Do you run a food-delivery business? If your promotion strategy isn’t properly structured, you could be losing millions of rubles in potential revenue. Website optimization may be just what you need to substantially grow your visitor base and profits. We’ve been Yobidoyobi’s long-standing SEO partner for 6 years. We focus on promoting food-delivery websites—boosting reach, conversion rates, and profit. Want to learn how to achieve this through SEO?
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Our work with Yobidoyobi resulted in 842% traffic increase, top search rankings, and—paired with daring marketing—substantial profit growth. Ready to discover how SEO can deliver these outcomes?
Highlights:
Monthly orders grew to 49,500 — a direct result of users finding the site organically in search results.
Monthly visitors grew from 48,000 to 460,000+ — an 8.5× increase.
Our SEO efforts save the company ~₽4M per month on paid search advertising.
Partnership results
Is it just the brand?
How much would it cost to get these results with paid advertising?
Reputation management
How we work
Launched in Krasnoyarsk in 2016, Yobidoyobi (Ёбидоёби) quickly rose to a leading position in the sushi-delivery market. Facing more than 300 competitors, the owners chose an unconventional approach — standing out through the brand name and bold advertising. By 2021, the brand had expanded to 82 locations, and by 2023, annual revenues surpassed ₽6.3 billion. Over the past year, the Yobidoyobi network grew by 47% and won the BIBOSS Franchise Award. The company set a target of ₽1 billion by December 2024. With that goal in mind, what did optimization deliver - and how did it impact the business?
Organic search now accounts for 48.2% of all site visits and delivers more traffic than paid channels, reducing the company’s reliance on paid-search spend. As a result, the company focuses on organic growth and applies multiple SEO strategies to increase search visibility.
Excerpt from a Telegram post by one of Yobidoyobi’s founders.
Partnership results.
Organic search delivered 594,000 orders in the past year — about 49,500 per month — all with no paid search budget. Customers find the site in search, visit, and place an order. In other words, nearly 50,000 orders per month are driven entirely by SEO.
Starting from roughly 48,000 monthly visitors, the site now receives 460,000+ visitors per month.
Organic search traffic before optimization began.
Current organic search traffic.
As a result, the site’s traffic increased by 848.2% —a clear indicator of the success. During peak periods, such as around New Year, monthly unique visitors exceeded 600,000.
Organic search traffic — December 2023.
We also boosted search rankings — pages in Google’s Top 10 rose from 6% at the start to 61% today.
The Site Quality Index (IKS) increased from 1,130 to 2,010 — ~81.08% growth.
These results, powered by a strong brand and marketing strategy, led to a 4.5× increase in revenue—built over a 6+ year partnership as Yobidoyobi’s trusted SEO partner.
IKS Growth
IS IT JUST THE BRAND?
Sure — Yobidoyobi’s marketing makes the brand memorable, but the traffic isn’t built on branding alone. With SEO, people now find the site via generic searches like “sushi delivery” or “buy sushi” rather than the brand name. Initially, most visits came through branded search. A year later, the majority arrive from general searches — a shift that gives the company the same results as paid ads for a fraction of the cost (tens of times cheaper).
Decline in branded search volume compared to the prior year.
Increase in non-branded commercial queries compared to the prior year.
HOW MUCH WOULD IT COST TO GET THESE RESULTS WITH PAID ADVERTISING?
To show the value of organic traffic, we calculated how much equivalent traffic would have cost via paid search in Russia. Using a campaign setup service, we modeled primary non-branded queries such as «заказать суши» (order sushi), «купить суши» (buy sushi), and «доставка суши» (sushi delivery) – noting that a real ad campaigns would include a much broader keyword set. The analysis indicates that achieving the same traffic via contextual advertising would have cost around ₽4,780,709 per month. While these numbers are approximate and based on average values, this estimate clearly illustrates the significant savings our optimization achieved for the company.
REPUTATION MANAGEMENT
In August, Yobidoyobi found itself at the center of a controversy over ad photos with a Black man. An image posted on the “Men’s State” (Мужское государство) founder’s Telegram channel triggered a wave of negative reviews on Yandex.Maps and Google Maps.
Negative reviews may significantly harm a company’s reputation - especially in a competitive sector like food service. Fake comments lowered ratings on review platforms, which in turn hurt sales and customer trust.
We stepped in to address the issue and offered our “Reputation Management” service. First, we contacted support teams at Yandex.Maps, Google Maps, and 2GIS to request removal of the negative reviews, explaining that most were fake. After our messages went unanswered, we concluded that requests alone weren't enough and prepared documented evidence to support our removal requests.
Evidence submitted: Telegram screenshots showing supporters coordinating mass fake reviews, including ready-made phrases to copy into the reviews.
In addition, we provided examples of near-duplicate reviews—same text, same style—demonstrating they were written from a single script rather than genuine customer feedback. Over time, moderators began to respond and removed the fake reviews one by one. The process took time, but it helped cut the negative impact and protect the brand.
Heads-up: long read ahead.
Prefer the technical details? Head to the next section for our SEO methods and the technical site changes - or contact us for a free SEO audit.
HOW WE WORK
SEO has always been essential for large businesses - especially in the food-delivery sector. SEO helps Yobidoyobi maintain leading search positions. We focus on a user-friendly experience and search-friendly structure so customers can quickly find the site and place a sushi order.
- We use a data-driven approach, so the first step is always setting up analytics and data collection. Data-driven marketing means making decisions based on numbers and verified information.We analyze audience behavior and preferences using data from the site, social media, and ad platforms.
