We have millions of listing pages. How do you decide where to start?

We start with your commercial data, not your sitemap. By cross-referencing crawl data and server logs with your revenue metrics – GMV by category, conversion rate by listing type, lead quality by geo – we identify where the highest-value organic gaps are. Typically a small percentage of your page types drive the majority of revenue opportunity, but they’re being held back by crawl waste, poor internal linking, or template-level issues. We prioritise those pages first, then build a phased roadmap that your engineering team can execute without rebuilding the platform. For Memrise, that meant cutting through a multi-million page footprint to identify a focused set of stepwise actions that delivered measurable improvements in a short timeframe.

Our marketplace runs on React (or Next.js). Does that create SEO problems?

It can, and for most marketplace platforms it does. JavaScript-rendered listing pages often present a gap between what users see and what search engines index. If your listings rely on client-side rendering, Google may be crawling empty shells or partially loaded content – which means your pages either rank poorly or don’t get indexed at all. We’ve audited JS-heavy marketplaces built on React, Next.js, and custom frameworks for brands like Eventbrite, Groupon, and Pickles. The work typically involves SSR assessment, render budget analysis, and Core Web Vitals improvements – making sure Google and AI crawlers see the same rich listing content your users do.

AI search is starting to answer the kinds of queries our listings rank for. How exposed are we?

This is the question every marketplace should be asking right now. When someone searches “best vintage furniture dealers in London” or “events in Sydney this weekend,” LLMs are increasingly generating direct answers rather than sending users to a listing page. That’s a fundamental shift for marketplaces that have built their acquisition model on organic search traffic. We assess your specific exposure by mapping which of your high-traffic query categories are already being answered by AI-generated results, how often (and whether) your brand is being cited in those answers, and what structural changes to your content and data can position your marketplace as a source that LLMs pull from rather than replace. This isn’t theoretical – it’s already affecting traffic patterns for listing-based businesses, and the marketplaces that act now will have a significant advantage over those that wait.

We keep building new location and category pages but they barely get any organic traffic. Why?

This is one of the most common issues we see in marketplace SEO. The pages exist, but they’re thin on unique content, weakly linked from the rest of the site, and often competing with each other for the same queries. Google can’t determine which page should rank for “plumber in Brisbane” versus “plumbers near Brisbane CBD” versus “Brisbane plumbing services” – so it ranks none of them well. The fix isn’t creating more pages. It’s restructuring your taxonomy so each page has a clear, distinct search intent, strengthening the internal linking architecture so authority flows to the pages that matter, and ensuring each template carries enough unique, useful content that it justifies its existence in the index. We also look at whether programmatic page generation is helping or hurting – in many cases, marketplaces have created thousands of geo pages that are actively diluting performance rather than building it.

Our organic traffic is strong but it's not converting. Is that an SEO problem?

Partially. If you’re ranking well but conversions are poor, the issue is usually one of two things: you’re attracting the wrong traffic, or the page experience after the click isn’t doing its job. Both sit at the intersection of SEO and UX. On the traffic side, we look at whether your pages are aligned with genuine buying or booking intent, or whether they’re capturing informational queries that never convert. On the experience side, we assess page speed, listing layout, trust signals, and the path from landing to action. For marketplace models specifically, even small improvements in listing page conversion rate compound massively across thousands of pages. A 0.5% conversion lift across 50,000 indexed listing pages is a revenue conversation, not an SEO one – and that’s how we frame the work.

Marketplace SEO Consultancy

Your marketplace has thousands of listing pages. Most of them are invisible to search engines and AI crawlers. Brands like Eventbrite, Groupon, AutoTrader and Gumtree have trusted me to change that – turning listing pages into their largest organic growth channel and a defensible source of revenue.

book a marketplace assessment

WHAT CHANGES

Marketplace SEO Services

Every service is designed to make your listing pages rank, convert, and compound – not just pass an audit checklist.

Search-Aligned Taxonomy
Architecture that makes every category, filter, and location page match the way your customers actually search – so Google and LLMs surface your listings, not your competitors’.

Listing-Level On-Page & Structured Data
Scalable optimisation across category, listing, and local intent templates – giving search engines the signals they need to rank your pages for high-value queries at scale.

JavaScript & Rendering Performance
Technical SEO for React, Next.js, and other JS-heavy builds – SSR improvements, rendering fixes, and Core Web Vitals work that ensures Google sees what your users see.

