The website migration has been invaluable for us. Obviously JL Creative has experience with other training providers. Having that knowledge in the industry that we operate in is very useful. It makes our jobs easier… And having that relationship with Ben at LazyFish, (who also) understands our requirements... It's brilliant.
Sam Graham - GTEC Training
Project background
Client: GTEC Training.
Objective: Migrate from an old, out-of-date WordPress website to a more efficient Drupal site, to enhance user experience, improve sales and improve brand awareness.
Timeline: Website design and migration February - July 2023
The old website did not have the best user experience. We wanted to improve this as we were expanding our course offerings. Having a new website has given us the ability to easily add a course onto the site and improved user experience.
Sam Graham
What is a website migration?
Website Migration is the process of making significant changes to a website’s set up.
This may include: moving to a new domain, redesigning the structure, or switching to a different platform.
JL Creative worked with LazyFish to redesign and move GTEC’s website from Wordpress to Drupal.
Challenges we faced
Migration Process: The transition from the old website to the new platform was complex. This is because website migration often involves changing URLs which, if not managed carefully, can severely impact performance.
There were several other factors to also consider:
New hosting
Change of platform
Removal of outdated content
SEO Hack Incident: Shortly before the migration, the site experienced an SEO hack, which led to the creation of 16,000 indexed pages.
Hacks can dilute a website's value by introducing malicious content, like spammy links, irrelevant keywords, or redirecting users to harmful sites.
This can lead to penalties from search engines, thus lowering a site’s ranking. The hack that affected GTEC was a common Japanese SEO hack.
Timing: The timing of the hack was unfortunate. For a period of several weeks GTEC was effectively penalised by Google just prior to the new site being launched.
The hack affected our SEO quite a bit in terms of authority/ but Jonny and the team have been working behind the scenes to improve that and we’re almost back to where we were prior to the attack. Working with Jonny and the team has been such an easy process.
Sam Graham
Actions taken
Immediate Response to SEO Hack: JL Creative resolved the hack by manual de-indexing, whereby they identified and eliminated all hacked pages from GTEC’s Google Search Console to clean the site and restore its integrity.
In this case, GTEC also used a separate subdomain as a booking system which needed to be de-indexed (removed from Google).
The team also conducted a comprehensive SEO audit and Security enhancement to identify any further vulnerabilities and helped the developers implement security measures to prevent future incidents.
Migration: Working with Jello PR and Lazyfish, JL Creative created and implemented a migration plan. Old content was removed, existing contented needed to be updated.
We worked on redesigning GTEC's course pages to make them more user friendly, with clearer call to actions, location info and a more well integrated booking system.
We made sure SEO was a priority for their high value pages. Many of GTEC's flagship courses ranked in the top 10, we strongly believed with better user experience GTEC would secure top 3 positions for their highest value courses.
The Results
Post-Migration website performance
Increase in Clicks: The team observed a 160% increase in the average amount of clicks per day, demonstrating a successful recovery and improvement over pre-migration levels.
Increase in Impressions: Impressions per day saw a near 300% increase, indicating significantly improved visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Improved Average Position: The average position of search rankings improved, with GTEC Training now holding over 130 terms in the top 10 Google rankings, including more than 80 in the top 3. This included and continues to include terms relating to "Air Source Heat Pump Training", their flagship course.
Visibility Increase: Overall visibility increased by 3% since the website migration in August 2023, showcasing the effective recovery and optimisation efforts post-migration.
Enhanced Engagement and Quality of Traffic: Post-recovery traffic is not only higher in volume but also of better quality, showing higher engagement rates. This increase in engaged visitors has directly translated into a significant rise in leads and conversions, underlining the effectiveness of the recovery strategy in attracting more relevant and interested users to the GTEC Training website.
I think the biggest thing is that we've had quite a few inquiries from bigger corporate clients that have mentioned that they've come through to our website (and seen) how well the website is laid out compared to some of our competitors… Our booking numbers are also improving and so is our SEO.
Sam Graham
Conclusion
Despite facing a major setback with an SEO hack, the swift and effective actions taken by JL Creative not only recovered GTEC Training’s online presence but also substantially improved its SEO performance and site visibility.
The case demonstrates the importance of preparedness for potential challenges during website migrations and the effectiveness of prompt, strategic responses to unforeseen issues.
Has your website undergone an SEO hack or are you looking to do a site migration?
Our team are specialists in SEO for the HVAC industry. Click the link below to find out more.