La Chocolatrice Case Study: Shopify Development, SEO and Digital Growth
An ongoing consultancy partnership spanning Shopify development, technical SEO, photography and marketing for chocolate sales and workshop bookings.
- Shopify development & technical SEO
- Product & workshop journey optimisation
- Photography, content, Meta advertising & organic social
Selected Performance Highlights
The business challenge
La Chocolatrice’s website needs to serve two distinct customer journeys: buying handmade chocolate and booking chocolate-making experiences. Both require clear information and strong imagery, but the content and route towards a purchase or booking are different.
An external agency had completed the initial Shopify setup. I subsequently took ownership of the website, completely redesigning and rebuilding it within the existing platform. This went well beyond maintaining the original site: I rebuilt its design, page layouts, content and visual presentation, while developing an SEO strategy around the business’s products and workshops.
The objective was to create a website that represented La Chocolatrice consistently, made its different offers easier to understand and provided a stronger foundation for organic discovery and ongoing marketing.
My role as the partnership evolved
My relationship with La Chocolatrice developed from photography and creative support into an ongoing partnership spanning SEO, website development, content and marketing. That existing knowledge of the products, workshops and brand helped me make decisions grounded in how the business operates.
I set priorities with the client and delivered the work myself, from identifying which commercial pages needed attention to writing the content, producing the photography and implementing the changes in Shopify. This connected strategic advice with practical delivery, giving La Chocolatrice an ongoing partner who could identify an opportunity and carry the work through to completion.
SEO focused on the products and experiences that matter
I prioritised La Chocolatrice’s best-selling products, focusing the SEO and content work on pages supporting established customer demand. Rather than treating optimisation as a change to keywords or metadata alone, I upgraded the complete product-page experience.
For these priority products, I introduced new photography, rewrote the copy and developed clearer, more useful supporting content. The work brought search relevance and product presentation together, helping visitors understand the offer through both the written information and the imagery.
Workshop bookings required a different approach. I rebuilt every workshop page from scratch, with stronger descriptions, more original photography and a clearer presentation of the experience. The content supported relevant searches, including chocolate workshops and chocolate-making experiences in the North East, while helping visitors understand what they were booking.
I also created a dedicated corporate gifting page, giving business buyers a focused destination rather than relying on the general chocolate catalogue to explain that offer. Together, these changes established distinct content for product shoppers, workshop customers and corporate enquiries.
Alongside the page content, I addressed technical SEO issues across broken links, 404 errors, canonical tags and heading structure. I also improved internal linking between relevant pages, helping visitors navigate the different offers and giving search engines clearer signals about the website’s structure and preferred URLs.
A complete Shopify redesign and rebuild
I completely redesigned and rebuilt the website following the agency’s initial Shopify setup, taking responsibility for the customer-facing design, layouts, content and implementation.
I implemented the changes directly in Shopify, including custom Liquid edits to the theme, revised homepage content blocks and clearer calls to action for product purchases and workshop bookings. This meant I could take responsibility for both the design decisions and their implementation, adapting the website around the different customer journeys.
A central part of the work was unifying the brand across the site. I brought the imagery, copy and page presentation into a consistent visual direction, so the chocolate shop, workshop pages and wider business content felt like parts of the same brand.
The rebuild addressed the different purposes of each page. Product pages combined detailed photography with clearer descriptions. Workshop pages became more visual and informative, showing the spaces and experiences behind the booking. The corporate gifting page introduced a dedicated route for a different type of customer.
The result was a fully rebuilt website with a consistent brand presentation and clearer content across its key commercial journeys. I have continued to develop it as part of the ongoing partnership, rather than treating the redesign as a one-off handover.
Original product photography by Chris Curry, produced and edited for La Chocolatrice’s Shopify catalogue.
Product and brand photography, from capture to website
Creating a consistent product photography library
La Chocolatrice needed a consistent way to photograph its chocolate bars. Each product had to look part of the same range while still showing its individual packaging, toppings and character.
I established a consistent visual approach to the product photography, bringing together the framing, backgrounds and editing across the range. The aim was to create a cohesive catalogue without losing the details that distinguish one bar from another.
I personally photographed, edited and uploaded an extensive range of products to the website, including chocolate bars, boxed chocolates and seasonal products. This was not a small selection of campaign images: it was a substantial body of e-commerce photography supporting the presentation of the range.
The finished library gave La Chocolatrice a consistent set of product images and a visual standard that could carry through to future additions.
