What actually happened, told step by step

Starting point

50,000 organic sessions a month. Only 1 of 10 target keywords ranking in the top 10. No structured tracking of AI citations yet.

What we did

Started AEO citation tracking and a schema audit. Shipped FAQ and product schema. Rewrote key pages answer-first, matching the YMYL-grade E-E-A-T bar health claims require.

Three months in

Illustrative ramp, to be replaced with a live SEMrush export. Keywords in the top 10 climbed to 4 of 10 as the schema and rewrites took hold, and the first AI citations started appearing.

Six months in

Confirmed. Traffic hit 150,000 sessions a month, 3x the baseline. 7 of 10 target keywords now rank page one, with page-one rankings and AI citations landing together.

Starting point (April 2025)

1.73K search impressions, 78 clicks, 4.5% CTR, average position 33.4: a tight footprint, converting well but almost entirely on brand-name searches.

What we did

Continuous on-page and content optimisation, expanding coverage from brand terms into the non-brand interior-design category.

Where it stands now (~15 months in)

Impressions up 195% to 5.11K, clicks up to 91. CTR settled to 1.8% and average position moved to 50.9, both pulled down by new non-brand terms now appearing in search (“interior design malaysia” at 191 impressions, “commercial interior design malaysia” at 242) that haven't reached page one yet.

What's next

Converting that newly-won non-brand visibility into clicks is the active target for the next phase. Presented honestly as in-progress, not a finished win.

Latest month (June → July 2025)

Impressions kept climbing, 2.27K to 2.66K, and average position improved from 29.8 to 27. Clicks and CTR dipped slightly (72 → 63 clicks, 3.2% → 2.4% CTR) as that broader set of non-brand terms is still maturing.

With continuous SEO running

848K impressions, 1.11K clicks, average position 7.1: page one, the peak visibility point during active engagement.

The engagement paused

Cloudline's SEO work stopped.

The same 28-day window, after the pause

Impressions fell 83% to 143K, clicks dropped to 920, and average position slipped from 7.1 to 21.2.

The takeaway

Visibility built over a year eroded within weeks once the work stopped: the real-world case for running SEO as a continuous programme, not a one-off project.

Starting point

An enterprise AI app-builder platform with a steady but modest footprint: ~355 clicks and 1.78K impressions a month, holding a page-one average position around 6.3. Almost no presence in AI-generated answers when buyers compared MonstarX against competitors like Lovable and Bolt.

What we did

Automated MonstarX's blog publishing pipeline, rebuilt their entire landing page structure, and rewrote the page to focus on driving sign-ups instead of just describing the product.

Results (Google Search Console)

Clicks grew 24% (355 to 441) and impressions grew 51% (1.78K to 2.69K) quarter over quarter, holding a strong page-one average position around 6 to 7.

Cited by AI

MonstarX now shows up by name in Google AI Overviews for exactly the comparison questions buyers ask. Real AI Overviews for “MonstarX or Lovable, which is better?” and “MonstarX vs Bolt vs Lovable” both cite MonstarX directly, with a breakdown of where it fits.

What's next

A full before/after of the landing page redesign is coming once that work is documented.

Starting point (March)

Roughly 6.2K monthly visits. Core Web Vitals had just launched as a Google ranking signal and mobile page experience was rolling out industry-wide: the technical bar was rising, and the site wasn't ready for it.

What we did

Built the technical SEO foundation: Core Web Vitals fixes, mobile optimisation, indexation cleanup, and brand-term coverage.

April

Visits rose to roughly 6.5K (+5%) as brand-term coverage and the first technical wins started registering.

May

Traffic broke out to 9.6K visits, +55% versus March, as the speed and indexation work compounded.

Why it still matters

This work predates the AI-search era, but it's the same technical foundation later AEO work for other clients builds on: get the technical layer right first, then layer content authority and AI-citation work on top.

Current tracking

Google Search Console, last 28 days: 2.18K clicks and 139K impressions, up from 1.97K clicks and 121K impressions the prior 28 days. Average position improved to 10 from 11.3. The foundation built in 2020–2022 is still compounding.