How to Scale Wine Ecommerce to 7 Figures Using SEO (2026 Guide)
Learn the exact SEO strategies we used to scale Pull The Cork from £100s to 7-figure turnover. Wine ecommerce founder shares operational insights.
Building a wine ecommerce business from scratch is hard. Scaling it to seven figures is even harder. Between 2018 and 2020, I founded Pull The Cork, a natural wine ecommerce business, and grew it from generating a few hundred pounds to achieving 7-figure annual turnover before exiting.
This wasn't luck, and it wasn't just about having great wine. It was about understanding that SEO, when combined with smart wine business operations, becomes the most profitable customer acquisition channel in ecommerce.
This guide shares the exact strategies, mistakes, and lessons from that journey. Whether you're launching a wine shop, scaling an existing wine ecommerce business, or looking to reduce dependency on paid ads, these insights come from someone who's lived the operational reality, not just consulted on it.
The Wine Ecommerce Landscape: Why SEO Matters
When I started Pull The Cork in 2018, the UK natural wine market was growing but still niche. Competing against established wine retailers with massive ad budgets wasn't realistic. I needed a sustainable acquisition channel that didn't require burning cash on Facebook ads that would stop working the moment I paused spending.
SEO offered that. But here's what most guides won't tell you: wine ecommerce SEO is fundamentally different from other ecommerce categories.
The Wine Buyer Journey is Complex
Unlike buying socks or phone cases, wine purchases require education. Customers need to understand:
- What is natural wine? (Pull The Cork's niche)
- How does this region's terroir affect taste?
- What food pairs with this wine?
- Is this winemaker reputable?
- What vintage conditions were like?
This educational need creates SEO opportunities. Every question a customer asks before buying is a keyword you can target with content.
Wine Margins Demand Efficient Marketing
Wine has notoriously tight margins, especially if you're competing on quality rather than volume. When your gross margin is 40-50% and you're paying for fulfillment, storage, and customer service, a £50 customer acquisition cost (CAC) on paid ads quickly makes growth unprofitable.
SEO flips this equation. Once you rank for "natural wine online UK" or "organic orange wine delivery," that traffic costs nothing beyond content creation and technical maintenance. Your CAC drops dramatically, and suddenly scaling becomes financially sustainable.
Market Statistics Support SEO Investment
Research shows there are over 59 million monthly wine-related searches in the U.S. alone. "Buy wine online" gets 2.9K searches monthly, but that's just the tip. Long-tail searches like "natural Pinot Noir UK," "biodynamic wine subscription," or "orange wine low intervention" collectively drive massive qualified traffic and are far less competitive.
The online wine market is projected to grow by $13 billion between 2024-2029. Businesses that build strong SEO foundations now will capture disproportionate share of that growth.
Foundation: Getting Your Technical SEO Right
Before creating content or optimizing products, your technical foundation must be solid. Pull The Cork's early growth came from ruthlessly prioritizing technical fundamentals.
Site Speed: Non-Negotiable for Wine Ecommerce
Mobile traffic dominates wine ecommerce. If your product pages take 5 seconds to load, you've already lost the sale, and Google's algorithm penalises slow sites.
What we did at Pull The Cork:
- Image optimization: Compressed wine bottle images to WebP format (80-90% file size reduction without visible quality loss)
- Lazy loading: Images below the fold didn't load until users scrolled
- CDN implementation: Cloudflare cached static assets globally
- Minimized JavaScript: Reduced third-party scripts that bloated page weight
Result: We achieved sub-2-second load times on mobile, which improved both conversion rate and search rankings.
Action Step: Use Google PageSpeed Insights to audit your site. Prioritise fixing Core Web Vitals (LCP, FID, CLS). Wine product images are usually the biggest culprits -- optimise them first.
Mobile-First Design
Over 60% of Pull The Cork's traffic came from mobile devices. Google uses mobile-first indexing, meaning your mobile site's quality determines your rankings.
Critical mobile elements:
- Thumb-friendly "Add to Cart" buttons
- Simplified navigation (dropdowns, not complex mega-menus)
- Readable product descriptions without zooming
- Mobile-optimized checkout (minimal form fields, autofill support)
- Touch-friendly wine filters (varietal, region, price)
Mistake to avoid: Don't hide product details on mobile. We initially truncated long wine descriptions, thinking mobile users wouldn't read them. Wrong. Wine buyers want information regardless of device. Make content accessible without excessive scrolling, but don't remove it.
