About Flesh and Buns
Flesh & Buns is a modern Japanese Izakaya-style restaurant in London and a long-time favourite for fans of bao. Known for its relaxed atmosphere and extensive sake list, it has been serving signature bao buns with home-smoked and robata-grilled fillings for over a decade. The menu is built for variety and sharing, with build-your-own platters that make dining interactive and indulgent — a true reflection of the restaurant’s love for bao and bold flavours.
Their Goals
- Increase traffic
- Increase the number of page 1 keywords
- Increase their overall number of keywords, and the ranking positions of those keywords
What We Did
We audited the site and carried out competitor and keyword research, mapping commercial terms to key pages and creating new ones to boost visibility. Forty supporting content pieces were produced to funnel traffic toward money pages, alongside local SEO targeting to capture nearby searches. Technical fixes, directory listings, and quality backlinks strengthened authority, while conversion tracking ensured results were measurable, and the progress seen was easy to understand.
Flesh and Buns Project Overview
Client Name:
Flesh and Buns
Client Industry:
Hospitality
Services Provided:
SEO
Project Duration:
2 months
Case Study Trigger Date:
SEPTEMBER 2025
The Challenge
Flesh & Buns already had an established website and a strong reputation, but the aim was to push their performance further. The focus was to drive more organic traffic by improving average keyword positions, securing more page one rankings, and expanding the overall keyword footprint.
The challenge was less about building visibility from scratch and more about moving the needle — making meaningful gains in an already competitive space and ensuring the website could capture a larger share of search demand for Japanese dining in London.
The Strategy
We began with a full audit of the website to spot areas where performance could be improved. From there, we carried out competitor research to understand how other restaurants in the London dining scene were capturing organic visibility.
Keyword research helped shape the content plan for the website, focusing on commercially relevant terms that could drive bookings and brand discovery. Local SEO was also prioritised, ensuring Flesh & Buns showed up in searches from customers in the nearby area.
On the technical side, we identified and fixed issues affecting site health while developing a backlink strategy centred on high-quality, relevant sources. Harmful backlinks were disavowed to protect authority and maintain trust with search engines. Together, these steps were designed to lift keyword rankings, secure more page one positions, and bring in steady organic growth.
The Execution
We started by carrying out a full keyword research project, identifying commercial terms and mapping them to key areas of the site. Using this insight, we built new commercial pages to expose the brand more widely and created 40 pieces of content designed to funnel traffic toward the core money pages. Local intent was also targeted, with content and keywords crafted around location-based searches to capture food lovers nearby.
The main pages in the menu bar were optimised and rewritten with clearer, more user-friendly copy. We also made sure the conversion setup was working correctly so performance could be tracked accurately. On the technical side, we ran a full audit using our specialist tools, addressed issues in collaboration with the development team, and listed the site on relevant directories.
Finally, we boosted reach through off-site content marketing and link strategies, driving referral traffic and building authority for sustained growth.
The Results
Flesh & Buns saw strong keyword growth, with total tracked terms rising from 1,504 to 2,497 — a 66% increase. Page one positions also improved significantly, climbing from 257 to 363 (up by +41%). The site now holds 84 top-three rankings and over 600 SERP features, giving the brand far stronger visibility across searches for Japanese dining in London.
The lift in keyword visibility translated directly into more activity on the site. Traffic grew steadily (Total Users up by 16%), with more new visitors discovering the brand and a healthy rise in returning users. On-site engagement followed the same pattern — event counts climbed and key actions stayed consistent, marking steady gains in engagement with the website.
For an established brand, this represents significant progress. Flesh & Buns is now visible for more keywords, reaching more people, and converting that traffic into valuable interactions — strengthening its ability to capture local dining demand and turn visits into bookings.
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