UX/UI · 03
Rude Health
I was brought on as UX/UI, but the work turned into an SEO and growth strategy project instead. I audited Rude Health's site and built them a roadmap they could actually run themselves.
01 / 05 — The Brief
A relaunched brand, with a site that hadn't caught up
Rude Health had just relaunched its brand and wanted their site rebuilt to match it. That meant cutting outdated content, boosting SEO and organic visibility, adding Instagram, and making navigation easier for customers and their own team. There were six of us on the account, four of us on Rude Health specifically, but the actual SEO and growth strategy work was just me and one teammate.
The Problem
Rude Health had just relaunched its brand, but 92% of their organic traffic was still just people searching the brand name itself.
The Idea
I audited their SEO with SurferSEO, SEMrush and Screaming Frog to find out where the real opportunities actually were.
The Solution
A prioritized growth roadmap and a 70-slide pitch deck, built so Rude Health could keep running it themselves once we left.
02 / 05 — Research & Process
Branded searches drive almost every visit
Before I recommended anything I audited Rude Health's existing rankings, mapped their competitors, and worked out what their customers were actually searching for and why. 96% of pages globally get zero traffic from Google because of weak SEO, and Rude Health wasn't far off that: out of roughly 9,300 monthly search visits, 92% came from people searching the brand name itself. On top of that, 92 keywords were sitting just outside page-one rankings, worth an estimated 1,400 extra visits a month if we could push them up. I used Google's own E-E-A-T framework (Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust) to figure out where their content was actually falling short, not just where it happened to rank.
of organic traffic is branded search: people typing "Rude Health" itself.
share of traffic coming from genuinely non-branded discovery keywords.
Rude Health is missing from high-value barista searches
34 coffee-related keywords generate around 20,560 searches each month: "barista oat milk", "oat milk protein" and the like. Every direct competitor already ranks. Rude Health doesn't.
20,560 monthly searches for barista & coffee keywords (existing café expertise, low competition).
User journey
Behind each search there is an intent.
Inspiration / Discover
"healthy breakfast ideas"
Explore
"best plant milk for coffee"
Consider / Compare
"oat vs almond milk for coffee"
Brand interest & engagement
"is Rude Health oat drink organic?"
03 / 05 — Key Insights
Pages were quietly competing with each other
The biggest wins weren't about writing more content, they were about fixing pages that were quietly competing with each other, and titles that didn't match what people actually typed into Google. One article, "oat milk: all you need to know", targeted 28 keywords worth 11,520 monthly searches but only pulled in 160 visits. 43 of 176 tracked search terms had two or more Rude Health pages fighting for the same spot. Just consolidating that overlap, grouping keywords by real intent, and rewriting titles to match actual searches found way more value than writing anything new ever would have.
tracked search terms had two or more Rude Health pages competing for the same spot.
visits from a page targeting 28 keywords worth 11,520 searches a month.
Consolidate and refresh the blog
Before
64 published entries
Most of them were last updated 12–18 months ago; several target no real search term.
After
Fewer, stronger pages
Each mapped to a real query, refreshed quarterly, linked to a product page.
- Merge overlapping posts instead of publishing near-duplicates.
- Every post links to at least one product or recipe page.
- Retire posts with no search traffic: redirect the URL, don't delete it.
Page titles that earn the click
rudehealth.com › products
Organic Dairy-Free Drinks, Granola & Cereal | Rude Health
Explore gluten-free, dairy-free granola, muesli and plant milks made with real ingredients. Rated 4.8/5 by 300+ customers.
Every template page (home, category, product) gets a written title and description targeting what people actually search, instead of Google's default guess.
04 / 05 — Growth Strategy & Roadmap
Fix what's close first, then take open ground
I phased the plan by effort and impact. Fix what's already almost ranking first, then grab the keywords competitors haven't claimed yet, then go after the big category terms long term. I also worked out who should actually do each piece of ongoing work: AI for the repetitive research, outlines and schema, people for brand voice, fact-checking and strategy. On top of that I priced the whole engagement, recommended a simple tool stack so Rude Health could keep an eye on their own SEO after we left, and mapped out a way into the Swedish market that uses their existing domain instead of starting from zero.
Medium term: take the ground competitors have left open
01 — Easiest opportunity
Barista & coffee
34 keywords. Build practical, café-led guides to drinks foam and flavour.
02 — Very low competition
Organic
29 keywords. Own the claim with credible, expert-led organic content.
A simple stack to run this and keep watching it
Three tools cover content, technical health and AI visibility.
Content: Surfer SEO or Semrush
Optimise content & keywords.
Site health: Screaming Frog
Maintain performance.
AI visibility: Store SEO
Improve AI visibility.
05 / 05 — Outcomes & Reflection
Three UX/UI fixes, one shipped
Three UX/UI fixes came out of this: a simplified header, a reworked product page, and a fixed homepage carousel. The product page fix solves a real problem where a huge hero image forced people to scroll past everything just to see the ingredients, even though that's usually the main reason someone picks a product like this in the first place. The carousel fix solves broken navigation that made the whole homepage look abandoned.
Header UI — implemented, live on current website
Having less information on the header creates a better user experience and improves the overall SEO of the website. Removed "Where to buy", "Cafe", "Sustainability". Restructured. Renamed "Food & Drinks" to "Products".
Before
After
Proposed fix — product page: ingredients as the star
Same product, reordered: ingredients get their own visible card instead of a paragraph two scrolls down.
Rude Health
Hazelnut Organic
Nutty, creamy and lightly sweet, made for your morning coffee or a bowl of granola.
Ingredients
- Filtered Water
- Hazelnuts (7%)
- Sunflower Oil
- Sea Salt
- Calcium, Vitamins B12 & D
Proposed fix — homepage: a slideshow that actually works
Same layout idea, fixed mechanics: one consistent arrow style, dots that match the real slide count, and every slide keeps its CTA in the same place.
1 · Slurp & Crunch | 2 · New Granolas | 3 · Cafe Favourites | 4 · Where to Buy
Reflection
If I did this again I'd push harder for someone on Rude Health's side to actually own this once we left, because a plan like this only works if someone keeps running it. I'd also cut the 70-slide deck down into something way easier for them to actually use, and I'd want more than 8 weeks on this one, just to actually see if what we recommended worked.