearing in around 11% of relevant AI answers.
Blog optimisation lifted clicks 178% on the Vitamin E guide and 54% on the face wash guide within a month, with the Vitamin E article earning an AI Overview placement.

"From managing our initial migration to growing our non-brand visibility, NOVOS became a valuable extension of The Body Shop team. Their thoughtful SEO recommendations have resulted in cross-channel growth, and challenged the business to embrace new perspectives in line with the changing SEO landscape. NOVOS are collaborative, strategic, and an absolute pleasure to work with."

Alex Buckingham

Head of Digital and Ecommerce UK, The Body Shop

Why It Matters

Brand demand is not something an SEO agency controls. What it can control is whether a retailer shows up for the searches that happen regardless of brand, in Google and in AI answers. That is where The Body Shop grew, and it is the same playbook we run for every eCommerce brand: be the answer, not just the brand name.