SEO to restore lost keyword rankings after a site relaunch | First Step Designs
First Step Designs is a leading UK designer of bespoke staircases with a strong reputation for delivering truly exceptional products. In recent years, they’ve been featured on Grand Designs, won the Build It Award for Best UK Staircase in 2024, and they have a growing portfolio of increasingly high-profile projects.
In September of 2023, long after they had achieved commercial success, First Step Designs relaunched their website, opting for a more modern and attractive design that better reflects their premium brand. Despite universal praise for how the new site looked, felt, and performed, enquiries quickly started drying up. While the owner, Adam, didn’t yet know it at the time, the rebuild had cost them valuable Google rankings, causing an immediate and dramatic downturn in new business.
The CEO of one of Convert Digital’s other clients—Stairbox, an indirect competitor to First Step Designs—recommended us to Adam, who contacted Convert Digital shortly thereafter. Although he wasn’t certain what had gone wrong, Adam suspected that their search visibility had taken a knock during the transition.
A detailed technical SEO audit revealed exactly that. First Step Designs had lost visibility across several core keywords that had previously held top SERP rankings, important high-performing pages had been deleted without redirects, and Google had deindexed several of their pages that brought in steady traffic through niche long-tail keywords.
In a nutshell, the site redesign had been executed without any SEO oversight, resulting in extensive damage to the business.
Restored and surpassed lost rankings for
of high-value keywords, nationally and locally
Now consistently ranking in
positions in local map packs
Significant
in previously under-developed revenue streams
Regularly featured in
for increased visibility in a changing search landscape
Our detailed SEO audit of First Step Designs’ new site revealed:
We quickly realised that we were dealing with a case of well-intended redesign gone wrong.
Although the updated site had many benefits, the lack of an SEO migration strategy, new site architecture, and new URL structures meant that Google was treating the redesign as a new site instead of a relaunch (also referred to as a ‘migration’ in SEO), stripping away years of hard-earned topical authority and keyword rankings.
Building on what the technical SEO audit revealed, we developed a multi-pronged strategy to restore lost traffic, rebuild page equity, and boost local visibility for their most competitive keywords.
Within the first month, Convert Digital developed a detailed SEO Rescue Plan, presented it to our client first through a pre-recorded Loom video to help them get an overview of the strategy, followed by regular Google Meets calls to ensure we stay aligned and on track. Our strategy spanned five areas of focus:
We worked hand-in-hand with First Step Designs’ web developer to apply critical technical fixes, including:
‘Content is King’, especially when you’re trying to reclaim or build specific keyword rankings. We rolled out an aggressive content recovery and optimisation plan that focused on:
Developing landing pages for more specific and niche long-tail searches, including oak staircases with lights, black metal staircases, and dark oak staircases.
While First Step Designs serves clients nationally, building local rankings is typically faster and easier, and often yields a higher ROI. Consumers tend to choose more local businesses when given the option. To rank better in local searches and capture more regional traffic, we:
Optimised their Google Business Profiles to target map pack rankings for high-intent local searches, such as staircase renovation, bespoke staircase designers, and stairs in Stoke.
Our in-house content specialist updated several of their previously built blog posts and created hyper-targeted new posts targeting high buyer intent keywords.
Powerful backlinks remain one of the most effective ways to build rankings and help improve AI search visibility. Focusing on their renovation service and page, we acquired high-quality backlinks from niche design blogs, including:
These backlinks had an immediate and dramatic effect on how their renovation page ranked. See the results below for more details.
Many of these search terms frequently trigger AI overview inclusion, putting a link directly to our client’s most relevant pages right in front of the user.
A finely tuned Google Business Profile and optimised location pages mean that First Step Designs now consistently ranks in the top 2 positions for local map packs for:
Local lead volume began to rebound within a few weeks of local optimisation, surpassing previous levels within 3 months.
Across the board, all updated content resulted in ranking improvements. Many of the blog posts mentioned above consistently trigger AI overview inclusion, and they perform well in featured snippets and related questions. While this wasn’t a priority at the time, well-developed and contextually rich content pages also mean that First Step Designs is often featured in relevant generative AI searches, an area of growing importance
Despite offering a renovation service before partnering with Convert Digital, First Step Designs’ renovation page had zero visibility. Within a few months of rebuilding the content and acquiring the niche-relevant backlinks, their renovation service page achieved a page-one national Google ranking. Currently, it’s hovering around position 8. In local searches, it is often the top result, and it is frequently featured in snippets and local packs. Needless to say, our client’s renovation service has grown significantly since.
This case study demonstrates two powerful takeaways:
At the time of writing (July 2025), we maintain a strong relationship with First Step Designs as a client. We deliver good news in our video reports and online meetings, month after month, continuing to develop strategic new content, healthy backlinks from reputable sites, and uncover new ways to optimise their site.
Our team of experts is on standby to help you restore page rankings, improve organic traffic flow to your site, and boost leads and conversions to new levels.
Founder, Technical & Offsite SEO
Technical SEO & Digital Marketing
Content Strategy & Development
At Convert Digital, our expert Digital Marketing Consultants are ready to dedicate themselves to your project. Our enthusiastic team get started before our first meeting – undertaking initial analysis of your current SEO prior to our first call. This helps identify immediately if there are any major threats that your online store is facing and allows our consultants to gauge your current level of SEO visibility.
After our initial research, we can arrange a video call to discuss your needs. If you prefer to speak with us today, you can just call instead!
Simply fill in your details below, call 07907 674084 or email info@convertdigital.co.uk to arrange your free SEO review.
