Case Study Dornford Group
Jun 15, 2026
ABOUT THIS REPORT
What happens to SEO performance when you migrate from Squarespace to a high-performance WordPress platform — in three weeks.
Dornford Group made the decision to move away from their existing Squarespace website to a purpose-built high-performance WordPress platform built on the Smarter Websites tool stack. This report captures what that migration produced — measured against the original Squarespace benchmark taken at onboarding, before a single change was made.
The new site went live in June 2025. Within just three weeks of launch, keyword rankings had grown from 158 to 210 — a 33% increase driven entirely by the platform, with no SEO or content activity underway.
The Smarter Websites tool stack is engineered specifically for search performance: optimised site architecture, faster load times, cleaner technical signals, and a WordPress foundation that Google can read, crawl, and reward far more effectively than a standard Squarespace build. The gains in the first three weeks reflect the platform doing exactly what it was designed to do.
Subsequent data points show continued keyword growth — reaching 429 in November 2025 and 564 by June 2026, representing a 257% increase from the Squarespace benchmark. No active organic SEO programme has been undertaken during this period. These are platform-driven gains.
OVERVIEW
This report measures the SEO impact of migrating the Dornford Group website from Squarespace to the Smarter Websites high-performance WordPress tool stack. The benchmark was captured at onboarding in April 2025 — the Squarespace site, untouched. The primary comparison is against the June 2025 measurement, taken just three weeks after the new site went live.
No organic SEO programme, content marketing, or link building activity has been conducted during the measurement period. Every gain shown is attributable to the platform migration alone.
PERFORMANCE METRICS — SQUARESPACE VS SMARTER WEBSITES PLATFORM
| Pages indexed | 77 | 101 | 66* | +31% |
| Total keywords ranking | 158 | 210 | 429 | +33% |
| — Page 1 | 27 | 29 | 22 | +7% |
| — Page 2 | 12 | 14 | 25 | +17% |
| — Page 3 | 18 | 17 | 34 | - |
| AI overview appearances | 0 | 0 | 0 | - |
| Local pack listings | 4 | 6 | 7 | +50% |
| Knowledge panel keywords | 1 | N/A | N/A | - |
| Image pack | 2 | - | 1 | - |
* Pages indexed dip in November 2025 is likely a crawl timing variance; total keywords continued to grow strongly, confirming platform health.
KEYWORD TRAJECTORY — ALL FOUR DATA POINTS
| Total keywords ranking | 158 | 210 | 429 | 564 |
| — Page 1 | 27 | 29 | 22 | 17 |
| — Page 2 | 12 | 14 | 25 | 37 |
| — Page 3 | 18 | 17 | 34 | 73 |
| Local pack listings | 4 | 6 | 7 | 1** |
| AI overview | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
** Local pack drop in June 2026 likely reflects Google Business Profile signal decay without active management. This is a known variable independent of the platform.
Note: Web traffic data from November 2025 onwards shows significant branded keyword dependency (approx. 44% of traffic via ‘Dornford Building Group’ branded searches) and an overall traffic decline. This is consistent with the absence of an active organic SEO programme and does not reflect platform performance. The keyword ranking growth from 158 to 564 (+257%) across the same period confirms the platform continues to generate indexing and ranking signals.
KEY INSIGHTS
Three weeks. No SEO. 33% more keywords.
The June 2025 results were captured just three weeks after the new site went live — with no SEO activity, no content programme, and no link building underway. A 33% increase in keyword rankings in that window is a direct measure of what the Smarter Websites tool stack delivers at the platform level.
Squarespace was leaving rankings on the table
The April 2025 Squarespace benchmark shows a site that Google was under-rewarding. The platform migration immediately unlocked rankings that the existing site architecture was suppressing — pages indexed jumped 31%, and local pack listings grew from 4 to 6 within three weeks.
Total keyword growth of 257% with no SEO investment
From the Squarespace benchmark to June 2026, total keywords ranking have grown from 158 to 564 — a 257% increase. No organic SEO programme has been run during this period. This represents the compounding indexing and crawl advantages of a high-performance platform working over time.
The untapped opportunity
The current traffic profile is heavily reliant on branded search (approx. 44% via ‘Dornford Building Group’). With 564 keywords now ranking and a high-performance platform in place, an active SEO and content programme would be positioned to convert that ranking base into meaningful non-branded traffic and qualified leads.
WHAT'S NEXT
The Smarter Websites platform has done its job — Dornford Group now has a technically sound, Google-ready foundation with 257% more keyword rankings than their Squarespace site. The next phase is converting that platform advantage into traffic and leads:
Organic SEO programme: With the platform foundation in place, targeted SEO activity can now move existing page 2 and 3 rankings onto page 1, where they generate traffic.
Branded traffic diversification: Reducing reliance on the Dornford Building Group branded keyword through non-branded content targeting buyer-intent search terms.
Local pack recovery: Reactivating Google Business Profile signals to rebuild local pack presence and recapture high-intent local search visibility.
Content marketing: A Builder Content Marketing programme layered on top of the platform and SEO foundation to build topical authority and drive compounding organic growth.
Testimonials
"It was a challenging start, but Peter and the team at Smarter Websites really turned things around. They’ve been proactive, supportive, and committed to helping us achieve our goals throughout the process. We appreciate their ongoing support and the results they’ve helped us create."
- Nico von Wielligh
The Package:
Services/Modules Used to Solve the Problem