How a website redesign drove 120+ leads and 1,400% more traffic for a B2B manufacturer

A North American branch of a global oleochemical company needed to overhaul its website. It wasn’t generating the traffic or leads required to support business growth.  

While the parent company started in 1999, recent acquisitions expanded its contract manufacturing capabilities — but the website failed to reflect that evolution. Managed by an agency that had long since stopped paying attention, the site was outdated in design and function. 

To support its next phase, the company needed to increase visibility, integrate new locations under one brand, and build a website that could actively generate and capture leads.

Challenges added up to a total rewrite

Like many modernizing organizations, the challenges spanned their digital footprint and internal processes. Sales and marketing teams viewed the website only as a functional tool. It wasn’t visually appealing, and the content was outdated. No one liked it, and there weren’t many ideas on how to improve it.

As we dug into the site, the challenges began to add up:

• Design: The site’s visual design was dated and lacked thematic threads to help users understand they were in the right place. 
• Audience: The home page copy didn’t say what the company did or who it served. The language targeted scientists and engineers, but excluded non-technical audience members.
• Site structure: The number of pages grew without any vision for its purpose or goals. Previous efforts to modernize the site added an ecommerce tool that didn’t help the company with its ideal sales cycle.
• Leads: Marketing could only attribute one lead a month to the website because it didn’t have lead forms. Instead, it relied on email links and a phone number to contact sales.
• Data: The agency previously managing the website sent a monthly data overview, but no source data. So, the company had no insight into content and SEO performance, and didn’t know who visited it, making it difficult for sales to nurture interested leads.

Other business issues that affected our choices included understanding the highly customized sales process, the thin margins on oleochemical products and the company’s strategic growth through M&A.

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The project began with several business realities in mind: a highly customized sales process, thin product margins, and a growth strategy driven by M&A. Our solution had to be simple, scalable and purposeful — delivering a site that told the company’s story while generating measurable results.

Branding: Humanizing a technical industry

We refreshed the visual identity to stand out in a market dominated by cold, static websites. Photography of people and animals using the products made the brand relatable to manufacturers and end customers. Clean layouts, bold colors and impactful imagery honored the brand’s scientific heritage while making it approachable. Large, open typography and design elements tied to the brand mark gave the site a modern edge and ensured visual consistency across sales and marketing materials.

Content: Guiding users with purpose

We rebuilt the content architecture around three primary search paths — by industry, by product and by service. Clear, audience-first copy addressed first-time visitors and experienced buyers, guiding them to answers quickly. Sustainability and quality, identified as key differentiators, were given dedicated pages and integrated site-wide through internal linking. Strong calls to action and intentional link structures encouraged engagement and made it easy to connect with sales.

Data: Building visibility and lead intelligence

Before the redesign, the site didn’t have Google Analytics or Google Search Console account. We implemented both and gated product specification sheets behind forms to capture leads and track demand. Additional lead forms for sample requests and general inquiries gave sales and marketing actionable data on website performance, product interest, and contract manufacturing demand.

Results: Immediate impact

Within 90 days of launch, website traffic grew 1,462% — from 1,070 to more than 12,000 sessions. Lead capture jumped from an estimated one per quarter to more than 120 in the same period, with a 21% form submission rate.

Internal and external sources reported high satisfaction with organization and searchability, which was reflected in the SERPs, as the site ranked for 110 first-page keywords in the first 90 days and a 2.63% CTR.

We quickly learned that internal alignment — particularly in IT support and communication — was critical to keeping the project on track. At launch, the company still lacked a central CRM, requiring all leads to be funneled to a shared email address and manually distributed to sales teams. Over 80 leads disappeared into a spam folder within the first few weeks after the company servers blocked the designated lead address.

Content production also faced delays due to limited access to subject matter experts, slowing progress on copy and page design. Despite these challenges, the streamlined, purpose-built site we delivered for this regional office of a global oleochemical company is already generating increased search traffic and higher-quality leads.

Rather than overcomplicating the build by reviving the e‑store or accommodating every potential user need, we focused on the core business priority: delivering reliable leads and positioning the company as an industry authority. That clarity shaped a site that tells the brand’s story and drives measurable results.

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