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In spring and summer 2024, I designed the online store for Tycoon Games and set its SEO strategy and keywords. Tycoon is a board game publisher and store in Londonderry, New Hampshire. My development partner, eSEO Space, built the Shopify store.
My design went live in October 2024 on tabletoptycoon.com, the storeβs domain at the time. Semrush estimates show no lasting drop in the storeβs organic traffic after the launch.
Updated October 2026: the search numbers on this page are Semrush US estimates pulled in October 2026, not the clientβs analytics.
Written by Kristian Kreaktive, KREAKTIVE.
Who did what: I did the store design (UI/UX) and the SEO strategy and keywords, in spring to summer 2024. eSEO Space did the development.
The domain move to tycoongames.com was outside my scope, and the project has ended. The before and after screenshots are Wayback Machine captures.
Who Tycoon Games is
Tycoon Games is an independent publisher that also sells games through its own store. Its own site says the company was founded in 2015. Everdell is one of their own games. Their site lists it under βOur Games,β and the trade site ICv2 calls it βTabletop Tycoonβs full Everdell game.β
Keep that in mind when you read search results for their game names. People search for Everdell by name, and the company that makes it is a natural result. For a store like this, the SEO work worth doing covers everything beyond its own titles.
The store before I started
The old store already had search traffic worth protecting. Semrushβs Mar 2024 estimate for tabletoptycoon.com: 8,698 monthly organic visits, 2,352 organic keywords and 197 top-3 positions.
The Wayback Machine capture from March 2024 shows the old home page: a βClick Here for March Deals!β bar at the top, then a menu of game collections and featured deals. The page then opened on βMarch 2024 Deals!β, discounted games from Victory Point Games and Phase Shift Games. Everdell, the companyβs own game, came further down the page.
The old theme was still up in the Wayback capture from early October 2024, and the capture from early November 2024 shows my design.
Four decisions I made
Make the store look like the games
I gave the store the same fantasy look as the games, with vines and wooden signs, instead of a generic store theme. The home page opens on a fantasy forest hero banner, and the Best Sellers section sits inside vine-themed decorative borders.
For a publisher, the store is part of the brand. When it looks like the games, a visitor can tell theyβre buying from the people who make them.
Lead with the flagship game
The home page hero led with the flagship game, Everdell, with a Buy Now $35 button right in the banner.
My Tabletop Tycoon home page design, with the flagship game in the hero.
A visitor who already knows the game they want gets a direct path to it. Everyone else sees, right away, what the company is known for.
Go after the searches big stores skip
For SEO, I focused on long-tail keywords: specific searches that Amazon and big-box stores ignore. Amazon owns broad terms like βbuy board games online,β so I aimed the keyword plan at searches like βboard games for couples date nightβ and βparty games for 8+ players adults.β
Category pages were built around what buyers actually search: not just βstrategy games,β but β2-player strategy games for couples.β
Fewer people type those searches. The ones who do know what they want, and a small store can be the clear match.
Design for phones first
I designed the store mobile-first. Every design decision started with the phone layout, and desktop was the adaptation, not the other way around.
What happened in search after launch
To measure the launch, I use Semrushβs US estimates for tabletoptycoon.com. They estimate how visible the store is in Google, not the clientβs own analytics.
I start the comparison at Nov 2024, the first full month of the new store. Semrushβs monthly rows are dated the 15th, and my design went live sometime in Oct 2024, so the Oct 2024 row could show either the old store or the new one. From Nov 2024 to Mar 2025:
- Top-3 positions: 179 to 215
- Estimated monthly organic visits: 8,732 to 9,551
- Organic keywords (searches the store ranked for): 2,347 to 1,824
The store gained top-three positions and slightly more estimated traffic, while ranking for fewer keywords overall.
Measured from the Oct 2024 reading of 10,154, estimated traffic went down to 9,551 in Mar 2025. Either way, the Mar 2025 figure is inside the storeβs usual range. Between Mar and Dec 2024 the estimate ranged from 8,301 to 10,468 visits a month. It dipped over the winter, to a low of 7,958 in Jan 2025, before it recovered.
In a redesign, a store ownerβs real worry is losing the search traffic they already have. By these estimates, that didnβt happen here.
The domain move, and where the store is now
In mid-2025 the store moved from tabletoptycoon.com to tycoongames.com. The move wasnβt part of my scope, and my project with Tycoon has ended.
In Semrushβs data, the rankings shifted that summer, and tycoongames.com went from 273 organic keywords in Jun 2025 to 1,128 in Jul 2025.
My design moved over with the store. The Wayback Machine shows it on tycoongames.com in July 2025 and still in April 2026. By early May 2026 the store had a different design, the one tycoongames.com shows today.
The store still runs on tycoongames.com. Semrushβs Sep 2026 estimate: 914 organic keywords, 192 top-3 positions, and 10,474 estimated monthly organic visits. That is the clientβs current state, after a domain move and a newer design I wasnβt part of.
What Iβd do differently
On the next store project, Iβd prove results from kickoff to after launch.
Set up tracking at kickoff. I get Analytics and Search Console access on day one, so results are shown with the clientβs own data instead of third-party estimates.
Stay on for SEO after launch. That way the gains are measured and credited while they happen.
Capture before screenshots. Before anything changes, the old site gets documented properly.
If youβre planning a store redesign
Ask one question first: how will we know the new store kept the search traffic it already had? If nobody sets up tracking before launch, youβll be guessing.
I do store design and e-commerce SEO for online stores, as part of my wider SEO work. Tycoon Games was my client in Londonderry, New Hampshire. If you want a straight read on your store before you redesign it, get in touch.
Questions About This Project
No. A Google search for "Everdell" on February 11, 2026 showed tycoongames.com in position 2, above Amazon. Everdell is Tycoon's own game, so that ranking comes with the brand, and it happened after the domain move. I judge this project by how the store's search traffic held up through the redesign.
Earlier versions showed ad spend savings, international revenue and mobile revenue. I don't know those numbers, so I dropped them.
The project fell in the $10K to $25K investment range.
From Semrush's US database (desktop), pulled for this page in October 2026. Semrush's monthly rows are dated the 15th of each month, so the "Nov 2024" figure is the Nov 15 estimate. They estimate how visible the store is in Google, not its real traffic.
Partly. The long-tail keyword focus and the mobile-first design apply to any niche store. The brand-name rankings don't. A store that resells other companies' games doesn't own those names, so it shouldn't expect to rank for them the way a publisher does.
In collaboration with
eSEO Space
Development
eSEO Space did the development. I did the store design (UI/UX) and the SEO strategy.
Learn more about our partnership
Case study by
Kristian Kreaktive
Founder & Lead Strategist at KREAKTIVE
#1 Freelance Digital Strategy Expert on Clutch (Oct 2026). 17 years in digital marketing, 15 of them running his own agency, building websites and SEO strategies that bring real results for small businesses.
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