Designing an ecommerce SEO strategy for a culturally rooted brand starts with understanding search intent and how people look for meaning online
Industry: eCommerce | Gourmet Gifts | Croatian Export
Client: Witrina
Focus: Organic Visibility | International SEO | Shopify
Optimisation By Checkgrow: Precision SEO Strategies for eComm Growth
Table of Content
1. The Missing Link Between Brand Depth and Discoverability: How Witrina Found Its Voice Across Europe
2. Before Visibility: A Quiet Brand With a Loud Story
3. The Turning Point: Building a System That Speaks to Searchers
4. A Growth Strategy Rooted in Story and Structure
5. What Happened Next: Organic Growth With Depth
6. Why It Worked: Real Strategy for Real People
7. What’s Next for Witrina – and You
8. For eCommerce Brands Ready to Scale with Soul
The Missing Link Between Brand Depth and Discoverability: How Witrina Found Its Voice Across Europe
When someone in Vienna types “Croatian wine gift” into Google, they’re not just looking for a bottle. They’re trying to revive a memory of a sunset they experienced in Rovinj, the scent of wild herbs carried by the wind from Pelješac, or that one jar of fig jam that reminded them of their grandmother’s kitchen.
Witrina, a digital boutique for Croatian wines, gourmet delicacies and artisanal gifts, was made for people like that, people who long for authenticity, connection, and a story behind the taste.
Yet for a long time, those people couldn’t find it. Despite the carefully selected products and rich brand heritage, Witrina remained almost invisible beyond Croatia’s borders.
Search engines weren’t showing it. European customers weren’t clicking it. And the brand that was ready for the world was waiting.
Before Visibility: A Quiet Brand With a Loud Story
Behind the scenes, there were several things holding Witrina back: a Shopify setup with limited SEO flexibility, no blog strategy to anchor search content, and almost no presence in high-opportunity markets like Germany, Austria, and France.
The site ranked for almost no non-branded keywords. In the DACH region, where demand for artisanal and culturally rich gifts is high, Witrina barely registered.
Yet the potential was enormous. The products were ideal for gifting. The storytelling was elegant. The emotional pull was already there. It just wasn’t discoverable.
The Turning Point: Building a System That Speaks to Searchers
We began with people, not with listing relevant keywords.
We focused on the following: who were the ones searching for Croatian wine, olive oil, or gift boxes? Why were they searching? What moments were they in?
According to those questions, we mapped out three high-intent SEO personas:
- The Gourmet Gift Giver – someone looking for elegant, culturally rich gifts they can send abroad or bring to dinner parties
- The Wine Explorer – curious about Croatian wine regions and small-batch labels, eager to learn and try something beyond supermarket brands
- The Croatian Diaspora in DACH – emotionally connected to Croatian heritage, looking for authentic products that bring “home” a little closer
Each group searched differently, but all shared the same desire: to discover something meaningful, rooted in place, and ready to share.
A Growth Strategy Rooted in Story and Structure
We built a content ecosystem designed to reflect real customer journeys. It was never about traffic for traffic’s sake. Every article was crafted to guide someone from curiosity to clarity, from “I want to find something special” to “this is exactly what I’ve been looking for.”
We introduced wine region guides and used internal links to guide users from blog to product page, from information to emotion to action.
Gift lists weren’t checklists, they were more of a storyboards with titles like “Gifts for Wine-Loving Dads” or “Elegant Croatian Gifts for Long-Distance Families”, that were based on real searches, anchored in SEO persona mapping, but framed in human language. Emotional framing that we used wasn’t for decoration. It was purposely designed.
Spotlight stories highlighted specific Witrina products, not just what they are, but who makes them, how they’re used, and what they represent. A bottle of Teranino wasn’t just a liqueur. It was the finishing note to a coastal dinner, or the scent of a memory packed in a gift box.
All of this content was strategically layered:
- Natural keyword placement (based on intent)
- Internal link structures designed to reduce orphan pages
- Optimised title hierarchy and metadata (even on Shopify)
- ALT text created for visual search relevance (key for food and gifting categories)
It was about designing a marketing system that translated authenticity into visibility.
What Happened Next: Organic Growth With Depth
In six months, Witrina gained visibility across Europe:
- First-page rankings for high-conversion queries like “Croatian gin gift” and “Buy Aura Teranino online”
- Significant increase in non-branded search clicks
- Rise in branded searches like “Witrina gourmet box” and “Witrina Croatia wine gifts”
- Growth in repeat traffic from Germany and Austria
More importantly, customers who once didn’t know Witrina existed were now discovering it, exploring it, and returning to it. Search was no longer an obstacle. Instead it became the entry point into a carefully designed customer journey.
Why It Worked: Real Strategy for Real People
The content was built around moments: when someone wants to reconnect with heritage, surprise a loved one, or gift something of high quality that is also with meaning.
We used Croatia’s cultural depth as a competitive advantage. Geography, taste, texture, family rituals – these became the raw material for high-intent content that was both indexable and unforgettable.
The emotional hooks were the funnel – the thing that made people stop scrolling and start imagining.
Every element of the system was crafted to scale. A scalable marketing strategy that aligned with Witrina’s brand, platform, and audience. A customer journey framework designed to convert over time, and with trust.
Through performance marketing, full-funnel analytics, and conversion optimisation, we tracked real engagement and saw how structured storytelling lifted every part of the funnel, from awareness to retention.
What’s Next for Witrina – and You
The foundation is now in place. From here, Witrina can:
- Expand through localised landing pages for regional gifting (e.g. “Croatian Gourmet Gifts Germany”)
- Activate visual search (Pinterest, image SEO)
- Introduce short-form video content with multilingual subtitles
- Add rich snippets and schema for featured results
And beyond that? Continue transforming connection into growth.
For eCommerce Brands Ready to Scale with Soul
International SEO isn’t about “cracking the algorithm”, but about building systems that reflect what people are: how they think, what they feel, and finally, what they search.
When your story is strong, and your strategy is real, the right people always find their way to you.
If your brand has authenticity but lacks discoverability, let’s change that.
đź“ž Book a discovery call with us – we’ll help you turn your origin story into lasting search visibility.
