Hoods UK nearly doubled organic clicks to Military Mart in two months
The UK army surplus store behind Military Mart went from ~410 to ~800 organic clicks a day (+95%) after Ryze cleaned up a sprawling surplus catalogue and published 318 guides on buying, owning and using ex-military kit and vehicles.
From tanks and Humvees to mess tins — answers that bring buyers straight to the catalogue
“We've been selling army surplus since 1999 but a lot of our catalogue just wasn't showing up on Google. Ryze sorted the basics across hundreds of products and wrote the guides our customers were already asking us about, everything from Humvee registration to mess tin cooking. Organic clicks have nearly doubled and the vehicle guides are bringing in buyers we'd never have reached before.”
Straight from Google Search Console
Weekly organic clicks dipped below 3,000 a week in early summer. After Ryze started on 19 July they climbed week after week, passing 5,500 a week in September — 89,311 clicks over five months, as Google measured it.
About Hoods UK
Hoods UK runs Military Mart, a UK army surplus retailer, trading since 1999, with two shops: Burscough near Ormskirk in Lancashire and Llangollen in North Wales. The catalogue runs from boots, jackets, bergens and sleeping bags to ammo tins, camo nets — and full-size ex-military vehicles like Humvees, Saracens and M35 trucks. It still hires out military vehicles for TV and film. Most of its search traffic comes from the UK (84% of clicks).
Executive summary
Military Mart already had a strong brand, but most of its catalogue was invisible in search: hundreds of products and collections had missing or broken SEO titles, and there was little content answering the questions surplus buyers actually ask. Ryze fixed the catalogue and built a content library at the same time. Organic clicks grew from ~410 to ~800 a day (+95%), impressions rose 64%, and average position improved from 11.3 to 8.8.
The challenge
Army surplus is a long-tail business: thousands of one-off items, each with its own search demand. A big catalogue with thin or broken metadata can’t capture that — and the research around big purchases like ex-military vehicles was going to forums and other sites.
Broken catalogue metadata
Dozens of products and collections had no SEO title or description at all, keyword-stuffed descriptions, or titles truncated in search results. One Humvee listing even showed a description of a Land Rover Wolf.
Low click-through on strong rankings
Pages ranking in the top 5 — army boots, military jackets, rucksacks — were getting well under 1% click-through because their titles didn’t match what people searched.
Big-ticket research happening elsewhere
Buyers of tanks, Humvees and ex-military trucks have questions about costs, registration and restoration long before they buy. Military Mart had few pages answering them.
A huge, varied catalogue
Clothing, camping, containers, vehicles and spares each needed their own keywords and content — one generic approach wouldn’t cover them.
What Ryze did
Fixed the catalogue page by page
From day one, Ryze audited products and collections against real Search Console data and shipped 78 on-page fixes: writing missing SEO titles and descriptions for items like the Norwegian Army Poncho, the French F2 tent and the Boxes & Containers collection (8,800+ impressions a month), cleaning keyword-stuffed descriptions, correcting wrong product text and removing duplicate headings.
Rewrote titles where clicks were leaking
For pages that already ranked but didn’t get clicked, Ryze rewrote titles around the words buyers actually use — “army boots” (23k impressions), “military jacket” (17.5k), “military rucksack”, “mess tins” and “cadet kit” — so the same rankings started turning into visits.
Built a library for ex-military vehicle buyers
The content engine published guides for the people researching the store’s most distinctive stock: How to buy an ex-military tank in the UK, Buying an ex military Humvee in the UK: costs and registration, Ex military motorcycles for sale: what to know before you buy, and the history of the M35 “Whistler” truck. These became some of the site’s most-visited pages.
Covered everyday surplus use cases
Alongside vehicles, Ryze wrote practical guides that match how people use surplus kit: jerry cans for emergency water storage, the best military boots for hillwalking or wide feet, winter sleeping bags, mess-tin camp cooking and an army cadet uniform fitting guide — each linking straight to the matching products. In total, 318 guides were published between July and September.
Results
Organic clicks a day, from ~410 to ~800 (28 days before Ryze vs. the latest 28 days).
Monthly clicks from Ryze’s guides alone — the tank guide is the top performer.
Average Google position, up from 11.3, with impressions up 64%.
Keywords in Google’s top 10, including 113 at position #1.
Why this worked
Fix the foundation first
Missing and broken metadata on a large catalogue is an easy win at scale — every fix turned existing impressions into clicks.
Content for what makes the store unique
Few retailers sell tanks and Humvees. Guides built around that stock won searches nobody else was answering.
Guides that lead to products
Every article routes readers to the matching kit or vehicle, so research traffic has a path to purchase.
