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Project Overview
In December 2022, Loopex Digital started providing eCommerce SEO services for I-XL Building Products, Canada's national distributor of architectural masonry. Operating since 1912, the company supplies brick, thin brick, natural and manufactured stone veneer, cladding, and siding through a dealer network and six design centers in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, and Toronto, serving architects, builders, and construction professionals.
Goal
At the start of the project, the website faced 4 problems:
- Low visibility for core material keywords. The website was not ranking well for the product and material keywords that matter in its category (brick, stone veneer, thin brick, cladding), so it was not bringing in enough organic traffic or enough inquiries from architects, builders, and homeowners researching materials. Only 600 keywords ranked in the top 10, and monthly organic traffic sat at 1,500, low numbers for a national distributor with a catalog this large.
- Offline authority not reflected in search. The brand carried more than a century of reputation, but Domain Rating stood at 34 with limited backlink support in the construction space.
- No presence in AI search. The website was not cited in AI Overviews, ChatGPT, or other AI engines when people asked which suppliers to use for brick and stone in Canada.
Then state the goals of our SEO agency: First, rank the category and product pages for the material keywords that carry the highest commercial intent. Second, turn each design center location page into a local visibility asset. Third, build authority through relevant backlinks so a distributor website could compete with manufacturer and marketplace websites. Fourth, get the website cited across AI search engines and Google AI Overviews.
Solutions
Our SEO services focused on optimizing the category and brand collection pages that drive purchase decisions. We also improved internal linking to distribute authority, strengthened local SEO signals across design center pages, and created content to reach buyers earlier in their research journey.
Our team also launched a targeted link-building campaign and optimized the website for visibility in AI search engines.
Our SEO Team Optimized Category Content and Meta Tags for Higher Rankings
On a catalog website, the category pages are the money pages, so our SEO content strategy development services started there. We mapped each category to its real search demand, then rewrote the page content, titles, meta descriptions, and H1s around the exact material terms buyers search for, "stone veneer," "brick veneer," "thin brick," "full bed stone," "cultured stone," and "mechanically fastened stone", rather than internal product naming.
We applied the same approach to the brand collection pages for Shaw Brick, Mac Metal, Eldorado Stone, Avaani Stone, Hebron Brick, Dutch Quality Stone, and Interstate Brick. A distributor ranking for its own manufacturer brand names captures buyers who already know the product they want.
We Restructured Internal Linking Across the Catalog
The SEO team at Loopex Digital built an internal linking structure that connects parent categories to child categories and product pages, so authority concentrates on the pages that convert. We also linked the informational content into the relevant category pages, giving readers researching materials a direct path to the products.
We Acquired 523 High-Quality Backlinks to Build Authority in the Construction Niche
Due to our link building services, the team acquired 523 backlinks from construction, architecture, home improvement, interior design, and Canadian local publications. The campaign ran across three channels: guest posting, link insertions, and local link building in the design center cities.
Our outreach specialists qualified every opportunity on topical relevance, website authority, and real organic traffic, following the eCommerce link building strategies our team applies across retail clients.
Links pointed at the homepage and the top category pages, which are internally linked across the catalog, so the authority carried through to the pages that generate inquiries.
Our Technical SEO Team Fixed the Issues Holding Back the Catalog Pages
Our technical SEO team monitors the website on a recurring cycle and keeps its health score in the high 90s. The technical SEO services cover indexation and crawl control, canonical and redirect handling, structured data, page speed, heading structure, on-page metadata, and image accessibility.
On a WordPress catalog with thousands of URLs, technical issues accumulate quietly as new category, brand, and product pages go live. Resolving them as they surface means the pages our content team optimizes stay indexed and served correctly, and the authority our link-building team builds flows where it should.
Results
From 1,500 to 5,100 Monthly Organic Visitors
When our SEO team started, the website brought in 1,500 monthly organic visits. Thanks to the category and meta tag optimization, the internal linking work, the location page improvements, and the backlinks our team acquired, monthly organic traffic reached 5,100, a 240% increase. Because those visitors arrive searching for specific materials and for suppliers in their own city, that traffic converts into dealer inquiries and design center visits.
From 600 to 1,111 Keywords in Google’s Top 10
At the start of the project, 600 keywords ranked in the top 10 positions. Today, 1,111 do, an 85% increase, and 296 of them rank in the top 3.
The website now ranks 1st for "brick veneer" (1.3K monthly searches), "avaani stone," and "mechanically fastened stone," 2nd for "mac metal" and "eldorado stone," and 3rd for "stone veneer" (900 monthly searches), "hebron brick," "dutch quality stone," and "interstate brick."
Individual movements show the same pattern: full bed stone climbed from position 30 to 8, thin brick from 29 to 10, and cultured stone from 9 to 1.
Location keywords followed. "Bricks calgary" and "bricks edmonton" both rank in the top 10, sending buyers straight to the design center pages.
Cited in 178 Google AI Overview Responses Across 86 Pages
The website is now cited across every major AI answer engine, with 444 AI responses in total across 148 pages. It appears in 178 Google AI Overview responses across 86 pages and 164 AI Mode responses across 77 pages.
When Canadian architects, builders, and homeowners ask AI engines which supplier to use for brick, stone veneer, or architectural cladding, I-XL Building Products is now one of the sources those answers are built from.
523 High-Quality Backlinks Acquired and Domain Rating Increased from 34 to 47
Our link building team secured 523 backlinks from Canadian local publications and niche-relevant websites across construction, architecture, home improvement, design, renovation, and landscaping, raising the Domain Rating from 34 to 47. Because those links pointed to the homepage and key category pages, which are internally linked across the catalog, the authority reached the pages that generate customer inquiries.