Structured Data (Schema Markup)
Schema markup tells search engines exactly what your content represents. For wine ecommerce, this unlocks rich results in search.
Essential schema types for wine:
1. Product schema - Price, availability, reviews, ratings
2. AggregateRating schema - Star ratings in search results (massive CTR boost)
3. BreadcrumbList schema - Navigation breadcrumbs in SERPs
4. Organization schema - Brand information, contact details
5. Review schema - Individual customer reviews
Pull The Cork example: When we implemented product schema with aggregate ratings, our CTR from search results improved by 35-40%. Seeing "4.8★ stars (127 reviews)" directly in search made our listings stand out against competitors without ratings.
Action Step: Use Google's Rich Results Test to validate your schema. Prioritise product and review schema, as they have the highest impact on CTR and conversions.
URL Structure for Wine Products
Wine ecommerce URL structures need to balance SEO with usability.
Poor URL structure:
```
/products/12345
/wine?id=45678
```
Better URL structure:
```
/wines/red-wine/pinot-noir/oregon-pinot-noir-2021
/producers/domaine-de-la-romanee-conti
/regions/burgundy/natural-wines
```
Why this matters: Descriptive URLs:
- Help Google understand page content
- Allow users to see what they're clicking (increases trust)
- Include keywords naturally
- Create logical site hierarchy
At Pull The Cork, we used:
```
/natural-wine/[color]/[varietal]/[producer-name-vintage]
```
This structure told Google exactly what each page was about while helping customers navigate intuitively.
Duplicate Content: The Wine Inventory Challenge
Many wine retailers face a duplicate content problem: the same wine appears in multiple categories (red wine, Burgundy, Pinot Noir, under £25, gift wines).
The fix: Canonical tags. Choose one "primary" URL for each wine, and use canonical tags on other category pages to point to that primary version.
Example:
```html
<!-- Primary URL -->
/wines/red-wine/burgundy-pinot-noir-2020
<!-- Category pages use canonical -->
<link rel="canonical" href="/wines/red-wine/burgundy-pinot-noir-2020" />
```
This consolidates link equity and prevents Google from seeing "duplicate" pages competing against each other.
Product Page Optimization: The Revenue Engine
Product pages are where SEO meets revenue. Get them right, and every ranking improvement directly increases sales.
The Wine Product Description Formula
Wine descriptions present a unique challenge: balancing sommelier-quality content (building credibility and trust) with SEO optimization (ranking for searches).
Pull The Cork's product description structure:
1. Engaging headline (H1): Product name + key differentiator
- Example: "2021 Domaine La Grange Tiphaine Montlouis-sur-Loire 'Clef de Sol' – Natural Loire Chenin Blanc"
2. First paragraph (50-75 words): Quick-hit information for scanners
- Varietal, region, winemaker
- Key selling point (natural, organic, rare, high-rated)
- Taste profile in simple language
- Who it's for / when to drink it
3. Tasting notes section (100-150 words): Sommelier-quality depth
- Appearance, nose, palate, finish
- Specific flavor descriptors
- Mouthfeel and structure
- Vintage conditions (if relevant)
4. Producer background (75-100 words): The story
- Winemaker history and philosophy
- Vineyard practices (biodynamic, organic, natural)
- Why this producer matters
- Awards or recognition
5. Pairing suggestions (50-75 words): Practical value
- Food pairing recommendations
- Occasion suggestions
- Serving temperature and decanting advice
6. Technical details: Structured data
- ABV, vintage, region, grape varieties
- Closure type, bottle size
- Certifications (organic, biodynamic)
SEO optimization within this structure:
- Primary keyword in H1: "Natural Loire Chenin Blanc" (matches search query)
- Secondary keywords naturally in description: "organic wine," "biodynamic vineyard," "low-intervention"
- LSI terms: terroir, minerality, old vines, hand-harvested, native yeast
- Location keywords: Loire Valley, Montlouis-sur-Loire, French natural wine
Mistake to avoid: Keyword stuffing. A wine description that says "buy natural wine online, best natural wine UK, organic natural wine delivery" five times sounds robotic and hurts conversion. Write for humans first, optimize for search second.