Showing the people, places and products behind the brand
Alongside the catalogue photography, I produced original brand imagery covering founder portraits, workshop interiors, the shop and seasonal products such as the advent calendar.
These shoots served a different purpose from the product packshots. They showed the business behind the catalogue: where the workshops take place, the people behind the brand and how the products look in a more natural setting.
Product-led shoots also allowed me to show details that a standard packshot cannot communicate as clearly, including the scale of larger bars and the filling and texture of the pistachio range.
Together, the product and brand photography gave me an original image library to draw on when rebuilding the website and developing creative. The content was created around the actual business, rather than selected separately from the pages it needed to support.
Original workshop and experience photography by Chris Curry, produced and edited to showcase La Chocolatrice’s masterclasses and in-store treats.
Connecting paid and organic social with the customer journey
My Meta advertising responsibilities covered campaign planning, creative production, management and optimisation. I also supported organic social through strategy, content direction and story-led ideas, alongside the client and wider team’s own contribution to content and audience development.
Because my remit included the website, I could work on both the advertising and the pages receiving that interest. Campaign messaging, creative and website content could be considered together around the relevant product or workshop offer.
What the data shows
Stronger recorded checkout completion rate
The recorded checkout completion rate increased from 40.3% in 2024 to 59.9% in 2025. That represents an improvement of 19.6 percentage points, or approximately 49% in relative terms. It remained at 60.5% across September 2025 to August 2026.
This measures completed-checkout sessions divided by sessions that reached checkout. It describes the checkout stage, rather than the percentage of all website visits that converted.
Higher net sales per recorded order
Net sales per recorded order were 26.4% higher between 1 September 2025 and 31 August 2026 than in the preceding 12 months.
This is a per-order trading measure across the product mix. Overall net sales and order volumes were lower over the same period, so the improvement should be read specifically as higher value per recorded order.
A measurable contribution from organic search
Google organic accounted for 20.4% of total sales in Shopify’s last-click referring-channel report between May 2023 and August 2026.
This shows the commercial relevance of organic search within the business, supporting the ongoing focus on technical SEO and useful product and workshop content.
Workshops as a substantial part of the business
Workshop and experience products, including private parties, accounted for 51.2% of reported net product sales between May 2023 and August 2026.
That reinforces why the workshop booking journey deserved sustained attention alongside the chocolate shop. This is a measure of sales composition across the reporting period.
What the partnership delivered
La Chocolatrice gained a completely redesigned and rebuilt Shopify website, supported by an ongoing SEO partnership and extensive original creative production.
The work brought together upgraded best-selling product pages, a fully rebuilt workshop section, a dedicated corporate gifting page and a consistent product photography library. Across the website, stronger copy and more purposeful imagery created a clearer, more unified presentation of the brand.
The lasting value is the connection between these disciplines. I could identify a search or content opportunity, produce the assets it required and implement the finished page myself. That gave La Chocolatrice a partner responsible for both the direction of the work and its delivery, with the knowledge of the business needed to keep improving it over time.
"Chris has made such a difference to La Chocolatrice. He completely rebuilt our website, photographed our products and workshop spaces, and brought everything together so it finally feels like us. What I really value is that he doesn’t just give us a list of recommendations. He explains what needs improving and does the work himself. He continues to look after our SEO and develop the website as the business grows. It’s a huge reassurance having someone who understands the brand, can handle the technical side and genuinely cares about getting it right."
Measurement and commercial confidentiality
The figures above are calculated from Shopify exports covering 1 May 2023 to 31 August 2026. The individual comparison periods are stated beside each result. Exact revenue amounts, order volumes and transaction values remain confidential.
The checkout completion rate is calculated from the summed session counts in the Conversion rate over time report. Net sales per recorded order is net sales divided by orders in the Total sales over time report; it includes sales reversals and is distinct from Shopify’s standard AOV measure.
The Google figure uses last-click attributed total sales divided by all total sales in the referring-channel report, including unattributed sales. The workshop figure uses the net sales of ten identified workshop, experience and party listings divided by all net sales in the product report. Christmas Shopping Evening is excluded from that group.
These are observed trading and funnel measures during an ongoing partnership. A one-off viral Instagram peak in 2024 affected the comparison context, and changes in traffic, pricing and product mix can influence the results. The figures do not isolate the effect of my work from the client’s wider business and marketing activity.
About Chris Curry
I’m a freelance marketing consultant and former Director of Creative Performance at THG Studios. I combine marketing strategy with hands-on website development, technical SEO and creative delivery.
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