LEAPS AND BOUNDS | PROTECTAPET

Initial Project Scoping

As is standard for our builds on the Cake Shopify Theme, we kicked off by defining ProtectaPet’s goals for their new site, as well as their core customer personas and the primary browsing requirements of each. Similarly, we conducted a deep dive into the business’s major competitors to determine the strengths and weaknesses of their ecommerce websites.

All of this work would give us a better base to delight ProtectaPet as a client, and in turn, allow ProtectaPet to do the same for their customers. 

From this investigation, we found that although ProtectaPet had the strongest brand presence in its niche, some competitors had strong UX and UI touchpoints too. Equally, while ProtectaPet was a big fan of certain aspects of their site, the primary goal was to keep their business ahead of the competition through a full site refresh.

Uplifting the Brand with Clear UX & UI

ProtectaPet had launched their original ecommerce store with us in 2022, but ecommerce as an industry has come on leaps and bounds in the years since, and a more visually engaging experience is required to stand out.

ProtectaPet recognised this themselves too and worked alongside our ecommerce agency team to build out the enhanced brand suite - taking into consideration different users,  accessibility, and a look that felt true to the brand’s goals.

We knew there was an opportunity to add more customer-friendly icons to the site, which could illustrate the different products and product USPs better than imagery. Equally, we’d be streamlining the site’s navigation to increase product discovery and adding a number of responsive effects to the site to increase engagement.

An SEO Audit with Opportunities

ProtectaPet had worked with us on their SEO for many years, so we knew it was in a solid place from a metadata and content perspective. Indeed, they ranked in the top 3 Google results for many of their key search terms. But that didn’t mean there were no opportunities to build even further.

We undertook a full SEO audit to identify benchmark metrics, where the site had pitfalls, and any growth opportunities, such as keyword gap analysis. Further mirroring the growth of the ecommerce space in the years since ProtectaPet launched, the main gap was content optimised for AI-driven search (like ChatGPT and Google's AI overviews) - an area earmarked for future growth.

Alongside this, fixes to a number of small technical issues were rolled out to coincide with the launch of the new site, ensuring that all the new visitors attracted by the SEO improvements would be greeted by the great first impression of the new ProtectaPet website.