Headline results
Clarks is the UK footwear brand many parents trust for school shoes. It wanted more organic visibility and traffic during Back to School, its biggest trading period, with just one month from onboarding to launch.
PUSH used AI to clean and categorise more than 3,000 keywords, prioritise the categories with the most potential and speed up on-brand content, with brand guidance and human review throughout. Optimised category pages and new editorial content went live on 1 July 2025.
Organic sessions grew 18% year-on-year to 265,694, beating the 10% target, with non-branded page 1 keywords up from 544 to 817 and top 3 keywords from 100 to 277.
Winning Peak School Shoe Demand with One Month to Launch
Back to School is Clarks' busiest commercial period of the year. The school-shoe market is competitive, and organic search had to deliver visibility, quality traffic and sales support quickly.
- Compressed timeline: Onboarding and launch were only one month apart, so research, prioritisation and content production had to move fast. Optimisations went live on 1 July 2025.
- Crowded category: Content had to be original and answer the questions parents were actually asking.
- Limited SEO resource: Clarks had no dedicated SEO specialist. Implementation depended on efficient working and close coordination with the client team.
An AI-Assisted, Data-Led SEO Programme Built for Speed
- 01
Keyword Research and Prioritisation
PUSH gathered the school-related queries Clarks had ranked for over 12 months and added a competitor keyword gap analysis. AI then cleaned more than 3,000 keywords and sorted them by gender and shoe type. Search Console and GA4 supplied URL-level performance data, and pivot tables showed search volume and performance by category. This pointed the team towards the categories with the most potential, including boys' and girls' school shoes and school trainers.
- 02
Brand-Aligned Content Built Around Parents' Questions
PUSH loaded Clarks' brand guidelines and editorial assets into its proprietary AI platform to keep the brand voice consistent. AI assistants recommended page-level priorities, and ChatGPT supported drafting that focused on keyword relevance, metadata and FAQs. AI also clustered school-related queries from Clarks email data, which shaped the FAQs and blog topics around parents' questions.
- 03
Quality Checks and Deployment
AI critiqued each draft against Clarks' voice and tone guidance and a copywriting checklist. AI detectors scored the copy as 82 to 93% human-written. Clarks' visual merchandisers praised its accuracy and product knowledge, and gave no negative feedback. Deployment on 1 July 2025 covered two optimised category pages, two pages updated with metadata and H1s, two new editorial articles and two revamped guides.
Ranking Gains Across Clarks' School Pages
After optimisations went live on 1 July 2025, non-branded keywords for Clarks' school pages moved up the rankings, with more terms on page 1 and in the top 3.
"PUSH distinguished themselves through a methodical, data-led methodology. They demonstrated not only how existing SEO foundations could be optimised, but also how overlooked assets, particularly editorial content, could be transformed into high-performing drivers of visibility and engagement. Their ability to align tactical wins with a broader strategic roadmap enabled Clarks to strengthen both short-term performance and long-term competitiveness."
Jack Sproston
Winner: Best Use of AI in Search
"A standout, well-executed campaign that showcased a smart and purposeful use of AI to drive real results. From content creation to keyword categorisation, the team used AI where it mattered most. Delivering strong session growth and major ranking gains on a lean budget, this campaign had clear objectives, clean execution, and was truly worthy of recognition."
Win more organic demand in your peak trading season
See how PUSH combines AI tooling, SEO expertise and human review to deliver measurable organic growth when time is short.
