eCommerce success story: Fútbol Emotion (2)
Miguel Nicolás
03/02/2026
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Today, we take a deeper look at the eCommerce success case of Fútbol Emotion. A Champions-level online store.
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Let´s continue breaking down everything good behind Fútbol Emotion, an eCommerce dedicated to selling all the products that football lovers are looking for.It is surely one of the pioneering stores, not only in its niche, but in national eCommerce itself. This means that it has grown a lot and has done so progressively, so it has made all the possible mistakes and successes, which means it has a lot to teach us.You should already know this if you have read the previous post about the history and business model of the brand (if you haven’t, we leave it here). In this post, we are going to focus on its marketing and communication strategy, with an analysis that you can use to inspire your own online marketing.Tie your boots because the ball starts rolling.
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The SEO of Futbol Emotion
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We always say that SEO is one of the disciplines that has evolved the most over the years. Fútbol Emotion, from its beginnings as Soloporteros, can state this. But, as we will see thanks to Semrush, it has not stopped growing over the years.
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INSIGHT: obviously at the beginning it was easier to rank in search engines, competition was lower and somewhat greyer techniques still worked without as much risk of penalties.
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This online store, as we have already mentioned, sells internationally. Therefore, we are going to make a first global assessment of the domain. The results speak for themselves.
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Regarding SEO terms, it has very good authority (53 according to the ratio given by the tool). It seems clear that those 2.8 million links coming from multiple domains and countries are boosting its relevance for the search engine, so much so that it has managed to place more than 400,000 keywords in the results pages.
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INSIGHT: if you have an international strategy, it makes special sense to use a TLD or .com domain, just as Fútbol Emotion has done. This is the most convenient option to rank in different markets.
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It is worth talking about the new reality of searches on the Internet, and how Fútbol Emotion has fitted in with the impact of AI on SEO. In fact, we see how the tools themselves have evolved to show us information about how, when and where our brand appears.As we can see in the Semrush AI module, visibility is quite relevant, with more than 6,000 mentions and 13,700 pages cited as responses to user prompts and searches across different platforms. By the way: very similar numbers in mentions between Chat GPT and Google AI mode, but much higher in citations by Open AI’s Artificial Intelligence.
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INSIGHT: it is worth highlighting that it is no longer all about Google; appearing in the answers of Chat GPT, Copilot or Perplexity is extremely important, even if it does not always translate into organic traffic. But even on Google, AI previews take clicks away from us although they are very interesting for our eCommerce, especially in terms of brand and in discovery phases of the customer journey.
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Having said all this, we see that the organic health of Fútbol Emotion is not at risk, and that it has not reduced its number of visitors despite how turbulent SEO usually is in eCommerce. If we make a retrospective from 2018 (that is, since they moved from soloporteros.com to futbolemotion.com), the behavior is stable, with certain oscillations, but without major scares.
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It is relevant to see how their bet is blatantly organic, as we see in the blue line compared to the orange one, which is SEM. In fact, it is enough to see how they have been steadily growing in indexed and ranked keywords on Google.
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INSIGHT: brand traffic is vital, but when you start a project from scratch (or completely redesign it as in this case), you have to work a lot on the brand so that it grows and generates authority and traffic. Fútbol Emotion has done this extraordinarily well and in a natural and organic way.
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As Semrush allows us to take a look at the main keywords, we are going to take advantage of that function, which tells us a lot about the SEO strategy of an online store.We have just talked about the importance of working on the brand, which has always been critical for the business, but possibly now it is even more so. In the screenshot you can see how the following stand out:
- The different variations of the brand terms (together or separated).
- Futbol Emotion plus a location, which makes it clear that it refers to retail or physical commerce.
- Soloporteros, which is still a relevant brand and, even, the domain is redirected to the current brand’s domain.
- Generic terms such as football boots, in top 1. Probably the jewel in the crown of its SEO and something not so easy to achieve.
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INSIGHT: building a brand and positioning a domain takes a lot of time, money and resources. Would it make sense to waste it with a branding change? Obviously not, so the measure of redirecting that domain is ideal. You lose part of the authority, but you do not give it all up and you continue capturing traffic while you build your new identity.
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The SEM of Futbol Emotion
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I know that I have gone on a bit too long in the organic part of the strategy, but I think it is worth it because of the number of peculiarities it has. Although its strength within search engines is “free” traffic, it is undeniable that they also run paid campaigns, both on Google and on Social Networks.At the time of writing this post, keep in mind that the most powerful time of the year has just passed, so it is not strange to see that advertising investment has been reduced by up to 60% and even that bids for different search terms have also been reduced. This is completely natural and is directly related to seasonality.
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INSIGHT: charts like the one we have just shown help us identify the strongest periods of the business, competitor pressure and even the effectiveness of ads. It is always interesting to consult them both for ourselves and to learn from the competition.
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A brand like Fútbol Emotion has to compete in different “leagues”. As we see in this summary, it needs to stand out among sellers in its vertical, that is, multi-brand football product stores. But it also has to compete with manufacturers that sell through their own online stores, such as Adidas, Nike or Puma.
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The keywords will not surprise you: football balls, football boots… and the combinations of product + brand. It is a mix that has a lot to do with its multi-brand and niche strategy.
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INSIGHT: why bidding on words where it already occupies the first organic position? Well, it is a defensive strategy (if we talk about brand), but also an offensive one, since the organic position, no matter how well earned it is, will always be below ads, AI previews, Shopping modules…
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To see what their ads are like, as always, we will turn to official sources. In case you did not know, Google has its transparency center, where you can inspect the ads published by any brand on Google Search, Display and Shopping.For example, we can see this ad from a campaign that seems generic, always running since March 2023.
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What can we clearly extract by analyzing the ad?
- The title makes it clear that they bid on brand and on business area (football equipment).
- They position themselves as multi-brand distributors.
- Specialists in football boots and equipment, thus reinforcing their role as leading sellers.
- Leaders in Southern Europe. This is not so much about using their keywords, but about providing an extra level of trust, which is essential to sell better.
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INSIGHT: it is always advisable to have a campaign running continuously, as it will be trained and its quality will be optimal.
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Of course, they do not only use search. It is obvious that the strategy has more depth and that is why we can find ads with images or videos as advertising resources.
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Using multimedia resources is ideal to stand out among the rest of advertisers, but above all because it encourages clicks much more from the user.These purchases cannot be classified as 100% impulsive, but everything related to hobbies and interests has a bit of irrationality. That is why it is not the same to see the product as to have it described to you (no matter how good you are as a copywriter).
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We have so much to say, so much about how Fútbol Emotion works with video… that we are going to need an extra post analyzing its content strategy and its social networks. We are waiting for you in the next article.
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Are you enjoying the eCommerce success case of Fútbol Emotion? Then, do not miss what is coming!