Why Traditional SEO Still Matters: Two Real Case Studies
By Jake Anderson, High Effect Web Design & Marketing
AEO is all the rage right now.
While agencies across the world are racing to implement so-called AI optimization strategies such as FAQs, schema markup, structured data, and other features designed to appeal to large language models, we’ve continued focusing on the fundamentals of traditional SEO.
Don’t get us wrong. We use schema. We use structured data. We follow SEO best practices. But we’ve found that many agencies are treating AEO as a replacement for traditional SEO when it should really be viewed as an extension of it.
Over the last year, we’ve seen some of our biggest client wins come from strategies that have been working for decades: content creation and backlink building.
Case Study #1: Backlink Building for a Window Company
One of our clients in the window and door industry was struggling to gain traction online.
At the time, we had already implemented many of the popular AEO strategies that marketers were talking about. The website had structured data. We had FAQ content in place. The site was technically sound and optimized for search. With all these good-on-page things out of the way, our client was only averaging one lead a week. Well below our targets. We decided to stop worrying so much about AI search and instead focus our strategy on high quality link building.
Our reasoning was simple. While AI search is growing rapidly, the vast majority of people looking for replacement windows and doors are still conducting commercial searches through Google. When someone is ready to spend thousands of dollars on a home improvement project, they’re still typing searches into Google and comparing local businesses.
Around the same time as the March 2026 Core Update rolled out and much of the industry was predicting an AI-driven revolution in search, we invested in building eight highly relevant, high-authority backlinks for the client.
The results of the back-link campaign were immediate. The website’s visibility rose 20% in one week, our organic traffic grew by 332%, and our client reported 13 calls in the first two weeks.
This proved to us that backlinking is still king. In fact, it remains one of the strongest ranking factors available. Search engines continue to rely heavily on authority signals when determining which businesses deserve visibility. While AI search may change how users consume information, authority still plays a critical role in determining which sources get surfaced.
Because of results like these, we’ve shifted much of our SEO strategy toward prioritizing quality link acquisition for our clients.
Case Study 2: Strategic Article Posting for Deck Builder
Our deck builder client may be our greatest SEO success story to date. At the beginning of 2026, we developed a content strategy focused on increasing topical authority and improving conversion rates through educational blog content. We wanted to improve the expertise and experience signals on our website. We hoped this would both improve our ranks in Google, get us mentioned in AI, and increase conversion rates for website visitors.
We created content covering:
- Deck design trends
- Material comparisons
- Budgeting and planning advice
- Construction insights
- Maintenance recommendations
- Common homeowner questions
Traffic began increasing nearly two weeks earlier than it had the previous season. As spring progressed and homeowners started planning outdoor projects, traffic continued to climb.
By the time we reached the heart of the season, organic traffic to the website had doubled compared to the previous year.
Then we received a message every SEO professional dreams of getting.
At the end of May, our client informed us that he had stopped investing in virtually every other form of marketing because he was overwhelmed with organic leads coming through the website.
No agency ever complains about hearing that.
The Takeaway
AI search is real. Large language models are changing how people discover information online. We pay attention to those changes every day. However, our experience has shown that traditional SEO is far from dead. Keep building back links, build those blogs, and make sure your technical SEO is all in order.
Author Bio:
Jake Anderson has been doing SEO for a year at High Effect Web Design. He is passionate about helping his clients be successful in their lead-generation strategies. He has helped more than a dozen businesses generate millions of dollars in sales since joining the team at High Effect Web Design