Product Images: The Overlooked SEO Asset
Wine is visual. Customers need to see the bottle, label, and ideally the wine in glass. But images are also SEO gold when optimized correctly.
Pull The Cork image strategy:
1. Hero image: High-quality bottle shot, white background, 1200x1200px minimum
2. Label close-up: Readable vintage, producer name, appellation
3. Lifestyle image: Wine in context (poured in glass, with food, at table)
4. Producer photo: Winemaker in vineyard (if available)
SEO optimization:
- File names: `loire-valley-chenin-blanc-natural-wine-2021.jpg` (not `IMG_12345.jpg`)
- Alt text: Descriptive and keyword-rich – "2021 Domaine La Grange Tiphaine Montlouis
Chenin Blanc natural wine bottle"
- Compression: WebP format, 100-150KB file size
- Lazy loading: Except hero image (critical for LCP)
Why this matters: Google Image Search drives 20-30% of ecommerce traffic for visual categories. Proper image optimization gets your wines showing up in image results for "[wine name]," "[region] wine," or "[varietal] bottle."
Customer Reviews: UGC That Ranks
User-generated content (customer reviews) is SEO magic. It adds fresh, unique content regularly, includes natural language keywords, and builds trust signals.
What we did at Pull The Cork:
- Automated review request emails 2 weeks after delivery
- Structured review form: Overall rating, taste rating, value rating, written review
- Implemented review schema markup (star ratings in search)
- Displayed reviews prominently on product pages
Results:
- Products with 10+ reviews converted 50% better than products without reviews
- Review content added unique long-tail keywords we'd never thought to target
- Aggregate ratings in search results increased CTR significantly
SEO benefit: Google sees reviews as fresh, relevant content. A wine product page with 50 customer reviews describing taste, pairing, and experience contains far more keyword variations and semantic signals than any product description you could write yourself.
Internal Linking from Product Pages
Every wine product page should link to:
- Related wines (same producer, same region, same varietal)
- Wine education content (grape varietal guides, region profiles)
- Category pages (filter pages: "More Natural Red Wines," "Other Organic Burgundy")
This distributes link equity across your site and keeps users engaged (reducing bounce rate, which is a ranking factor).
Content Strategy: Building Authority Beyond Products
Product pages drive sales. Content builds authority, captures top-of-funnel traffic, and establishes your brand as an expert.
The Pull The Cork Content Pillars
We focused on three content categories:
1. Wine Education (Answering "What is...?" queries)
Target keywords: "What is natural wine," "What is orange wine," "What is biodynamic wine," "What are sulfites in wine"
These informational queries have high search volume and capture customers in the research phase. Someone searching "what is natural wine" today might become a buyer next month.
Example article: "What is Natural Wine? A Complete Guide to Low-Intervention Winemaking"
- Word count: 3,200 words
- Structure: Definition, history, production methods, how it differs from conventional/organic, common misconceptions, where to buy
- Internal links: To natural wine product category, organic wine guide, biodynamic wine guide
- Result: Ranked #3 for "what is natural wine UK," drove 800+ monthly visitors, converted at 2.5% (20 new customers per month)
2. Regional and Varietal Guides (Answering "Best [wine] in [region]" queries)
Target keywords: "Natural wine Loire Valley," "Orange wine Italy," "Biodynamic Burgundy producers," "Best natural wine regions France"
These guides establish topical authority and capture mid-funnel traffic (users narrowing down their preferences).
Example article: "The Ultimate Guide to Natural Wine in the Loire Valley"
- Word count: 4,500 words
- Structure: Loire Valley overview, key appellations, top natural winemakers, recommended wines, why Loire excels at natural wine, visiting Loire wine regions
- Internal links: Loire Valley wines in shop, specific producer pages, French natural wine category
- Result: Ranked #1 for "Loire Valley natural wine," #5 for "Loire wine producers," drove 500+ monthly visitors
3. Buying Guides (Answering "Best wine for..." queries)
Target keywords: "Best natural wine under £20," "Natural wine gifts UK," "Orange wine for beginners," "Natural wine subscription"
These bottom-of-funnel guides have high commercial intent; users are ready to buy, just deciding what to buy.
