This client reached out to me about a year ago with this beautiful ecommerce site selling opals and jewelry worldwide. The owner was passionate about gemstones, had great suppliers, and the product photography was honestly stunning. You could see the fire in those opals even through a computer screen.

The site was brand new, which meant we were starting from zero. No search visibility, no organic traffic, nothing. But that also meant we had a clean slate to work with.

The owner was excited about the potential. “I know people are searching for unique opals online,” he told me. “I just need them to find us instead of going to those big jewelry sites.”

The Early Work

Starting with a new ecommerce site is always interesting. There’s so much potential, but you’re literally building visibility from scratch.

I focused on the fundamentals first. The site architecture needed work for SEO, so I restructured the categories and product pages to make sense both for users and search engines. Set up proper product schema markup so Google could understand what they were selling. Optimized all those gorgeous product images and wrote detailed descriptions that would actually help people find what they were looking for.

The keyword research was fascinating. Turns out there’s a whole world of opal enthusiasts searching for specific types. Boulder opals, fire opals, Ethiopian opals. Each had its own search volume and competition level. I mapped out a content strategy around these different opal varieties and jewelry styles.

I also worked on building topical authority. Created educational content about opal care, how to identify quality stones, different opal origins. The kind of stuff that opal lovers would actually want to read.

The Six Month Mark (Where Things Got Complicated)

By month six, we were seeing solid progress. Organic traffic was climbing steadily. The site was starting to rank for long-tail keywords around specific opal types. Users were spending 3-4 minutes on the site on average, browsing multiple pages.

But then the owner called me, and I could tell he was frustrated.

“I’m spending money on Facebook ads and getting way more traffic from that,” he said. “Maybe we should just focus on paid advertising instead.”

I pulled up the analytics to take a look. Yeah, Facebook was driving more volume, but the quality was completely different. Those Facebook users were bouncing after 2-5 seconds. They weren’t browsing products, weren’t adding anything to cart, definitely weren’t buying.

Meanwhile, our organic users were behaving exactly how you’d want them to. They were finding the site through searches like “natural boulder opal pendant” or “Ethiopian fire opal ring,” spending time browsing, and some were converting.

I tried explaining this to him. “Look, those Facebook users are just scrolling their feed and might click on a pretty picture, but they’re not actually in buying mode. The organic users are actively searching for what you sell.”

The Data Didn’t Lie

I showed him the numbers. Facebook traffic had a bounce rate of around 85%. Organic traffic was sitting at 45%. Session duration from organic was nearly 4 minutes compared to Facebook’s 15 seconds. The conversion rates weren’t even close.

But I get it from his perspective. When you’re looking at traffic numbers and seeing Facebook bring in 500 visitors versus organic bringing in 50, it’s easy to think Facebook is “working better.”

“SEO takes time to compound,” I explained. “We’re building something sustainable here. These organic users are your actual customers.”

The Upward Climb

From May through December, everything was trending the right way. Organic traffic kept growing month over month. We were ranking on page one for several product-specific keywords. The educational content was bringing in opal enthusiasts who were then browsing the store.

The owner seemed to understand the value by this point. Sales were coming in regularly from organic search. The site was building authority in the opal and gemstone space.

I was excited about where we were headed. Year two is usually when SEO really starts to pay off big time, and we had built such a solid foundation.

Then Everything Stopped

In January, I noticed something was off. Traffic started dropping. Rankings began to slide. I ran my usual checks, but I couldn’t access the backend anymore.

I reached out to the owner, but never heard back. Tried calling, emailing, nothing. It was like he just disappeared.

A few weeks later, I checked the website. Gone. Completely offline.

What I Think Happened

Honestly, I’m not entirely sure what happened. Maybe he got frustrated with the pace of SEO and decided to shut down. Maybe he ran into financial issues and couldn’t keep paying for hosting. Maybe he sold the business or moved on to something else.

The timing was just so frustrating though. We were right at the point where all that foundational work was about to really pay off. The site had been gaining momentum every month, building authority, climbing in rankings.

What I Learned From This

This project taught me a few hard lessons:

Client education is crucial. I thought I had explained the difference between traffic quality and traffic quantity well enough, but clearly I hadn’t. The Facebook numbers looked more impressive on the surface, even though they were basically worthless.

You can’t force someone to see long-term value. Some business owners want immediate results, and no amount of data will convince them that slow, steady growth is better than flashy numbers that don’t convert.

Communication is everything. Looking back, I probably should have been more proactive about showing the value and staying in closer contact during those successful months.

The Missed Opportunity

What bothers me most is thinking about what could have been. By year two, that site could have been the go-to destination for opal enthusiasts. The foundation was there, the momentum was building, the content was resonating with the right audience.

Instead, all that work just vanished. All those rankings, all that authority we’d built, all that educational content that was helping people learn about opals. Gone.

Why I’m Sharing This

I’m telling you this story because not every SEO project has a happy ending, and I think that’s important to acknowledge. Sometimes you do everything right and circumstances beyond your control derail the whole thing.

But it also reinforces why I’m so passionate about helping business owners understand what they’re building with SEO. It’s not just traffic numbers. It’s sustainable, long-term growth that compounds over time.

If you’re working with an SEO specialist and they’re telling you that the organic users are more valuable than your paid traffic, even if there are fewer of them, listen to them. Look at the behavior data, not just the volume.

And if you’re building something for the long term, don’t give up right when it’s about to really take off. Those first 6-12 months of SEO are the hardest because you’re investing without seeing massive returns yet. But that’s exactly when you’re building the foundation for what comes next.

I still think about that opal site sometimes. It had so much potential. But maybe that’s just part of this business. You do your best work, hope the client sees the value, and sometimes you have to accept that not every story ends the way you’d want it to.