A fictional business. The figures are a modelled scenario, not a client result.
SEO case study · Kosa Studio
Independent hair salon · Sofia · Beauty & Fashion · 8 months
Turn the ring. Each strand is a chapter of the engagement, coded like a salon swatch: level, then reflect.
Strand 01 · 1.0 Natural Black
The challenge
Clients searched for Kosa by name and still booked through a platform that took a cut.
Read this strand ↓Strand 01 · Natural Black · Before
Booking-platform listings outranked the salon's own site, taking commission on clients who already wanted Kosa.
Kosa is five chairs on a quiet street in Lozenets, known for lived-in blondes and patient colour correction. Most of its clients arrived by word of mouth or Instagram — then typed the salon’s name into Google, tapped the first result and booked through a marketplace listing.
That listing took 18% of an average €65 ticket. Across 140 platform bookings a month, the salon was paying roughly €19,656 a year to be found by people who were already looking for it.
Online bookings, baseline month
69% of online bookings paid commission.
Strand 02 · Mahogany · Strand test
Like a strand test before colour, the audit showed how the brand reacted on every surface Google reads: the Business Profile, the site and the directories in between.
The profile's booking link pointed to the marketplace listing, so even branded searches ended in a commissioned booking.
Listed as “Beauty salon” rather than “Hair salon”, with no services entered — invisible for balayage, colour and keratin searches.
Meanwhile about 600 colour-work posts sat on Instagram, never reaching the profile.
Citations still carried the pre-move address on the other side of Cherni Vrah, splitting trust between two locations.
Every service lived on a single page with the menu as a JPEG: no crawlable text, no Bulgarian or English service pages, page title “Home”.
48 reviews, the last one five months old, and no owner replies. Competitors were adding 15–20 a month.
Mobile LCP of 5.9 s on 4G; the platform page loaded in under two seconds and won the click.
Strand 03 · Copper · Formula
The engagement ran on our Local plan. The aim was not more visibility for its own sake, but to move existing demand off the platform and onto the salon’s own booking page.
Part 1 · 6.4
Recategorised as Hair salon with Balayage, Colour correction and Keratin as services, each with a price and a description. The Book button and the website link now point to the salon's own booking page, tagged with UTM codes.
18 services listed · weekly posts
Part 2 · 7.3
Twelve service pages in Bulgarian and English, one search intent each: price range, time in the chair, aftercare, a gallery of real work and a booking button above the fold. The image menu became text; the video became a 140 KB poster.
12 pages · LCP 5.9 s → 1.7 s
Part 3 · 8.1
Each stylist's best Instagram colour work went to the profile weekly, renamed and geotagged, grouped by service. Before-and-after pairs, shot under the same window light, did the selling.
11 → 236 profile photos
Part 4 · 9.3
A short text with a review link went out two hours after each appointment, from the stylist, with one gentle reminder. Every review got a reply within 48 hours, naming the service so the reply itself carried keywords.
~21 new reviews a month
Strand 04 · Golden Honey · Processing
Audit, call tracking, booking UTMs. Profile recategorised; Book button repointed.
68 direct · 60 reviews · 5 top-3
Six directories corrected to the Lozenets address. Review texts start.
79 direct · 76 reviews · 8 top-3
Balayage, colour correction, keratin — BG and EN. Image menu rebuilt as text.
91 direct · 95 reviews · 12 top-3
Weekly photo transfer to the profile, grouped by service. Hero video cut.
104 direct · 116 reviews · 16 top-3
Bridal, AirTouch, cuts, blonde specialist. Internal links from the gallery.
118 direct · 139 reviews · 19 top-3
Passes 139 reviews; replies at 100%. Local pack entries for all colour terms.
133 direct · 163 reviews · 22 top-3
FAQ schema, Q&A on the profile, a seasonal blonde guide for spring.
149 direct · 188 reviews · 25 top-3
27 of 30 service terms in the top three. Platform listing kept for discovery only.
162 direct · 214 reviews · 27 top-3
Strand 05 · Ash Caramel · Reveal
Modelled scenario for a fictional business — not a client result. Rankings and traffic are never guaranteed; see our Terms.
Headline · tone 6.4
+161%
direct online bookings
Service keywords top 3
3 → 27
Month 0
Month 8
GBP website clicks
+238%
Reviews
48 → 214
Booking commission saved
€9.6k / yr
€65 average ticket × 18% commission × bookings moved direct.
Strand 06 · Golden Blonde · Swatch book
Modelled Google positions (local pack or organic, whichever was higher) and estimated monthly searches. “—” means not in the top 50.
| Keyword | Lang | Searches | M0 | M8 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| balayage sofia | EN | 880 | 18 | 1 |
| балаяж софия | BG | 1,300 | 23 | 1 |
| фризьор лозенец | BG | 720 | 11 | 1 |
| hair salon lozenets | EN | 210 | 9 | 1 |
| colour correction sofia | EN | 170 | 34 | 2 |
| боядисване на коса софия | BG | 590 | — | 2 |
| airtouch sofia | EN | 260 | — | 3 |
| кератинова терапия софия | BG | 480 | 27 | 3 |
| bridal hair sofia | EN | 140 | 41 | 2 |
| дамско подстригване лозенец | BG | 320 | 15 | 1 |
| blonde specialist sofia | EN | 90 | — | 2 |
| салон за коса близо до ндк | BG | 210 | 30 | 3 |
Strand 07 · Platinum Ash · The mirror
Places
Kosa’s own site: organic position 18.
Places
Organic #1: kosa.bg/balayage — price, gallery, booking.
Strand 08 · 5.26 Plum Rose
A Local plan, mixed for your chairs, your street and the searches your clients already make.