Example article: "10 Best Natural Wines Under £20 (2020 Guide)"
- Word count: 2,800 words
- Structure: Introduction to natural wine value, criteria for selection, 10 specific wine recommendations (with links to products), FAQ
- Internal links: Every recommended wine linked to product page, natural wine category, wine subscription page
- Result: Ranked #2 for "natural wine under £20 UK," drove 300+ monthly visitors, converted at 8% (24 sales per month)
Content Calendar: Strategic Timing
Wine has seasonality. Smart content timing captures demand when it peaks.
Pull The Cork content calendar:
- January: New Year health trends → "Natural Wine and Sulfites: A Healthier Choice"
- February: Valentine's Day → "Romantic Natural Wines for Valentine's"
- April-May: Spring/summer rosé → "The Best Natural Rosé Wines for Summer"
- September: Harvest season → "Understanding Wine Harvest: How Natural Winemakers Work"
- November: Holiday gifting → "Natural Wine Gift Guide for Christmas 2020"
- December: Year-end lists → "Top 10 Natural Wines of 2020"
Why timing matters: Publish content 2-3 months before peak demand. Google needs time to index, rank, and recognize your content as authoritative. If you publish "Christmas wine gifts" on December 15, you've missed the traffic.
Long-Tail Keywords: The Secret to Competing with Giants
Competing for "buy wine online" (2.9K searches) against Amazon, Vivino, and Majestic Wine is financial suicide. Long-tail keywords let you win.
The Long-Tail Philosophy
Instead of targeting one high-volume, high-competition keyword, target 100 low-volume, low-competition keywords. Collectively, they drive more traffic at lower CAC.
Example comparison:
Short-tail approach (doesn't work):
- Target: "red wine" (13,800 searches/month, ultra-competitive)
- Ranking: Position 50+ (no traffic)
- Result: Waste of time
Long-tail approach (works):
- Target 1: "natural red wine Loire Valley" (40 searches/month, low competition) → Position 2
- Target 2: "organic Gamay natural wine" (30 searches/month, low competition) → Position 1
- Target 3: "low-intervention red wine UK" (50 searches/month, low competition) → Position 3
- Target 4: "carbonic maceration Beaujolais natural" (25 searches/month, low competition) → Position 1
- ...continue for 96 more keywords
Combined result: 3,500 monthly searches, 2,200 visitors (high relevance = high CTR), positions 1-5 (dominance).
How to Find Long-Tail Wine Keywords
Method 1: Google Autocomplete
Type partial queries into Google and see what autocompletes:
- "natural wine [letter]..." → "natural wine Australia," "natural wine beginners," "natural wine Bristol"
- "orange wine [letter]..." → "orange wine Italy," "orange wine how it's made," "orange wine online UK"
These are real searches people make. Create content or product pages targeting them.
Method 2: "People Also Ask" Boxes
Search any wine term and look at "People Also Ask" questions:
- "What is natural wine?" → Leads to "Is natural wine better for you?" "Does natural wine have sulfites?" "What does natural wine taste like?"
Each question is a content opportunity.
Method 3: Related Searches (Bottom of Google SERPs)
Scroll to bottom of search results:
- "Related searches for natural wine UK"
- Shows: "organic wine UK," "natural wine subscription," "best natural wine shops London," "natural wine online delivery"
These variations inform both content topics and product page optimization.
Method 4: Keyword Research Tools (Ahrefs, SEMrush, Ubersuggest)
Export keyword lists for seed terms like "natural wine," then filter by:
- Search volume: 20-500 (low enough to rank, high enough to matter)
- Keyword difficulty: 0-30 (achievable for newer sites)
- Intent: Informational or commercial
This gives you a database of 300-500 targetable keywords. Build content around each cluster.
Pull The Cork Long-Tail Success Story
One of our most profitable pages targeted "pet-nat natural wine UK" (35 searches/month).
Sounds insignificant, right? But here's what happened:
- We ranked #1 within 2 months (low competition)
- CTR was 45% (position 1 + niche relevance)
- Traffic: 15-20 visitors per month
- Conversion rate: 12% (highly qualified traffic)
- Result: 2-3 pet-nat sales per month from one keyword
Multiply this across 200+ long-tail keywords, and you've built a 7-figure business.
Natural Wine Positioning: Lessons from Pull The Cork
Pull The Cork specialised in natural wine, a niche within a niche. This positioning taught me lessons applicable to any specialised wine segment.
Niche Down to Stand Out
In 2018, natural wine was emerging in the UK but not mainstream. Most online wine retailers offered token "organic" sections. None specialized entirely in natural wine.
