SEO and SEM Coordination under CMS Limits & Regional Constraints

The Results

• 55% increase in non-branded impressions (Aug–Dec 2021 vs. Aug–Dec 2022).
• Of the 275 keywords that landed on product category PLPs, 64 (23.2%) showed an overall ranking improvement.

The Challenge

• Thin and Outdated Content: Existing content across key pages was outdated and lacked depth, with minimal internal linking—particularly in the footer—limiting crawlability and link equity distribution.
• CMS and Regional Constraints: The multi-region joint CMS restricted structural changes. This prevented updates to the site architecture and the creation of new blog pages targeting top-of-funnel (TOFU) or long-tail keywords, due to strict brand and regional governance. Given the global nature of the site, a high level of content duplication was identified across markets, particularly between Southeast Asia, New Zealand, and Australia.
• Limited Product Range and Stock Availability: The product listing pages (PLPs) featured a narrow range of offerings, many of which were frequently out of stock. This negatively impacted both user experience and organic search performance.
• SEO & SEM Cannibalisation & Integration: The client is running both SEO and SEM campaigns concurrently, which can occasionally result in SEM keyword bidding impacting organic SEO traffic—particularly for branded or high-intent queries.

The Approach

• Split keyword ownership with the SEM team: SEM took competitive short-term terms, SEO took long-tail and evergreen.
• Targeted less saturated categories first, such as body care.
• Localised content for Malaysia and Singapore skin concerns.