matt higgins

To drive a large lift in unique visitors, the lever most marketing teams instinctively look to pull is a SEM spend. Paid search certainly buys visibility, but eyeballs don’t matter if the website they land on doesn’t match what they’re looking for.

I proved that point dramatically for a B2B services company that achieved a 4,544% increase in unique visitors. The secret wasn’t just spending more on ads. The real work started with a complete rebrand.

From Mom-and-Pop to Enterprise

Like many companies, this organization had grown beyond its original roots. In fact, it completely evolved. What began as a small DTC operation was now targeting Fortune 500 clients in a B2B model. The original website, branding, and messaging no longer reflected who they were or who they wanted to serve. When I started, all of the messaging reflected the old business and the old audience.

So, we started with a clean sheet.

I went with two distinct websites with the core business under a new primary domain. In addition to the new URL, I redesigned the entire site architecture, menus, and navigation, and created a consistent visual system with updated and consistent fonts and colors, proper logo placement, layouts, and professional copy. Every service offered by the company got its own dedicated page. I kept as much of the original voice as possible so the brand still felt authentic. The finished product not only looked better but had far superior UI and UX. While I crafted pages of copy, I directed my team through improving the visuals. Photography was improved and videos were created. The imagery had to reflect the brand, be engaging, lend credibility to the brand when viewed by potential clients. The goal was to make the site look better, navigate better, reflect the actual brand, and be consistent across the website.

The result looked sharper and converted better, but one of the biggest wins was in SEO.

Content That Actually Works

By expanding the site with relevant, client-focused content, I dramatically improved keyword targeting and overall authority. The new pages better matched what the target customers were actually searching for. Now, with lots of relevant content, backlinks to the new sites could boost PageRank. Hyperlinks throughout the sites elevated the user experience, but overall, the real lift came from relevance and depth of content.

Once the foundation was solid and the websites truly reflected the brand and business model, we integrated all marketing to direct back into the site experience.

We added the new URL to all marketing materials, used QR codes strategically, and most importantly, created dedicated landing pages for every campaign and promotion. Tiny URLs buried at the bottom of flyers don’t drive traffic. Purpose-built landing pages do. This integrated approach made direct traffic the leading source of visitors. It wasn’t just traffic that increased. Page views and time on site also dramatically increased.

Smart Paid Campaigns + Continuous Improvement

To accelerate growth, we launched targeted paid campaigns on LinkedIn and Meta. We began with top-of-funnel awareness content and later shifted into lead generation campaigns tied to valuable white papers and resources.

And here’s the part many teams get wrong: we didn’t treat the redesign as a “set it and forget it” project. The websites were added to the ongoing marketing calendar with regular reviews of analytics, content updates, new feature rollouts, and fresh content additions.