Case study

Decathlon Group: Expanding Verbolia from One to Nine Countries

Decathlon France has been working with Verbolia since 2021 to enhance their long-tail SEO traffic. Following impressive results in France, the company expanded Verbolia’s solution to 8 additional countries in 2024.

Loïc Hélias, Head of SEO at Decathlon France, explains why this collaboration has become central to their international SEO strategy.

Decathlon

Decathlon Group, a leading retailer in sporting goods, operates both physical stores across multiple countries and online, offering a wide range of products to customers worldwide.

founded in 1976
+105,000 employees worldwide
€14 billion revenue in 2021
+100,000 products

The Challenges

In 2021, Decathlon France decided to work with Verbolia because they were facing a key challenge: the need to create SEO-optimized, long-tail product listing pages at scale, while ensuring high-quality content and user experience. Verbolia has proven its effectiveness with Decathlon France. You can read the full story about Decathlon France’s initial success here.

In 2024, Decathlon Group therefore decided to implement Verbolia to other countries facing this same challenge.

The implementation of Verbolia was done in two steps: first for France in 2021. Then, it was expanded to 8 other countries in 2024.

”90 to 95% of those features have been deployed within two years. Personally, it’s the first time I’ve had a solution with key partners who are so attentive.
Loïc HéliasHead of SEO at Decathlon France

Scaling the Solution Across Countries

Loïc emphasizes that Verbolia’s responsiveness and willingness to listen to Decathlon’s needs have been key, both during the initial rollout in France and as other Decathlon countries adopted the platform.

In 2022, Decathlon France participated in a workshop with Verbolia, together with other key Verbolia customers. During this workshop, the team identified around 20 features crucial to their SEO strategy. Within two years, Verbolia had implemented 95% of these requested features, which left Decathlon impressed by the quick response to their needs. This level of responsiveness sets Verbolia apart from other solutions.

The Solution

Loïc Hélias points out that one of Verbolia’s most valuable features is its keyword opportunity tool, which helps identify long tail SEO opportunities and allows for quick generation of new pages.

Once keywords are identified, thousands of product listing pages can be created in just a few clicks. These pages are dynamically linked to the product feed, with customizable rules ensuring relevant products are displayed.

Loïc also emphasizes the advantage of the analytics and reporting embedded in the platform.

Looking Ahead

As a next step, Decathlon has been exploring Verbolia’s Vmax solution and is planning further developments in the coming year. Vmax allows for dynamic transformation of product page design based on the traffic source, enhancing the user experience by adapting the layout to the user’s context with the goal of maximizing conversion rates.

Conclusion

Verbolia’s ability to generate SEO-optimized pages efficiently, combined with the exceptional customer support, has been essential to Decathlon’s ongoing success.

Expanding Verbolia’s solution to multiple countries has further strengthened Decathlon’s online presence, solidifying Verbolia’s role as a key partner in their SEO strategy.