By going all-in on natural wine, we became the go-to UK destination. When someone Googled "natural wine online UK," "where to buy natural wine London," or "best natural wine shop," we dominated.
Key lesson: Don't be everything to everyone. Pick a niche (natural, biodynamic, orange wine, minimal intervention, specific region, small-batch) and own it. You'll rank higher, attract more loyal customers, and have a clear brand story.
Content That Educates Evangelizes
Natural wine required customer education. Most people didn't know what it was, assumed it tasted "weird," or confused it with organic.
We created content that evangelized:
- "Why Natural Wine Tastes Different (and Why That's Good)"
- "Natural Wine Myths Debunked"
- "The Winemakers Leading the Natural Wine Movement"
- "Natural Wine and Health: The Sulfite Question"
This content didn't just drive traffic; it converted sceptics into believers. By the time someone finished reading our natural wine guide, they understood why they should care. Product purchases followed.
Key lesson: If your wine segment requires education (organic, biodynamic, unusual regions, forgotten grapes), content marketing is essential. Don't just sell wine -- teach people why your wine matters.
Community Building Through Content
Natural wine has passionate advocates. We tapped into that community through content:
- Winemaker interviews
- Vineyard visit diaries
- Natural wine festival coverage
- Customer stories and recommendations
This user-generated and community content served triple duty:
1. SEO: Fresh, unique content Google rewarded
2. Social proof: Demonstrated we were part of the natural wine community, not just selling it
3. Backlinks: Winemakers and wine bloggers linked to our interviews and features
Result: We earned backlinks from wine blogs, natural wine forums, and producer websites, all high-authority, topically relevant links that boosted our domain authority.
Wine Shipping Compliance and SEO
Wine shipping laws are a nightmare. They're also an SEO opportunity most competitors mishandle.
The Compliance Challenge
In the U.S., every state has different wine shipping laws. Some states allow direct-to-consumer shipping with licenses. Others ban it entirely. Some allow wine but not spirits. Age verification is required everywhere.
In the UK, compliance is simpler (no state-by-state issues), but you still need age verification and delivery restrictions (no P.O. boxes, adult signature required).
Many wine ecommerce sites handle this poorly from an SEO perspective:
- Blocking entire states with thin "Sorry, we don't ship here" pages
- Hiding inventory behind location checks that Google can't crawl
- Creating duplicate content across regional variations
- Leaving shipping policy pages un-optimized
How We Optimized Shipping Compliance at Pull The Cork
1. Informative Shipping Pages
Instead of a basic "Shipping Policy" page, we created:
- "UK Wine Delivery: How It Works"
- "Natural Wine Shipping Across the UK: Our Process"
- "Wine Delivery Times and Packaging Explained"
These pages provided real value:
- Detailed explanation of our packaging (preventing breakage)
- Temperature control measures (protecting wine quality)
- Delivery timelines by region
- What to do if you're not home (safe place, redelivery)
SEO benefit: Ranked for "wine delivery UK," "how wine is shipped," "wine packaging delivery," all informational queries from customers comparing retailers.
2. Age Verification That Doesn't Kill Crawlability
Age verification pop-ups can block Google from crawling your site if implemented poorly.
Bad implementation:
- Hard gate: Users must verify age before seeing ANY content
- JavaScript-only gate: Googlebot can't interact with it
- Session-based gate: Googlebot doesn't maintain sessions
Our solution:
- Soft gate: Age verification cookie, but content still crawlable
- Progressive enhancement: Works without JavaScript
- Clear messaging: "This site sells alcohol. Please confirm you're 18+"
This kept the site compliant without creating SEO barriers.
3. Regional Content (for U.S. wine retailers)
If you ship to multiple U.S. states, create state-specific content:
- "Wine Delivery in California: What You Need to Know"
- "Texas Wine Shipping Laws and Our Service"
- "Buy Wine Online in New York: Shipping Guide"
These pages:
- Target local searches ("wine delivery [state]")
- Explain state-specific rules (builds trust)
- Optimize for local keywords without creating duplicate product pages
The CAC Equation: When SEO Becomes Profitable
As Pull The Cork scaled, understanding customer acquisition cost (CAC) by channel became critical. SEO emerged as our most profitable channel, but it took time.
