The Challenge
Trade moves fast, and the people who move it, importers, exporters, freight forwarders, customs brokers, do not have time to navigate confusing digital portals. When a national customs authority cannot be found for its own core services in search, the downstream consequences are real: delays, misdirected enquiries, and eroded institutional trust.
This authority's digital presence had grown organically over a decade of government digitisation initiatives, each phase adding content without a unifying information architecture. The result was a sprawling site with hundreds of pages, inconsistent URL structures, fragmented service descriptions, and zero structured data. Organic performance was poor despite high domain authority, because the site's content spoke to internal departmental logic rather than user intent.
The priority was clear: rebuild the search architecture so that every key service, customs declarations, tariff lookups, trader registration, inspection procedures, could be found by the right person at the right moment.
"A government service that cannot be found is a service that does not exist for the people who need it. Digital architecture is service design."
The Approach
Service-User Query Mapping
Every priority service was mapped against the actual search queries used by its intended audience, trade professionals, business owners, freight forwarders. This produced a gap analysis revealing that 76% of high-intent service queries were not matched to a corresponding page with relevant content depth or proper optimisation.
Information Architecture Redesign
The site's information architecture was completely redesigned around service clusters rather than departmental silos. Pages were consolidated, orphaned content was redirected, and a new URL structure established clean, logical pathways. The number of crawlable pages was reduced from 1,840 to 420, with each page serving a defined search purpose.
Priority Service Page Optimisation
Sixty-four priority service pages were rewritten from scratch with intent-led content structures. Each page followed a defined format: clear H1 matching primary query, a concise lead paragraph answering the immediate need, structured procedure steps, a FAQ section targeting secondary queries, and GovernmentService JSON-LD schema throughout.
Technical Crawl Remediation
A deep technical audit resolved 680 crawl errors, fixed 290 redirect chains, implemented proper canonicalisation, and addressed mobile rendering issues that were causing search engines to index incomplete content. Page speed was improved by removing 14 render-blocking scripts and compressing assets site-wide.
Authority Signals & Internal Link Strategy
A systematic internal linking strategy was designed to flow PageRank from the authority's strongest pages to its most commercially important service pages. External authority was strengthened through a structured outreach programme targeting trade bodies, government data registries, and international customs organisations.
Results
87%
Queries Page 1
64
Pages Rebuilt
-77%
Crawl Errors
2.4×
Organic Click-Through
First-Page Positioning, Priority Service Categories (Before vs After)
Query Intent Coverage
First-Page Positions, Month-by-Month
“The results speak for themselves, but what impressed me most was Rima's ability to translate complex technical requirements into a strategy that our entire organisation could understand and execute. Within three months, the improvement was undeniable.”
Key Deliverables
Service-user query map for 120+ priority terms
Full information architecture redesign
64 priority service pages rebuilt with intent-led content
GovernmentService schema across all priority pages
680 crawl errors resolved, 290 redirect chains fixed
Internal link strategy for PageRank distribution
Authority outreach to trade bodies & data registries
Monthly performance reporting & editorial guidelines
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