- Using this data, we optimize the site around audience needs and keep iterating to make it even more effective.
This yields much higher SEO impact—an approach few companies execute well.
TECHNICAL SEO AUDIT
The next step was to resolve errors and ensure system stability. With many customers ordering simultaneously, even minor glitches or slowdowns could mean lost orders.
Initially, the site lacked a sitemap—critical “navigation” for search bots. This meant some pages weren’t being discovered or indexed. We added a detailed sitemap, improving crawl completeness and speeding up indexation.
Another issue was a misconfigured redirect between the site versions yobidoyobi.ru/ and yobidoyobi.ru. Search engines treated them as two sites with identical content, negatively affecting ranking. We set up a proper redirect to eliminate duplication and consolidate all links on a single version, which improved rankings and prevented traffic loss.
Non-existent pages were treated incorrectly, causing index bloat. Setting proper HTTP response codes cleaned up the index and improved overall relevance.
Pages that no longer existed returned 200 ("OK") - a green light for indexing.
THE IMPORTANCE OF ALT TEXT FOR IMAGES AND GRAPHICS
Many customers decide to order based on the dish’s visual presentation on the website. However, missing alt text made it hard for search engines to index our visuals. After we added alt text across all images, image search traffic increased and more customers found dishes through visual searches - boosting revenue.
No search engine will miss a name like this :)
USER INTERFACE ENHANCEMENTS
As part of the optimization, we simplified the checkout process. For example, users didn’t always realize the verification code came via SMS, which led to drop-offs. Making the message text clearer reduced cart abandonment and increased conversion.
Excerpt from the Technical Specification
The website now offers more intuitive checkout process.
ON-PAGE OPTIMIZATION: SEMANTIC CORE DEVELOPMENT AND CONTENT ENHANCEMENT
To improve search visibility, we developed a semantic core (a list of keywords and phrases users enter). What made the task more challenging was that Yobidoyobi operates in multiple cities, and user queries differ by region—for example, in Krasnoyarsk people typically search “sushi delivery,” while in St. Petersburg they use “sushi SPb.” Analyzing regional behavior, we created a relevant semantic core for each city.
Seeing user interest in discounts and special offers, we created a dedicated “Promotions” landing page, which drove additional traffic.
WEBSITE MIGRATION – HOW WE RETAINED TRAFFIC AND SEO RANKING
Changing the site’s platform is risky for SEO—rankings can drop if the migration is mishandeled. Any misstep could reduce traffic if users can no longer find the brand via the queries they’re used to. The new platform promised better speed and stability, so we proceeded with the migration. We evaluated three approaches:
1. Creating a new URL structure without redirecting old page URLs to the new ones. This approach can work for low-volume sites, but for an enterprise-scale project it’s risky—likely to cost you positions and traffic.
2. Keeping the old page URLs on the new platform seems simplest at first glance. However, it doesn’t work if you need a new site structure. This approach limits the new platform’s flexibility - therefore we dropped this idea.
3. Setting up redirects from old URLs to new ones. This approach smoothly transitions search engines and users to the new site while preserving rankings.
We proceeded with option three (redirects) - and later confirmed that redirects alone addressed only part of the challenge.
Dealing with Duplicate Content: How We Fixed It
After the platforms migration, we ran into another issue: search engines began treating some pages as duplicates.
Our initial idea was to delete the duplicates, but we ruled it out—many of those pages were useful to users and already bringing in traffic.
We next considered 301 redirects to the primary URLs, but several “duplicates” included SEO-valuable elements, so redirects alone weren’t the right answer.
Instead, we implemented canonical tags. We indicate the preferred page and treat the rest as copies, so search engines focus on the correct version.
MULTI-REGION SEO STRATEGY
The network operates across multiple cities where search behavior, competition, and user tastes differ – so we customized the approach for each location.
Initially, the site used per-city subdomains (e.g., krasnoyarsk.yobidoyobi.ru, moscow.yobidoyobi.ru), which made managing regions easy. Then the client decided to switch to a subfolder structure (yobidoyobi.ru/krasnoyarsk, yobidoyobi.ru/moscow) to make the site easier for users and search engines. We supported the move because it simplified the architecture and seemed likely to speed up SEO work. However, we later realized the transition wasn’t worth it.
After analyzing the data, it was obvious that subdomains maintained rankings better for regional queries than subfolders.
We decided to revert to subdomains—which meant nearly a full SEO rebuild for every city.
At this point, our key tasks were:
1. Local Business Listings: Setup & Optimization
Local listings & maps: we registered each subdomain as a branch, supplying accurate addresses and current data. The process took longer than expected because not all directories initially accepted subdomains as separate locations.
2. Creating sitemaps for each region. We built dedicated XML sitemaps per subdomain so
search engines find the right pages faster. This accelerated the indexing of regional pages, and extra testing confirmed that everything worked correctly.
Although the transition required more time and effort than expected, switching back to subdomains strengthened regional rankings and accommodated city-specific needs. This experience showed that initial strategies can be the right one, and the ability to be flexible and revert to what works is crucial.
EXTERNAL LINKS STRATEGY
A focus on external links was essential for growing site authority and elevating search rankings. Each region required finding suitable sites for link placement. The work required understanding the specifics of each region, but the effort paid off — search visibility improved, which translated into higher sales.
Sushi delivery is one of the most competitive niches. A saturated market makes maintaining a leadership position a challenge in itself. We went further—we grew and pulled ahead of competitors.
Ready for results like these - top rankings, stronger brand awareness, and paid-search savings? Schedule a free audit.
By Sofya Gaeva, Founder of Seoslon