CAC by Marketing Channel (Pull The Cork, 2019-2020)
Paid Facebook Ads:
- CAC: £35-£50
- ROAS: 2.5-3x (£100 spend = £250-£300 revenue)
- Scalability: High (more budget = more customers)
- Sustainability: Low (stop spending = stop acquiring)
Google Ads (Search):
- CAC: £25-£40
- ROAS: 3-4x
- Scalability: Medium (limited by search volume)
- Sustainability: Low (stop spending = stop acquiring)
SEO (Organic Search):
- CAC: £8-£15 (amortised content creation cost)
- ROAS: 12-18x
- Scalability: Medium (requires continuous content production)
- Sustainability: High (rankings persist even if content production slows)
Email Marketing (to existing list):
- CAC: £2-£5 (re-engagement cost)
- ROAS: 20-30x
- Scalability: Low (limited by list size)
- Sustainability: High
Key insight: SEO had higher CAC than paid ads initially (content creation takes time and money), but over 12-18 months, amortized CAC dropped dramatically. A single article that ranked well could drive customers for years at near-zero marginal cost.
The SEO Compounding Effect
Year 1 (2018):
- Investment: £15,000 in content + technical SEO
- Traffic: 5,000 monthly organic visitors
- Customers acquired: 125 (2.5% conversion)
- CAC: £120 (expensive!)
Year 2 (2019):
- Investment: £20,000 in additional content
- Traffic: 25,000 monthly organic visitors (Year 1 content still ranking)
- Customers acquired: 750
- CAC: £47 (Year 1 + Year 2 investment / total customers)
Year 3 (2020):
- Investment: £18,000 in content + optimization
- Traffic: 60,000 monthly organic visitors (compounding effect)
- Customers acquired: 1,800
- CAC: £29 (total investment / total customers)
By Year 3, our amortized SEO CAC was lower than any paid channel, and traffic kept growing.
This is why SEO scales profitably; your early investments compound. Content you publish in Month 6 drives traffic in Month 12, 18, 24, and beyond. Paid ads only work whilst you're paying.
When SEO Becomes Your Moat
By late 2020, SEO represented 55% of Pull The Cork's customer acquisition. If Facebook ads stopped working tomorrow, we'd be fine. If Google Ads became too expensive, we'd adjust. But SEO was our moat, a defensible channel that competitors couldn't easily replicate.
Building that moat took 18-24 months. It required upfront bootstrapped investment with delayed returns. But once established, it became the foundation for sustainable, profitable growth.
Scaling Challenges: What Nobody Tells You
Scaling from £100s to 7 figures sounds great in retrospect. The reality was messy, stressful, and full of challenges nobody warned me about.
Challenge 1: Inventory Management at Scale
When you're doing £5K/month in sales, inventory is simple. When you're doing £100K/month, it's a nightmare.
Problems we faced:
- Wines going out of stock mid-campaign (SEO driving traffic to unavailable products)
- Vintage changes (2019 harvest replaces 2018, but SEO still ranking old vintage pages)
- Supplier delays (natural wine producers are small; sometimes harvest is late or yields are low)
SEO implications:
- Out-of-stock products hurt conversion rate (traffic but no sales)
- Constantly changing product URLs broke backlinks and rankings
- Had to balance promoting high-stock wines vs. best-performing SEO wines
What we learned:
- Maintain "core range" products with consistent availability for SEO targeting
- Create vintage-agnostic URLs where possible (`/producer-name-cuvee-name` rather than `/producer-name-cuvee-name-2019`)
- Implement "notify when back in stock" for high-ranking out-of-stock products (captures demand)
Challenge 2: Content Creation Bottleneck
SEO requires consistent content production. As Pull The Cork grew, I couldn't write everything myself.
Hiring challenge: Most wine writers don't understand SEO. Most SEO writers don't understand wine. Finding people who could do both was nearly impossible.
Solution:
- Hired wine enthusiasts and trained them on SEO basics
- Created content briefs with target keywords, structure, and examples
- Edited heavily for optimization while preserving wine knowledge
- Eventually brought in a part-time sommelier-level writer who learned SEO
Key lesson: Budget for content creation. If you're scaling with SEO, plan to spend £2,000-£5,000/month on content (writers, editors, photographers) once you're past the founder-doing-everything phase.
Challenge 3: Technical SEO at Scale
Small wine sites can get away with basic technical SEO. At 1,000+ products, technical issues multiply.
