DDR
Limited
DDR refurbish buildings across the defence estate. Fire doors, building maintenance, specialist works, full interior refurbishment. When they came to me their website sold none of it. It sold painting, on three pages, under a copyright notice that still read 2019.
Decorating and refurbishment contractors working across the MoD estate. Built and maintained on Squarespace.
View live site
By the numbers
What was there
A three page website built by someone else six years earlier, with a 2019 copyright still sitting in the footer and a broken logo image in the header on every page. The first thing any visitor saw was a placeholder icon where the company name should have been.
The bigger problem was what it said. All three services on offer were painting. Nothing about fire doors, building maintenance, specialist works, or the defence sector relationships that make up most of what DDR do. A procurement lead landing on it had no way of knowing whether the company could handle their job. In their own words, it was "very outdated and needs a complete freshen up".
Structure
- Three pages total: home, case studies, contact
- No services page and no about page
- Still on the old trading domain the business had left
- Two completed projects on a single shared page
Presentation
- Header logo broken on every page
- Three services listed, all of them painting
- Stock photography throughout, none of it DDR's work
- No certifications shown anywhere
Compliance
- Two forms collecting name, email and phone
- No privacy policy
- No cookie policy
- No consent mechanism of any kind
How it was rebuilt
Started from their brief
Most clients arrive with nothing. DDR arrived with a slideshow covering the pages they wanted, the information to include and the projects to show. The brief was worth interrogating, not replacing.
- Worked through their content plan page by page before any design started
- Agreed scope and a fixed price inside five days of first contact
- Mapped content requirements per page so nothing stalled mid-build
Rebuilt around what they actually sell
The old site sold painting. The business does considerably more than that, and none of it was visible.
- Ten pages plus policies, built from scratch rather than reskinned
- Services split out, with divisions given their own page
- Detailed case studies for completed projects, each with its own page
- Over ten certifications presented, none of which had appeared before
- Structured enquiry form and named contacts replacing a basic email box
- Review capture added so testimonials could keep accumulating
Moved the domain and closed the compliance gap
The business had already rebranded and bought the new domain before contacting me. What they had not done was move, and the old site had been collecting personal data with nothing in place to cover it.
- Migrated from the old trading domain to the current one with redirects
- Cookie consent, privacy policy and cookie policy implemented
- Their new logo integrated across the site and the email signatures
- SEO foundations applied: meta titles, descriptions, alt text, clean URLs, sitemap
Measured from launch, then they came back
Search Console was verified and the sitemap submitted on the day the site went live. Every number on this page exists because of that half hour. Eight months later DDR approved a second phase.
- Analytics and Search Console configured at launch, not retrofitted
- Admin access, a walkthrough and a written handover so the team could run it
- Services page rebuilt from eight offerings to thirteen, custom coded
- Accreditation logos brought into line with their branding guidelines
- Custom global footer, and a new case study as projects completed
- Two pieces of that second phase delivered free of charge
In their words
I have used these services twice now. First for a complete new look website and more recently for some changes and updates. Charles is always ready to help and offer advice and guidance as well as providing an excellent service. Communication throughout the process is exceptional. I would strongly recommend Charles to anyone.
What changed
The job here was credibility, not lead generation. The numbers below say whether that worked, and the prose underneath says what they do not show.
4.3
Average search position
For the company's own name. Top five, from nothing.
6.2%
Homepage click-through
Against a site average of 3.0%.
2,404
Search impressions
From a standing start, growing every month to March.
13
Pages in Google's index
The site it replaced had three.
Google Search Console, 14 October 2025 to 16 May 2026
What the data does not say
In seven months the site earned zero clicks from non-brand searches. Every click came from someone who already knew the name.
That is not a failure of the build. DDR win work through framework relationships, not through people searching for contractors, and the number of people searching for defence sector refurbishment specialists is close to nothing. Building the site to chase search volume that does not exist would have been the wrong call.
What it does instead
Anyone who hears about DDR through a framework, a site visit or a recommendation and goes looking now finds a current, credible site instead of a broken one on a dead domain. That is what the top five position for their own name is worth, and for this business it is the outcome that matters.
The site also does things the old one could not. It presents the certifications, it shows completed work, it captures enquiries and reviews, and it meets UK GDPR requirements on forms that previously had no policy behind them at all.
Measured from day one
Search Console and analytics were configured on launch day rather than months later. Every figure above comes from that, not from an estimate. It is a half hour of work at the right moment, and without it this section would be opinion.
Common questions
Can you say where DDR's projects are?
Not specifically. Defence sector work carries location sensitivity, so projects are described by type and sector here rather than by name or address.
The site does not rank for service terms. Is that not the point of SEO?
For most businesses, yes. For this one, no. DDR are appointed through frameworks, and the volume of people searching for defence sector refurbishment contractors is close to nothing. The site was built to be found by people who already had the name and to stand up to scrutiny when they arrived. It does both. Chasing search volume that does not exist would have been the wrong call.
How long did it take?
Four weeks from the quote being accepted to the site being ready for launch, and five weeks from the first email. The client had their content largely prepared before we started, which is the single biggest factor in how quickly a build moves.
What happened after launch?
Nothing for eight months, then I got back in touch and the client approved further work the same day. That second phase rebuilt the services page, redid the footer, brought the accreditation logos into line with their branding guidelines and added a new case study. Two pieces of it were done free of charge, because the relationship is worth more than the hours.
Can you work on projects where the details are confidential?
Yes, and this is the example. Every claim on this page is evidenced, and everything that would identify a location, a contract or an individual has been left out. If your work involves clients who would rather not see their name on a supplier's marketing page, that is a constraint I am used to working inside.
My site is in a similar state. Where do I start?
Send me your URL. I will look at your current site and tell you what I would fix first and what it would take. No charge and no obligation, and if I am not the right fit I will say so.
Got a site that stopped describing your business?
That is most of what I do. A straightforward conversation about what you have, what it should be doing, and whether I am the right person to fix it.