Rebuilding DCR London to rank in organic and AI searches.
Rebuilding this existing WP site to improve speed and rankings
Why did DCR need a new website?
DCR Electrical & Heating had outgrown their website. The business had moved on. The site hadn’t.
DCR had built a solid reputation as a London-based electrical and heating contractor working across residential and commercial projects. But their website was still presenting the business as it used to be, not as it was.
The design was dated, the content was not targeting the right clients, and the keywords the site ranked for no longer matched the type of work DCR actually wanted to win. The site was not broken – it just wasn’t working for the business any more.
What was needed was not a refresh. It was a complete repositioning: new structure, new content, new build.
Issues with the old site:
- The design no longer reflected how the business had grown
- Content was targeting the wrong type of client and the wrong search terms
- Page speed was poor and holding back search performance
- The user journey was unclear – visitors could not easily find what they needed
- Calls to action were weak and the site was not converting effectively
- The platform made it difficult for the team to update content without help
Our approach
Project overview
This was a full rebuild with a clear commercial brief: reposition DCR online to attract better-fit clients and more of them. That meant new content strategy, a new site structure, and a bespoke WordPress build – not a theme swap.
Discovery and research
- Audited the existing site structure, content and search rankings before touching anything
- Identified which pages and keywords were driving value and needed to be protected
- Analysed how visitors were actually using the site versus how DCR wanted them to
- Used this to define the new content structure and target keyword set
Design
- Evolved the existing visual identity rather than replacing it – logo, colours and typography were retained
- Modern layout with clearer page structure and stronger calls to action throughout
- Designed to make DCR’s services immediately clear to both residential and commercial visitors
- Mobile-first throughout – most trade service searches happen on a phone
Content and SEO
The content was rewritten from scratch to target the right clients in the right locations. Service pages were structured around how people actually search for electrical and heating contractors in London – not around how DCR described their own services internally.
Meta data, page titles and on-page structure were all built with search visibility in mind from day one, not added as an afterthought.
Website build
Bespoke WordPress build on our own custom starter theme. No page builders, no bloated plugin stacks. We built a set of purpose-built ACF content blocks so DCR’s team can update service pages, add blog posts and manage content without needing to call us every time.
The result is a site that is fast, properly structured, and genuinely manageable by a small team without technical support on hand.
Got a similar challenge?
If your site is no longer reflecting the business you’ve built – or it’s targeting the wrong clients and the wrong search terms – we should talk.
Tell us where you are and we’ll tell you honestly what we’d do about it.
Technical details
WordPress theme
Built on our own bare-bones WordPress starter theme. No inherited styles, no third-party framework dependencies, no bloat. Before any design work goes in, we run the blank theme through Google PageSpeed Insights and aim for 100 out of 100 on both mobile and desktop. That discipline is what makes the performance scores possible.
Plugins
We keep third-party plugins to a minimum. This site uses ACF-powered content blocks edited in the Gutenberg editor. The default WordPress block library was disabled entirely – editors can only use the purpose-built blocks we created, which means every page is built consistently and on-brand regardless of who published it.
Custom post types
Service pages and blog content are managed through structured custom templates, keeping the site consistent and easy to extend as the business grows.
SEO configuration
Meta data, page titles and on-page structure were configured throughout the build rather than bolted on at the end. The site was handed over ready for ongoing SEO work, with clean foundations that do not need unpicking before progress can be made.
The results
100
Google PageSpeed score on mobile and desktop post-launch
The previous site scored 56/100
Zero
Third-party page builders or bloated plugin stacks – none, on any page
Built on Wix, the previous site was bulky and slow
100%
Of content manageable by the DCR team without developer support
Previously they found managing their content difficult
New
Keyword targeting aligned to the clients and projects DCR actually wants to win
The old site had virtually zero visibility in the SERPs or AI conversations
Zero
Existing search rankings were lost during the migration to the new platform
We maintained the low number of existing rankings
1 platform
For design, development, SEO and ongoing support – all handled by Toast
The old website required several different companies work – now it’s all handled by Toast
Why WordPress was the right platform for DCR.
There is a version of this project that ends with a Wix site or a Squarespace template. That version does not work.
DCR needed a site that could be repositioned – not just reskinned. That means control over the URL structure, the content model, the page templates, the meta data. You do not get that with drag-and-drop platforms. You get what they give you.
With WordPress, we built service pages structured exactly the way Google needs them to be structured for a trade services business targeting London. We built a content system DCR can actually use without ringing us first. We built it fast – genuinely fast, not “fast for a WordPress site” – because that matters for both rankings and conversions.
If you are a trade business that has grown past its original website, that is exactly the problem WordPress is built to solve. The platform does not constrain the project. The project shapes the platform.
