Food & Beverage Brand Achieves 516% Traffic Growth

The Food & Beverage (F&B) sector is one of the most competitive markets in the world. From national restaurant chains to niche health food brands, everyone is fighting for visibility around high-intent keywords such as “healthy meal delivery,” “organic snacks,” and “craft beer near me.”

Our client, a mid-sized health food distributor, offered premium organic products and had an established ecommerce site. Despite strong customer reviews and repeat buyers, their website was attracting only 600 visitors per month. Their rankings were stuck behind larger retailers and content-driven competitors, limiting new customer acquisition and online orders.

They needed a partner who understood the unique challenges of F&B SEO: building authority in a saturated market while capturing the product-driven and location-based searches that drive conversions. That’s where our tailored link building strategy came in, designed to break through the competition and deliver measurable growth.

To see why the client’s website was underperforming, our team began with a full SEO audit. Our analysis revealed a significant weakness: the site had virtually no backlinks or referring domains, and as a result had a very low authority score.

To overcome this, we designed a dual-service link building strategy focused on Curated Links and Visual Links. These services were chosen for their ability to build authority, reinforce topical relevance, and resonate with the highly visual nature of Food & Beverage audiences.

Curated Links: Contextual backlinks were placed within authoritative food, nutrition, and lifestyle content. These links passed credibility and trust signals directly to the site’s key category and product pages, helping to elevate rankings for competitive, purchase-driven keywords.

• Curated Links Package 3 ($1,650): 22 links
  • 7x RD20-100 links
  • 6x RD100-250 links
  • 6x RD250-500 links
  • 3x RD500+ links

Visual Links: Since food audiences respond strongly to visual content, we created a range of relevant image-based links. These links carried the same SEO weight as traditional text backlinks and were placed within highly visual, food-focused contexts such as recipe blogs, lifestyle sites, and nutrition platforms.

• 4x RD250–500 Visual Links ($380)

Each placement was acquired through manual outreach and careful vetting, ensuring the backlinks were relevant, authoritative, and sustainable for long-term growth.

With an average monthly budget of $2,000, this strategy gave the client the robust backlink foundation they were missing.

Our campaign was structured around three tactical pillars that worked together to build authority, relevance, and long-term resilience.

We began with keyword and competitor gap analysis, identifying the terms where larger food brands dominated search, such as “organic snack delivery,” “low-calorie snacks,” and “meal kit brands.” By mapping these gaps, we uncovered mid-competition opportunities where carefully placed backlinks could make a significant impact.

We also identified a set of low-hanging fruit keywords, which were terms where the client was already ranking on the second or third page of Google, that could be pushed onto page one with strategic link placements.

Next, we focused on contextual relevancy. Every link was secured within niche-relevant content on food, health, and lifestyle sites, pointing directly to high-conversion product and category pages. Anchor text was carefully balanced to ensure a natural profile, with the majority focused on branded terms and a smaller percentage reserved for highly targeted product keywords. This balance provided steady authority growth while minimizing the risks of over-optimization.

Finally, the campaign was supported by ongoing optimization. Each month, the client’s Account Manager reviewed ranking movements, anchor text distribution, and backlink performance. Underperforming areas were rebalanced, ensuring the campaign continuously adapted to search engine shifts and maintained strong growth momentum.

After 9 months, the campaign produced exceptional outcomes.

Organic traffic increased from roughly 600 to over 3,700 monthly visitors (a 1,043% increase).

age-one keyword rankings also rose by 275%, with many competitive terms that were previously buried on pages two or three now firmly positioned on the first page. Among these were high-value keywords such as “organic snack delivery” and “healthy meal kits,” which placed the brand directly in front of purchase-ready audiences. 

Crucially, these keyword ranking gains translated into real business results. Online orders increased by 64%, while wholesale inquiries from retailers grew month-on-month, opening up new opportunities for distribution.

This results demonstrate the true value of link building: not only lifting rankings and traffic, but driving tangible, long-term profitability. And as a result, the organic food distributor has committed to making link building a part of their ongoing marketing strategy, even increasing their monthly budget to test our Guest Posts service.

This case study demonstrates how a strategic blend of Curated Links and Visual Links can transform an Food & Beverage brand’s online visibility, authority, and rankings. By targeting food-specific audiences with both contextual and visual placements, we helped this client break through the noise, dominate competitive keywords, and generate a big uplift in new sales.

If you’re in the Food & Beverage industry and want to increase your search rankings, website traffic, and online orders, Rhino Rank’s tailored link building services can help you achieve measurable growth.