Problems we encountered:
- Site speed degradation as product count grew
- Crawl budget issues (Google not indexing new products fast enough)
- Internal linking structure becoming chaotic (too many categories, too many filters)
- Duplicate content from faceted navigation (filter combinations creating unique URLs)
Solutions:
- Regular technical SEO audits (quarterly)
- Paginated category pages with rel="next"/"prev"
- Canonical tags on filter combinations
- XML sitemap prioritization (most important products at top)
- Lazy loading and image optimization at scale
Key lesson: Don't wait until you have technical problems. Implement proper architecture from Day 1. Fixing technical debt at scale is expensive and risks rankings.
Challenge 4: Balancing SEO and Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)
SEO wants long, comprehensive content. CRO often wants concise, action-focused pages. These goals sometimes conflict.
Example tension:
- SEO: Product descriptions should be 300+ words with keywords
- CRO: Customers just want tasting notes, price, and "Add to Cart"
Our solution:
- Progressive disclosure: Show core information above the fold, hide detailed content in expandable sections
- Tabs: "Tasting Notes" (CRO), "Producer Story" (SEO), "Pairing Ideas" (both)
- A/B tested content length: Found 200-250 words was sweet spot (enough for SEO, not overwhelming for users)
Key lesson: SEO and CRO should inform each other, not fight. Test everything. What ranks well but doesn't convert is wasted traffic.
Key Takeaways and Action Steps
If you're scaling a wine ecommerce business, here's what matters most:
Strategic Takeaways
1. SEO is a long-term investment with compounding returns. Expect 6-12 months before profitability, but once established, it becomes your most efficient channel.
2. Niche positioning beats being a generalist. Natural wine, organic wine, biodynamic wine, specific regions, small producers -- own a niche and dominate its keywords.
3. Long-tail keywords are the secret weapon. Stop competing for "buy wine online" and start owning 200+ specific, low-competition keywords.
4. Content educates and converts. Wine buyers need education. Content that teaches (what is natural wine, how to pair Pinot Noir, understanding Burgundy appellations) builds trust and drives sales.
5. Technical SEO is foundational. Product pages must be fast, mobile-friendly, and properly structured with schema markup. Fix technical issues before scaling content.
6. Customer reviews are SEO gold. Automate review requests, implement review schema, and display reviews prominently. They improve rankings and conversions simultaneously.
Tactical Action Steps
If you're just starting (0-£10K/month):
1. Audit and fix technical SEO (site speed, mobile, schema markup)
2. Optimize 10-20 core product pages with target keywords
3. Create 5-10 comprehensive content pieces targeting long-tail keywords
4. Set up Google Business Profile and local citations (if you have a physical location)
5. Implement review collection and schema markup
If you're scaling (£10K-£100K/month):
1. Publish 2-4 content pieces per month consistently
2. Build topical authority around specific wine segments (natural wine, specific regions, varietals)
3. Earn backlinks through winemaker features, industry partnerships, and high-quality content
4. Expand long-tail keyword targeting (aim for 100+ target keywords)
5. Implement advanced internal linking strategies
6. A/B test product page elements for conversion optimization
If you're at scale (£100K+/month):
1. Maintain content production cadence (4-8 pieces/month)
2. Invest in technical SEO audits and ongoing optimization
3. Build out supporting content for every product category
4. Focus on building domain authority through PR and partnerships
5. Expand into international SEO if applicable
6. Create seasonal content calendars aligned with wine buying cycles
Final Thoughts
Scaling Pull The Cork from £100s to 7 figures taught me that SEO isn't magic; it's a systematic, long-term strategy that rewards consistency, quality, and operational alignment.
The wine ecommerce landscape is growing. The businesses that dominate organic search in 2025 and beyond will be those that invest in SEO now, build authority through exceptional content, and understand that wine buyers need education as much as they need products.
If you're building a wine ecommerce business, SEO should be your foundation, not your afterthought. Start early, stay consistent, and watch the compounding effects transform your customer acquisition economics.
About Market Jar: We're an international SEO agency founded by James Nathan, who built Pull The Cork to 7-figure turnover and co-founded Plonk Wine. We specialize in SEO for wine investment platforms, wineries, and wine ecommerce companies. If you want help replicating these strategies for your wine business, get in touch.
