A full site rebuild over one weekend
New WordPress build, new URL structure, same domain — and a client who wanted it live as soon as possible. Changing every URL on a site is the riskiest thing you can do to its search performance. We did it in three days.
11,000+ search impressions in the six months since
page-one positions, each confirmed by two independent sources
for “ssd upgrade crawley”
for “malware removal crawley”
for “it support horley” — IT support, not just repairs
“computer repair Crawley” searches ranking in the top 8
search impressions, July to August 2026
Why a weekend, and why that is risky
We took the site over in March 2026. The client wanted the new one live as quickly as possible, so we built it over a bank holiday weekend: a complete WordPress and Elementor rebuild on the original domain, with an entirely new URL structure.
Changing every URL on a site is the part most agencies get wrong. Every old address has to redirect to its correct replacement, in one hop, before Google recrawls. Miss one and that page’s history is gone. Chain two together and you lose part of the signal. Compressing that into three days means the redirect map has to be right first time, because there is no gradual rollout to catch mistakes.
Good service, a digital presence working against it
A small computer repair business in Crawley, West Sussex. Loyal customers, solid reputation, and a website actively holding it back.
- No control of the Google Business ProfileSomewhere in the chain, someone else held ownership. No ability to update hours, post news, or respond to reviews on their own listing.
- Two service pages competingOverlapping keyword clusters splitting authority and leaving Google unsure which page should rank for what.
- No presence in neighbouring townsHorley and Horsham are both well within the catchment. Neither had a page.
- Trust signals pointing at a retired accountThe site still referenced an eBay store that had been closed months earlier.
Recovery first, then expansion
- Profile recoveryWorked through Google’s ownership recovery process, verified the business at its registered address, and transferred control back. Then a full optimisation pass — complete service list, correct primary and secondary categories, hours, address verification, geo-tagged photos, Q&A section, and a routine for owner-posted updates.
- A real Horley pageNot a template with the town name swapped in. Content specific to the Horley service area, callout logistics, and how the Crawley operation reaches customers there.
- A real Horsham pageSame approach. Horsham is the larger of the two neighbouring towns and represents a meaningful share of the potential catchment.
- Cannibalisation resolvedIdentified which of the two competing pages Google already favoured, consolidated the overlapping content, repointed internal links to the winner, and made the second page clearly distinct. Cleaner signals, and the strong page free to climb without its sibling pulling against it.
- Trust signals brought currentEvery reference to the retired eBay store removed, and replaced with signals that are live and verifiable — the current profile rating, years in business, and geographic reach. A trust signal pointing at a dead account works against a business, not for it.
- Conversion tracking installedGoogle Tag Manager and Analytics 4 deployed, with events firing on phone taps, email clicks and form completions. The business now knows which pages produce enquiries rather than guessing.
Where the site ranks now
We now track 36 keywords, up from 23, adding harder IT support and neighbouring-town terms. Sixteen are on page one. Only positions confirmed from more than one source are counted.
| Keyword | Position |
|---|---|
| ssd upgrade crawley | 1 |
| malware removal crawley | 3 |
| it support horley | 5 |
| computer repair in crawley | 7 |
| crawley pc repairs | 7 |
| pc repair crawley | 7 |
| laptop repair in crawley | 7 |
| laptop screen repair crawley | 7 |
| computer repair crawley | 8 |
| crawley computer repair | 8 |
| computer repairs crawley | 8 |
| crawley computer repairs | 8 |
| computer crawley | 9 |
| computer repair horley | 9 |
| computer upgrades crawley | 10 |
| laptop crawley | 10 |
The first month of movement
Comparing 11 July to 8 August. Only keywords measured like-for-like on both dates are counted.
| Keyword | 11 Jul | 8 Aug | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| computer crawley | 28 | 8 | −20 |
| pc repair crawley | 26 | 7 | −19 |
| computer repair near me crawley | 23 | 8 | −15 |
| computer upgrades crawley | 22 | 9 | −13 |
| computer repair horley | 22 | 10 | −12 |
| computer repair horsham | 22 | 18 | −4 |
| laptop repair crawley | 12 | 9 | −3 |
Across the period, page-one presence went from 7 keywords to 14, and the average position moved from 17.3 to 12.7. Seven keywords rose, one fell, eleven held.
The Horley page is the clearest single result: from position 22 to 10 in a month, on a town the business previously had no on-site presence for at all. It now sits at 9, and ranks 5th for “it support horley”.
Since August the core Crawley terms have held within a place of those positions, and three terms have reached the top five. Google has also added more of the site to its index, from 11 pages in June to 15 in September.
How we found the problems
We build the software we use. On this engagement it did the finding, which is why the audit took hours rather than days.
- Master AuditorBaseline audit that surfaced both the cannibalisation and the stale trust signals.
- Rank TrackerMonitors local positions across every town the business covers, with independent SERP checks.
- Internal Link AuditUsed to repoint links during the cannibalisation cleanup.
- Schema ValidatorVerified every structured-data block before it went live.
- Text String FinderCaught every remaining reference to the retired eBay store across the site. No manual scanning.
What the site looks like now
- A 5.0★ profile the business controlsCurrent photos, complete service list, active review responses.
- A four-area catchmentCrawley as home base, with dedicated pages for Horley, Horsham, and Redhill & Reigate.
- A page for each serviceSeparate pages for computer repair in Crawley, laptop repair, virus and malware removal and IT support for small businesses, each targeting a distinct search intent.
- Current trust signalsNothing pointing at retired products or dead external accounts.
- Measurable conversionsPhone, email and form events all tracked.
What is still not working
No map pack appearances. Despite the profile being recovered and fully optimised, the tracker has captured no local pack placements. Map pack position is driven mainly by Google Business Profile completeness and review count rather than on-page work — so the lever here is steady review acquisition, and that takes months of consistent asking. We would rather say so than quietly leave it off the page.
Horsham is still on page two. Positions 18 to 20 for the main Horsham terms — better than the 22 it started at, but it has slipped slightly since August and is not yet earning clicks. Horsham is the larger of the neighbouring towns and the bigger prize, so it is the current focus.
Once a small local business has the technical and local basics genuinely in place, the trajectory tends to be steady rather than spectacular. For a computer repair shop in Crawley, steady is the right outcome — there is no version of this where a one-person business suddenly dominates a county.
Lost control of your own Google profile?
More common than you would think, and entirely fixable. The free audit includes a profile review. No commitment.