Published by Sue Johns-Chapman
Published Date 18.11.2025 
Evolved & UpShift celebrate multiple UK Search Awards nominations, sharing the stories, results and client testimonials behind award-shortlisted SEO campaigns for Marks Electrical, Leasing.com and BYD.
We’re thrilled to share that Evolved and UpShift have been shortlisted across multiple categories at this year’s UK Search Awards. These nominations recognise the commercial impact and creativity behind three campaigns that went beyond rankings to deliver meaningful business outcomes for retail and automotive partners.
Evolved is an award-winning search marketing agency focused on ROI-first performance. UpShift is our dedicated brand and team for automotive businesses, bringing deep sector expertise to fast-moving OEMs, dealer groups and mobility brands.
Awards aren’t the goal for us, they’re the by-product of doing the right things for clients. Still, being shortlisted means a lot to the team that achieved these results.
“The UK Search Awards is an evening we always look forward to, it’s a fantastic opportunity to celebrate the hard work and exceptional results our team consistently delivers. These nominations and recognitions are a testament to the dedication, creativity, and expertise of everyone at Evolved and UpShift. It’s incredibly rewarding to see our team’s efforts recognised externally, and we’re proud to be part of such an inspiring industry.”
Ian McIntosh, CEO & Co-Founder, Evolved & UpShift
Evolved × Marks Electrical
Nomination. Best Use of Search – Retail/Ecommerce (Small) & Best SEO Campaign (Small)
Client’s challenge. Rising paid costs were squeezing margins and confidence. Marks Electrical needed SEO to drive profitable growth in a category dominated by bigger rivals with deeper advertising pockets.
Our work. We rebuilt SEO around profit, not volume. That started with a commercial mapping exercise: every priority term was aligned to product margin, so we could pursue traffic that translated into contribution, not just clicks. We embedded core USPs (e.g. next-day delivery, installation, price promises) within category and product templates so value was visible at key decision points.
We then created scalable category copy, FAQs, filters and comparison information across 250+ categories, to help shoppers choose quickly while increasing internal link equity to revenue-critical lines. We refreshed templates to improve Core Web Vitals and make editorial guidance a native part of the path to purchase.
Crucially, we delivered through sprint-aligned roadmaps with the development team, introducing a release cadence, QA checklist and change logs so improvements actually moved the needle. Measurement was rebuilt around revenue share and assisted sales, not just rank trackers, which helped secure ongoing board buy-in.
Results. Monthly organic revenue more than doubled; Ads spend fell 19%; organic revenue share rose from 12% → 20%; and visibility hit record highs. Beyond the numbers, Trading and Finance teams now reference SEO in performance updates because the commercial signal is clear.
“Outstanding… a strategic driver of shareholder value.” — Josh Egan, CFO
What we’re proud of. We didn’t rely on one big idea. We focused on the most valuable work, released small updates often, and kept improving the customer experience. Those changes added up month after month
UpShift × Leasing.com
Nomination. Best SEO Campaign (Small) & Best Use of Search – Automotive (Small)
Client’s challenge. Organic leadership was being eroded by aggregators, brokers and OEMs with rapidly expanding inventories. Crawlability and information architecture issues buried key commercial pages, and thin, jargon-heavy content underserved drivers deciding between personal vs business leases, or cars vs vans. The brief was simple: win back category leadership while reducing paid reliance.
Our work. We paired a technical re-architecture with a deep, customer-first approach to content.
We simplified how people (and Google) find us by creating a clear /car-leasing/ home and retiring legacy paths. Then we added rich landing pages for business and van leasing. Navigation was simplified with a manufacturer-first search experience and clearer model paths; streamlined URLs and canonical rules reduced duplication so link equity flowed to deals.
Content-wise, we built bottom-funnel model content for high-demand vehicles, rewrote manufacturer templates to be benefits-led and jargon-free, and added calculators, FAQs and checklists to answer objections.
To strengthen authority signals, our Digital PR campaigns packaged Leasing.com’s first-party insights for press, fleet costs, regional demand, SME sentiment, which earned coverage across the automotive trade and national networks.
Finally, to make Leasing.com indispensable even in zero-click contexts, we launched helpful tools: Quote Beater, Lifetime Running Costs, Compare in Search and Supersize My Account, giving users reasons to choose (and stay with) Leasing.com across the lease lifecycle.
Results. Organic sessions grew 59% YoY; organic share climbed from 12.72% → 18.78%; we secured top-3 positions for trophy generics (e.g. car leasing, van leasing, business car leasing); SISTRIX visibility doubled; and the campaign earned 150+ PR placements. Most importantly, organic leads increased by ~1,600 per month, giving sales teams a predictable pipeline from SEO.
“It propelled us to number one in all key areas.” — Chris Evans, CMO
What we’re proud of. We didn’t optimise for rankings, we optimised for users. The rankings followed and stayed.
UpShift × BYD
Nomination. Best Use of Search – Automotive (Small) & Best SEO Campaign (Small)
Client’s challenge. BYD was a new brand in a crowded EV market. Fragmented domains and subfolders led to geo-targeting issues (mis-landings between markets), and complex stakeholder workflows slowed execution just as consideration for EVs was surging. The goal: fix foundations and build trust with new-to-EV audiences.
Our work. We began with technical precision, implementing hreflang, strengthening geo signals and tightening redirects, so users reliably reached country-relevant content. We audited entry paths and reduced non-commercial landing pages, then reorganised internal linking so model, finance and education content formed coherent journeys.
Next, we built an audience-led content approach: cornerstone ‘electric cars’ and ‘hybrid cars’ hubs; explainer guides on costs, charging and battery confidence; and finance/model pathways aligned to common questions. Operationally, we aligned to dev sprints, earned direct CMS access for speed, and set up governance so global and local teams could iterate safely during launch moments (including major sponsorships and offline bursts).
Results. UK organic visits hit target and reached an all-time high; test-drive leads rose 480% YoY; we added +70 UK keywords in positions 1–3; and SISTRIX visibility increased 168% YoY. The outcome wasn’t just visibility, it was confidence from the market and from internal stakeholders that organic could power sustained growth.
What we’re proud of. New to EVs means lots of questions. We provided straightforward guidance and tidy tech, which converted clicks into test drives.
We have our fingers crossed for the awards ceremony, and are looking forward to catching up with all of you there!
