TLDR
- Who: VAAY, a leading German CBD brand (owned by Sanity Group, $44.2m Series A in 2021) launching a new UK site.
- What changed: NUOPTIMA ran a 20-page technical SEO audit, produced 76 content pieces (140,000 words), and placed 48 backlinks averaging DR 58 to build authority from zero.
- The number: 0 to 1,043 organic keywords ranked within 8 months of the UK site going live.
8
Months engagement
0 to 28
URL rating increase
0 to 1,043
Organic keywords
About VAAY and the challenge
VAAY is a leading CBD brand based in Germany, owned by Sanity Group, which closed a $44.2m Series A in 2021. When VAAY launched their UK site, they needed an SEO partner who had already competed in the CBD space.
NUOPTIMA had grown Alphagreen, a CBD marketplace, from new entrant to market leader in under 12 months. That track record made the partnership a natural fit.
The UK CBD market is one of the most competitive SEO environments in the country. Venture-backed brands with no access to compliant paid channels on Facebook or Google pour their budgets into content marketing instead. Breaking into rankings on a brand-new domain, in that environment, required getting three things right at once: a clean technical foundation, content that targeted winnable keywords, and backlinks from credible domains.
Who we were targeting
uk.vaay.com needed to reach UK consumers already searching for CBD products, in a category where the usual paid channels were closed off.
- UK shoppers searching for specific CBD product types across VAAY's catalog: oils, bath bombs, mouth sprays, massage oils, and hemp candles.
- Buyers researching CBD use cases and benefits rather than browsing paid ads, since compliant Facebook and Google ad channels are closed to CBD brands, making organic content the primary discovery route.
- Search-driven demand at the product level, where keyword gaps existed with real volume but low enough competition for a brand-new domain to break in.
Team
VAAY Team
Torsten Rammrath
Head of SEO & Content Lead
Alyshha Ball
Digital Content Manager
What we did
Technical SEO audit
Because uk.vaay.com was a completely new domain, the first priority was making sure Google would respond well to the content that followed. NUOPTIMA's technical SEO audit ran to over 20 pages. Rather than producing a generic checklist, every finding came with a clear, implementable solution the VAAY internal team could act on directly. After delivery, our team stayed available to answer questions and unblock execution.
One of the structural decisions made at this stage was hosting the UK site on a subdomain (uk.vaay.com). That choice carries real SEO trade-offs and was made deliberately after consulting with both teams.
Content at scale, targeting winnable gaps
140,000
Words written
76
Published pieces
0 to 1,043
Organic keywords
VAAY's products span bath bombs, massage oils, hemp candles, and mouth sprays. After mapping the full product catalog, NUOPTIMA identified keyword gaps where search volume existed but competition was low enough for a new domain to break in. That analysis shaped every monthly content plan.
Content planning was a joint effort. Each month, NUOPTIMA proposed the target keywords and the content angles; the VAAY team contributed product knowledge and brand context before the final plan was set. Over 8 months that process produced 76 pieces and 140,000 words. A sample of the published output:
Link building
48
Backlinks placed
58
Average domain rating
For a new site in a competitive niche, link building is not optional. NUOPTIMA placed 48 backlinks from domains with an average DR of 58. The approach: write original content for publishers worth ranking in their own right, then place a natural contextual link inside it. A link from a page that ranks carries more weight than a link from a page that does not.
Having worked in the CBD space for 12 years, NUOPTIMA had already evaluated thousands of potential referring domains and built direct relationships with the best publishers. VAAY had a strong internal SEO lead in Torsten Rammrath, so the two teams collaborated on final link selection. That combination of industry relationships and internal expertise drove the authority gains below.
Results
0 to 28
URL rating increase
38 to 48
Domain rating increase
Over the 8-month engagement, uk.vaay.com went from zero organic presence to 1,043 ranked keywords. URL rating climbed from 0 to 28. The link-building work also lifted authority across the whole vaay.com domain: domain rating rose from 38 to 48, which produced traffic gains in the German section of the site as well.
Key takeaways
- Getting the technical foundation right before publishing content is not optional on a new domain. Small mistakes during setup can suppress rankings for months. A thorough technical SEO audit before launch is the fastest way to avoid compounding errors.
- In regulated consumer categories where paid channels are restricted, content and off-page SEO carry the full growth load. Winning requires identifying low-competition keyword gaps at the product level, then publishing consistently against a shared monthly plan.
- Link quality beats link quantity in a competitive niche. 48 placements averaging DR 58, each with original surrounding content, moved VAAY's URL rating from 0 to 28 within 8 months and lifted authority across the entire domain.
If you want to see what this approach could do for your brand, book a call with NUOPTIMA.