Axion Now Events is one of the UK’s largest organizers of live events for the trading card game Magic: The Gathering. Their tournaments bring together hundreds of players—from casual fans to competitive pros chasing serious prize pools.
For 10 years, Axion Now grew largely through word of mouth, community engagement, and social media. But in 2024, they realized they were missing a key growth opportunity: organic search.
They had never invested in SEO, and their website wasn’t built to compete in search results. That changed in April 2024, when they partnered with specialist agency Ditto Digital to launch their first content-led SEO strategy, with Surfer as a core part of the workflow.
Six months later, the results speak for themselves:
✅ 677% increase in organic traffic
✅ 38% increase in like-for-like sales
✅ Higher engagement from SEO than email or social
Here’s how they made it happen.
Step 1: Address site performance issues
Before focusing on content, the team ran a technical SEO audit to address performance blockers, especially Core Web Vitals.
The original mobile performance score was just 39, and the site failed 2 out of 3 Core Web Vitals tests.
Fixes included:
- Compressing images and switching from PNG to JPG
- Removing large decorative backgrounds
- Testing improvements with Google PageSpeed Insights
Thanks to these optimizations, the site now passes all Core Web Vitals checks.
Step 2: Optimize pages with Surfer’s Content Editor
To compete with established sites in their niche, Axion Now needed to level up their content—fast. That’s where Surfer’s Content Editor came in.
Using Surfer, the team:
- Compared Axion Now’s pages with top-ranking competitors for key topics
- Identified missing keywords, NLP phrases, and structural gaps
- Followed Surfer’s real-time guidance to boost Content Scores
Surfer’s data-driven suggestions helped the team confidently increase Content Scores up to 87 out of 100, outperforming competing pages and significantly improving rankings.
Surfer is easy to use and quickly identifies content gaps that would be time-consuming and difficult to find manually. It increases productivity within the team and delivers exceptional results for our clients.
— Michelle Symonds, Founder & MD, Ditto Digital
From zero to 677% growth
With technical foundations in place and Surfer-optimized content published, Axion Now saw major gains across the board:
- +677% growth in organic traffic within 6 months
- +38% increase in like-for-like sales
- SEO-driven traffic outperformed email and social in engagement metrics
- New audiences discovered the brand across the UK
We had always wanted to try SEO as a digital marketing channel, and it has proved to be worth our investment. SEO has driven website traffic and sales, adding value to our business.
— Liz Kolb, Co-Founder & MD, Axion Now Events
SEO is now a permanent part of Axion Now’s marketing strategy.
They’re continuing to work with Ditto Digital to scale their results even further, with an ongoing program that includes:
- Expanding the original pillar-cluster content model
- Continuous technical monitoring
- Digital PR and link-building
- Visibility in AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews
And it’s all leading up to a major milestone: Axion Now’s flagship 2025 event at the NEC in Birmingham—now backed by a search presence strong enough to match the scale of their ambitions.
Final thoughts
Axion Now’s journey shows that even brands with no prior SEO strategy can achieve massive organic growth—quickly and sustainably—with the right systems in place.
Surfer gave their team the structure, speed, and insight needed to:
- Build content that beats competitors
- Scale output without sacrificing quality
- Drive real-world business impact
Want to achieve similar results?
→ Try Surfer and start building content that ranks.
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