Hedgehog Case Study: From 2 weeks to 48 hours in SEO content strategy with Niara

To grasp the magnitude of the results in this case study, one must first understand who is behind the strategy. The SEO agency Hedgehog Digital is an international reference, combining rigorous technical methodology with strategic creativity.

The agency possesses a truly global DNA. Its headquarters are located in Cornwall, UK, while also maintaining a strategic operation in Bedford, England. Crossing the ocean, the agency established its stronghold in Latin America with a branch in São Paulo, Brazil.

Leading this technical vision is Felipe Bazon, the agency’s CSO (Chief SEO Officer). Bazon is one of the most respected voices in the SEO market, an international speaker, and an authority on organic positioning.

The Local Challenge in a Global Operation

Maintaining the “Hedgehog Standard” of quality across different continents requires more than just processes; it demands tools that understand the nuances of each market.

This is where the São Paulo branch encountered a specific challenge. Although the agency had access to various global tools, the Brazilian operation needed something more: robust technology that deeply understood Portuguese semantics and the particularities of SEO in the region.

The 2023 Scenario: The “Two-Week Bottleneck”

Two years ago, even with a team of elite analysts, Hedgehog faced a challenge: the “old school” SEO process—manual and artisanal—couldn’t keep up with the demand of 150 to 180 pieces of content per month.

The diagnosis at the time was clear: the team spent about two weeks just on planning and producing content briefs. Half the month was consumed by repetitive tasks:

• Opening dozens of tabs to manually analyze the SERP.
• Counting words and mapping heading tags one by one.
• Cross-referencing data from tools that didn’t fully understand the local market.

“Finally, I have a team that no longer has to worry about extremely manual, operational tasks”

Integrating Niara resolved the initial bottleneck, reducing that process from 14 days to less than 48 hours. But the real gain came with consistency.

Over these two-plus years of continuous use, Hedgehog didn’t just “save time.” They reinvested that time to raise the market bar.

What happens when you eliminate grunt work for 24 straight months?

• Study and Specialization: Time to dive deep into Google updates and new tactics, generating more value for clients.
• Performance Analysis: Instead of just “producing,” they now have more time to analyze what performed well and what needs adjustment.
• Owned Authority: The agency returned to focusing on its own blog and initiatives, achieving results that previously sat in the backlog.

See the testimonial from Laura Bernardes, the agency’s Head of Content Marketing in 2023:

We spent two years searching for and testing various tools, but none of them worked quite right—until we discovered Niara. Now, I’m Niara’s number one fan because of how much it has helped our team. Finally, I have a team that no longer has to worry about extremely manual, operational tasks. We are successfully optimizing our time and focusing on what truly matters: the work that genuinely requires a human touch and a human perspective.

How Hedgehog Dominates “Topical Authority” with Niara

Niara’s Topic Cluster Task is the agency’s right hand for dominating complex niches.

As analysts, we don’t always deeply understand a client’s niche. On difficult topics, such as industrial automation, a professional might spend weeks studying technical concepts (like “electric actuators”). According to Hedgehog:

• Without Niara: A professional would spend weeks studying what an “electric actuator” is just to create 10 blog topics.
• With Niara: In minutes, we generate several strategically clustered topics.

This allows them to skip the “basic survival research” stage and go straight to strategic curation: “Of these 300 topics, which make the most sense for my client’s sales funnel today?” — as mentioned in the Live stream How to Build Topical Authority Strategies.

Market Recognition

Proof that Niara has become a pillar at Hedgehog came through public recognition from Felipe Bazon, the agency’s CSO.

In the Fundamental Guide to SEO for E-commerce 2025, Bazon listed the best tools on the market. Niara appears alongside global giants, cited in the categories “Tools for On-page Optimization” and “Content Marketing Tools.”

Being on this list confirms what we stand for: we deliver global-level technical quality with the advantage of being native to the language and the local market.

Furthermore, on the stage of E-commerce Brasil 2023, the largest sector event in Latin America, Bazon was categorical:

“Who here knows Niara? It’s an incredible tool in Portuguese. The content these guys put out—for the product, for the blog—is just insane; it’s top-tier. I highly recommend it.”

Data-Driven Culture: Decisions Guided by Real-Time SERP Data

Creating briefs without data is relying on luck. Using our Content Workflow, Hedgehog began analyzing the SERP in real-time, receiving critical data before writing a single line:

• Exact word count of Top 10 competitors.
• The Heading Tag structure that is currently ranking.
• Suggestions for optimized Meta Tags within Google’s pixel limits.
• Topic gap suggestions (to differentiate in the SERP).
• SERP data such as People Also Ask and Related Searches.

This eliminates guesswork. The content is born optimized, which has allowed the agency to maintain an extremely high standard of delivery for years on end.

Niara as a Long-Term Competitive Advantage

The Hedgehog Digital case proves that no new technology or tool is here to replace the SEO analyst, but rather to empower their actions.

By automating processes, Niara allowed the team to be more strategic, more productive, and consequently deliver much more value (and ROI) to clients.

By eliminating operational burdens early on, the company paved the way for two years of innovation and results that continue to grow.

SEO is strategy. The rest, we automate. 💜

Liked seeing how an elite agency operates? How about testing practically what the Hedgehog team is using?

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