ABLAZE

HOW ZEALD HELPED KEEP ABLAZE AT THE TOP OF
GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS THROUGH A REDESIGN


how can zeald help
OVER 3000 UNIQUE VIEWS PER MONTH SINCE COMING TO ZEALD
Ablaze firewood landscape supplies

David Laurenson is the owner of Ablaze, a Wellington based home heating supplies centre. Ablaze offers a range of firewood, landscaping products, pellet fires and woodburners. 

After purchasing Ablaze from the previous owner, David recognised that the website would be one of the first things that needed to change. The previous owner was very professional and ran a good business, but didn’t do much marketing. As a result, the original website was well out of date. Ablaze was in need of a complete overhaul.

THE CHALLENGE

WHY ABLAZE CAME TO ZEALD

David needed a new website to bring Ablaze into the 21st century. He wanted to portray a more professional, modern image in order to acquire more business. It needed to be easy for his customers to check prices and order products online.

Now even though the original website was old, it had reached the number one position in Google’s rankings. This meant that when you submitted a Google search for ‘firewood wellington’, Ablaze was the very first result in the list. The challenge with this, is that when you redesign a website, Google will pick up on the changes and re-rank you accordingly. You can find out more about how this works here.

David spoke with his tech-savvy son, who recommended Zeald. He knew that this would be a intensive and technical process, in need of deft hands belonging to experts in the web industry.
 
 

ablaze team eg

THE STRATEGY 

googleresult

#1 MAINTAIN RANKING

The Zeald team had a big job ahead of them: to redesign a website from the ground up, while trying their best to maintain the top ranking in Google search results.

Through a careful, incremental process, Zeald planned to completely customise the old website. This would create a modern and user friendly shopping experience while providing the opportunity to capture certain features in an attempt to maintain their Google page ranking. There are many different aspects to a webpage that can affect Google’s algorithm. A quick redesign ‘from scratch’, has the potential to break these, and subsequently affect your page rank.

If your business is in a similar situation and need to make changes to your website without affecting results, contact us for a free consult.

adwords

#2 CAREFUL REDESIGN

Not only did the original website look old, but the back end systems were so dated that it could not integrate with a payment gateway, meaning you could request firewood but not actually order and pay for it. It was not a user friendly online shopping experience at all. 

With a first place ranking on Google search, Ablaze needed a professional and modern website to retain customers. A high ranking website may attract visitors, but it is the design and ease of use that will convert them into a sale. Zeald radically changed the existing website, renovating the layout as well as adding all new content. The final result was a far cry from the original.

If your business website looks more like the top image, and less like the one on the bottom, you might want to get in touch for a free website audit.

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BEFORE & AFTER

THE DEVELOPMENT

CAUSE AND EFFECT

 

Unfortunately, Zeald were unable to prevent the Google rank from being affected by the redesign. After the new website went live, Ablaze dropped from first place to fourth. 

Fortunately however, due to the careful planning and execution of the redesign, it took only two short weeks for Ablaze to regain their number one ranking. Not only did they get back to the top rank for ‘firewood wellington’, but the website has increased in position for a much wider range of keywords since the redesign as well.

Ablaze have also noticed they’ve overtaken various competitors in other Google results, not just for their core firewood products, but for secondary landscaping products. They’ve noticed an increase in sales and enquiries through the site since the redesign, and have had customers mention it over the phone. Further improvements to the website will only hasten the progress of these initial observations.

The most important thing during this process was the fact that David and the team were informed of the risks before Zeald commenced with the redesign. This allowed them to make sensible business decisions prior to any changes taking place.

backwards before forwards

THE RESULTS

white fire  3000+ UNIQUE VIEWS PER MONTH

white fire  STEADY INCREASE IN SALES/ENQUIRIES
 
white fire  RANK CLIMBING FOR VARIOUS OTHER KEYWORDS
 
white fire  REGAINED NUMBER ONE SPOT IN GOOGLE SEARCH RANK AFTER ONLY 2 WEEKS
 
 
 

Before Ablaze came to Zeald, their website was old and difficult to use. Despite this, they had the number one rank in a Google search for 'firewood wellington'. Zeald completely redesigned the website, created a user friendly online shopping experience for Ablaze customers, and managed to retain that number one spot.

* The samples used in this case study are for illustration only. We do not accept any liability for the information provided on this page or for the consequences of any actions taken on the basis of the information provided. Each case study sample is unique and the website in the case study sample may have been customised or may have been optimised by the purchase of product options.

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