Listing Lifecycle Management
Expired, sold, or out-of-stock listings handled properly – so dead pages don’t drain crawl or send users to dead ends while preserving the equity they’ve earned.

Crawl & Indexation at Scale
Internal linking, navigation frameworks, and crawler management that tells Google which pages matter – critical when you have millions of URLs competing for attention.

SEO Automation for New Inventory
Systems that ensure new categories, locations, or listings are discoverable in search engines and LLM responses from the moment they go live – not weeks later.

SOUND FAMILIAR?

Marketplace SEO Scenarios

Every service is designed to make your listing pages rank, convert, and compound – not just pass an audit checklist.

^{MARKET LEADER UNDER PRESSURE}You’re the category leader – but competitors are closing the gap in search.

You have strong brand recognition and a loyal user base, but organic share of voice is slipping. You need your listings to work harder across Google and LLM responses without rebuilding your platform.

^{PAGE BLOAT AND CRAWL WASTE}You have thousands of listing pages, but only a fraction get indexed or rank.

New listings, expired listings, duplicate filters – your index is a mess and Google is spending its crawl budget on the wrong pages. You need a system to prioritise what matters and deprecate what doesn’t.

^{PERFORMANCE DRAG}Users love the product but your site speed is killing conversions and rankings.

Core Web Vitals are red, listing pages take too long to render, and search engines are penalising you for it. You need technical performance gains that show up in both rankings and revenue.

^{LOCAL SCALE PROBLEM}You have suburb, city, and region pages – but almost none of them rank locally.

Your taxonomy doesn’t reflect how people search locally, and Google can’t figure out which page should appear for high-intent location queries. Thousands of geo pages exist but deliver near-zero organic traffic.

discuss your marketplace

Frequently asked questions

Have questions?
We have answers.

Have more questions?
Speak to our founder, Carl

Book a call

We have millions of listing pages. How do you decide where to start?
We start with your commercial data, not your sitemap. By cross-referencing crawl data and server logs with your revenue metrics – GMV by category, conversion rate by listing type, lead quality by geo – we identify where the highest-value organic gaps are. Typically a small percentage of your page types drive the majority of revenue opportunity, but they’re being held back by crawl waste, poor internal linking, or template-level issues. We prioritise those pages first, then build a phased roadmap that your engineering team can execute without rebuilding the platform. For Memrise, that meant cutting through a multi-million page footprint to identify a focused set of stepwise actions that delivered measurable improvements in a short timeframe.
Our marketplace runs on React (or Next.js). Does that create SEO problems?
It can, and for most marketplace platforms it does. JavaScript-rendered listing pages often present a gap between what users see and what search engines index. If your listings rely on client-side rendering, Google may be crawling empty shells or partially loaded content – which means your pages either rank poorly or don’t get indexed at all. We’ve audited JS-heavy marketplaces built on React, Next.js, and custom frameworks for brands like Eventbrite, Groupon, and Pickles. The work typically involves SSR assessment, render budget analysis, and Core Web Vitals improvements – making sure Google and AI crawlers see the same rich listing content your users do.
AI search is starting to answer the kinds of queries our listings rank for. How exposed are we?
This is the question every marketplace should be asking right now. When someone searches “best vintage furniture dealers in London” or “events in Sydney this weekend,” LLMs are increasingly generating direct answers rather than sending users to a listing page. That’s a fundamental shift for marketplaces that have built their acquisition model on organic search traffic. We assess your specific exposure by mapping which of your high-traffic query categories are already being answered by AI-generated results, how often (and whether) your brand is being cited in those answers, and what structural changes to your content and data can position your marketplace as a source that LLMs pull from rather than replace. This isn’t theoretical – it’s already affecting traffic patterns for listing-based businesses, and the marketplaces that act now will have a significant advantage over those that wait.
We keep building new location and category pages but they barely get any organic traffic. Why?
This is one of the most common issues we see in marketplace SEO. The pages exist, but they’re thin on unique content, weakly linked from the rest of the site, and often competing with each other for the same queries. Google can’t determine which page should rank for “plumber in Brisbane” versus “plumbers near Brisbane CBD” versus “Brisbane plumbing services” – so it ranks none of them well. The fix isn’t creating more pages. It’s restructuring your taxonomy so each page has a clear, distinct search intent, strengthening the internal linking architecture so authority flows to the pages that matter, and ensuring each template carries enough unique, useful content that it justifies its existence in the index. We also look at whether programmatic page generation is helping or hurting – in many cases, marketplaces have created thousands of geo pages that are actively diluting performance rather than building it.
Our organic traffic is strong but it's not converting. Is that an SEO problem?
Partially. If you’re ranking well but conversions are poor, the issue is usually one of two things: you’re attracting the wrong traffic, or the page experience after the click isn’t doing its job. Both sit at the intersection of SEO and UX. On the traffic side, we look at whether your pages are aligned with genuine buying or booking intent, or whether they’re capturing informational queries that never convert. On the experience side, we assess page speed, listing layout, trust signals, and the path from landing to action. For marketplace models specifically, even small improvements in listing page conversion rate compound massively across thousands of pages. A 0.5% conversion lift across 50,000 indexed listing pages is a revenue conversation, not an SEO one – and that’s how we frame the work.

