When Oriental Effect came to Pandora Agency Limited for SEO marketing, they had a website that was invisible to search engines. Despite the site housing its most popular products (planters and artificial plants), it was hard for it to show up for its own name. The result of the search was an unoptimized Pinterest and social media page, as can be seen below:
What did we do?
First, we conducted an audit to determine their SEO status. Our research showed that no existing SEO work had been implemented. The brand had no ranking for its primary target terms (fibreglass planters, fibrecast planters, antique pots in Lagos, artificial plants).
We dug deeper and discovered that, among other things, the website had weak architecture, no on-page SEO, limited unique and relevant content, and a low domain authority signal.
The absence of these fundamental SEO essentials meant it didn’t even surface for searches of its own name. Three months on, here’s why those SEO elements matter and how fixing them made all the difference:
Fundamental SEO Factors That Prevent Website Ranking
1. Weak Website Architecture & On-Page Basics
Without a logical structure such as clean URLs, clearly labelled pages, and well-placed headings, search engines can’t understand your site’s purpose or hierarchy. Combine that with missing title tags or meta descriptions, as the client had, and bots have no meaningful cues to index or rank your pages. So, a fully crawlable page is non-negotiable. According to Backlinko, if search engines are blocked, they won’t index the page at all.
2. Limited Unique & Relevant Content
Search engines favour pages that offer genuine value. Thin or duplicate content leaves them little to rank. Relevant, original descriptions, whether it’s about fiberglass decor manufacturer in Nigeria or Oriental Effect’s bespoke antique pot designs, will signal their site’s authority and match users’ search intent. Search engines reward content that is original, useful, and comprehensive. In the case of our client, they had little content that provided rich information about their products.
3. Lack of Backlinks & Domain Authority Signals
Backlinks are like digital “votes” from other websites. Without them, your site can remain invisible even to brand searches. Inbound links can help individual pages rank and also strengthen your overall domain authority. For Oriental Effect, not having any links from local blogs, gardening forums, or supplier directories meant very low visibility.
Related article: SEO Marketing Service Case Study | Pandora Agency Limited
Additional Critical Barriers That Block Rankings
While the three challenges above were most impactful for Oriental Effect, the following two other often-overlooked factors also play vital roles:
- Indexability & Crawlability: If search bots can’t access your site due to a misconfigured robots.txt or absent XML sitemap, there’s no chance to rank, even for branded queries.
Branded queries are search engine queries that contain a specific brand’s name, product name, or service name, indicating the user has prior awareness or interest in that brand and is looking for specific information about it.
These queries, like “Oriental Effect” or “Oriental Effect Uri Pot,” are valuable to businesses because they typically signal a high purchase intent and a deeper stage in the buyer’s journey, often leading to higher conversion rates. - Unresponsive Design & Slow Performance: In today’s mobile-first world, Google prioritizes sites that load quickly and display well on phones. A slow, unresponsive website frustrates both users and search engines and can prevent any ranking momentum.
Related article: SEO Strategies for Fintechs in Lagos: A Step-by-Step Guide
The SEO Strategy that Worked for Oriental Effect
When we realised that Oriental Effect wasn’t showing up even for their brand name, we knew we had to act fast. The strategy that turned things around was not a single fix but a layered approach combining technical optimization, content development, local visibility, and cross-platform alignment.
As I already mentioned, the journey began with a comprehensive website audit and optimization. The site’s structure was reorganized to make navigation intuitive for both users and search engines.
Schema markup was added for products and business details, while a clean XML sitemap was created and submitted through Google Search Console. These changes ensured that Google could fully crawl and index the site.
Next, we focused on on-page SEO for their most important product categories: the Antique Pots Collection, fibreglass planters, fibre cast pots, and artificial plants. Each product page was optimized with keyword-rich title tags, meta descriptions, and headers.
To improve search visibility and user experience, we created detailed product descriptions, added high-quality images with optimized alt text, and even integrated an FAQ section and recommended customer review section integration.
Recognizing the importance of brand consistency, we recommended that Oriental Effect invest in cross-platform alignment. We created and recommended that social profiles be updated with keyword-focused bios. This created a unified brand presence and helped funnel traffic back to the site, especially from Pinterest.
Local SEO was another critical pillar. We optimized its Google Business Profile and implemented local business schema, ensuring that customers in Nigeria could easily find Oriental Effect when searching for terms like “artificial plants Nigeria” or “antique pots Lagos.”
We created clusters of unique and relevant content to educate their customers about their various products, unique features, and the brand’s special offerings.
Other platforms became SEO allies rather than standalone channels. Every blog post was optimized for sharing, supported by keyword-rich Instagram captions and Pinterest boards showcasing products with trending hashtags.
With over 20,000 Instagram followers, Oriental Effect leveraged its existing audience while optimizing captions, bios, and posts for target keywords.
Finally, we implemented a performance review and refinement system. By tracking organic traffic, keyword positions, featured snippet wins, and conversion rates, we could identify what was working and adjust quickly. Within three months, this data-driven approach resulted in an increase in organic traffic and page-one rankings.
The result?
Now, the brand Oriental Effect can proudly show up for its own name where it matters.
This comes with numerous keywords it ranks for on the first page of the search engine results page within 3 months. Here are a few below:
- Antique Pots
For the keyword antique pots, Oriental Effect sits comfortably among top contenders, including Shutterstock, Getty Images, and Amazon, on the search engine result page.
Next is the search term antique pot in Lagos, to measure the nearby searches for one of their products and the centre of the SEO campaign.
But that’s not all! The brand that struggled to show up for its own name is currently showing up for commercial queries such as where to buy artificial plants.
Above, you can see Oriental Effect comfortably ranking on the Google Local Pack for a query that showcases local intent. It sits comfortably with other nearby businesses pulled from Google Business Profiles. Depending on when you search, you can see the location, opening hours, ratings, and more. This comes with an Oriental Effect informational blog article ranked below to solidify the search result:
We went further to secure a media publication for the brand in one of Nigeria’s popular lifestyle magazines, Pulse.ng. Check out the piece here. Other queries or keywords where this brand is currently showing up, including:
- Artificial plants in Lagos
- Fibrecast planters
- Where to buy flower pots online and more
The Takeaway
The lesson from Oriental Effect is clear: sustainable SEO requires a balanced mix of technical foundations, high-quality content, local authority building, and cross-channel optimisation. By treating SEO as an ongoing strategy rather than a one-off fix, Pandora Agency has successfully moved Oriental Effect from search engine obscurity to visibility in Nigeria’s competitive garden and plant market.
Leave a Reply