A Fast, Flexible, SEO Optimised Website for High Value Products

This bespoke WordPress website is optimised for UX, performance and SEO, enabling them to reach more customers, and showcasing their extensive product range.

Project launch: February 2024

View live website

Project Scope

Website design

Product import

UX & Digital product design

SEO & Digital marketing

Technologies

About the Client

Mills CNC are the UK’s only distributor of CNC machines by DN Solutions and Zayer. As well as having a huge range of machine tool products, they also offer an incredible level of pre and post sales support, including training courses for programmers and operators. They needed a website that fixed their UX issues, elevated their online presence, and effectively showcased their products.

Improved SEO and ranking
Improved SEO and ranking
A flexible, scalable platform
Reputational enhancement through modern design

The Challenge

The Mills CNC website had more than outgrown its original design, with pages added ad-hoc without any real hierarchy, confusion over what products were on the website and a real lack of signposting for users.

Another issue was that their training facility essentially different design.

They needed to start fresh, with a website that was carefully planned and structured, and could be expanded easily without creating future headaches.

Discovery & strategy

With SEO optimisation a key focus for this project, planning and strategy were essential to create a blueprint for the website’s success.

This included discovery meetings with the Mills team, competitor analysis and keyword research, which enabled us to create an SEO optimised site and content plan.

Content structure had been a significant issue on the previous website. Page hierarchy was almost non-existent, and many of the products were not even listed. Creating the content plan not only gave us a clear foundation for the design, it also enabled us to create pathways through the website, making it a lot simpler for users to navigate to the information they care about.

millscnc.co.uk

Modular design

From our discovery phase, it was clear that a flexible design system would be the best way to provide Mills with a scalable website, where they could add new pages using existing designed modules.

We decided on WordPress’ Gutenberg Editor as the ideal platform for this project, providing the modular design system that was needed, but also enabling us to use the WooCommerce platform for showcasing the product range.

millscnc.co.uk

UX

With all the products now listed, users needed to be able to find what machines were suitable for their needs.

We developed a filter system for the product range, based on the features that are most significant for users, making it really easy for them to refine the products based on their requirements.

Product import

It was easy to see how the previous website’s lack of structure had created a very confusing product area. With hundreds of products, no categorisation and no filters, even Mills weren’t sure which machines were on the website, and which weren’t.

By writing a custom script, we were able to import product data directly from a spreadsheet populated by Mills, based on their current product list. This vastly sped up the process of adding the content, and ensured that every product was on the website and correctly classified.

Diagram showing the product import process

Static site generation

WordPress is notorious for slowing websites down, so it was essential this was mitigated as much as possible with static site generation.

WordPress is notorious for slowing websites down, so it was essential this was mitigated as much as possible with static site generation. By decoupling the front and back ends of the website, we separated WordPress and all its code, from the html and the user interface. This means that users on the website have a lightning fast experience, but administrators can still use the WordPress CMS to make updates.

Diagram showing the static site generation process

millscnc.co.uk
Product inner page
millscnc.co.uk
Product cards
millscnc.co.uk
Product comparison table
millscnc.co.uk
Product categories
millscnc.co.uk
Product filter
millscnc.co.uk
Animated map
millscnc.co.uk
Card layout
millscnc.co.uk
Content sections
millscnc.co.uk
Information Layout
millscnc.co.uk
Search results

The Outcomes

Comparing the quarter just after launch with the same quarter the next year, Mills saw huge increases in search visibility and user numbers.

This shows not only a vast improvement on the old website, but also the continuing growth as our SEO work matured. Today their website is a key touchpoint in their sales process, providing their users with clear, easy to understand information, and quick contact methods.