See the results

See how strategic SEO and AI Search consultancy turned into measurable growth.

What we did

Improving B2C & B2B user journeys through query intent and optimising internal page signals.

What they said

As someone who has been doing SEO for about 10 years and having worked on companies of all shapes and sizes myself, I can tell the difference between someone who gets their hands dirty and delves into the deepest regions of your site vs an SEO “expert” who pushes a button and runs a site audit report only to tell you you have “12 duplicate title tags.” Carl is definitely the former, and whenever I need a fresh set of eyes on my site, I call him.

Brendan Baker

Director of Growth Marketing

What we did

End-to-end website audit encompassing traditional SEO, LLM/AI visibility assessment, SEO and UX optimisation, website product enhancements, and analytics and dashboard implementation, focused on scalable marketplace SEO initiatives aligned with user intent.

What they said

Having worked with countless SEO professionals over the past 18 years, I can confidently say Carl stands apart. Most experts tend to focus narrowly on one aspect of SEO, but Carl brings a truly holistic approach — combining deep technical expertise with a clear understanding of site architecture, content strategy, and user experience. Over the past year, he’s helped us rebuild our SEO foundation, craft a thoughtful long-term strategy, and ultimately recover and grow our rankings after recent Google core updates. I’d highly recommend him to anyone serious about taking their SEO performance to the next level.

Bill Ness

Chairman & Founder

What we did

A detailed technical SEO audit assessed the platform’s architecture and server logs to uncover crawl issues and indexing gaps. The work focused on strengthening geo-specific targeting and capturing high-intent commercial queries, alongside a review of the existing JavaScript framework.

What they said

“Working with Carl has been a game changer for our SEO. He cuts through the noise, finds what really matters, and turns it into a clear, prioritised roadmap my team can execute. Within a few months we’d fixed long-standing technical issues and unlocked meaningful organic growth. ”

Oliver Garas

Head Of Digital Marketing & Website PO

What we did

Supporting SEO strategy and execution across a number of Apax portfolio brands.

What they said

“His knowledge base expands far beyond SEO having run many successful affiliate sites in his down time. His day-to-day work of planning and implementing SEO strategies for major, FTSE 100 brands was first class. He’ll also know the very latest news on domains, ecommerce and pretty much everything else you’ll wish to mention when it comes to running a successful business online.”

David Burgess

Operating Executive

What we did

A full technical SEO audit for a multi-million page marketplace, with a scalable long-term strategy to meet search intent across regions and languages. Includes legacy platform clean-up plus a focused crawling and indexing approach, so Google prioritises commercial-intent pages and supports a better user experience.

What they said

At Memrise we have a huge and complex SEO content footprint which had over the years become, frankly, a bit of a mess. Carl did an incredible job at cutting through the complexity and prioritising a series of focused, stepwise actions that led to huge measurable improvements in a short space of time.

Ben Whately

Co-founder & Chief Strategy Officer

What we did

Delivered an end-to-end technical SEO audit, including an analysis of historical organic performance, a review of search and UX considerations, site architecture and performance diagnostics, and a detailed roadmap of fully scoped, prioritised technical recommendations.”

What they said

Carl had collaborated with us previously at Homestay.com, so when we recently decided to tackle a full SEO review we didn’t hesitate to reach out. Carl delivered a full SEO discovery and technical audit with professionalism and clarity. He took the time to walk us through all his recommended improvements and fixes, ensuring we fully understood their purpose and possible impact. We highly recommend Carl to anyone looking for a thorough SEO review. At all times a pleasure to work with, we truly appreciated Carl’s valuable insights, suggestions and fixes provided.