Successfully migrating a website is never an easy task, especially when the website belongs to a leading automotive brand that is moving to a new global platform shared by 41 other markets. However, PHD UK’s highly experienced SEO team enabled our clients at Škoda UK to do just that, by establishing global technical SEO leadership through a centre of excellence.
The new platform based on JavaScript was developed and managed by Škoda Global, but the task of ensuring that it ticked all boxes from an SEO perspective, for the UK market, fell on our shoulders. The goal was to have a new website that not only drove organic growth but improved user experience by being best-in-class with regard to Google’s Core Web Vitals scoring system; all while ensuring the process was cost-effective and sustainable.
Achieving this ambitious goal required us to carefully mine and analyse a vast amount of SEO and user experience data, from other markets that were already on the platform. This helped us understand what was working, so it could be retained, and what was not, so it could be fixed. Once this was done, it required us to manage various stakeholders and closely collaborate with not just Škoda Global, but also the UK team’s digital performance and media agencies, to implement various changes.
All of this resulted in the performance of the newly migrated Škoda UK website instantly exceeding all expectations when it went live in the first quarter of 2021. The new website saw a massive increase of over 52% in organic views in its first six weeks compared to the same period before the re-platforming. It also beat all previous Core Web Vitals scores, making Škoda UK one of only two automotive manufacturers in the UK to pass all Core Web Vitals checks on aggregate at that time.
More importantly, we were able to feed this experience back into Škoda Global, which in turn led to our SEO and user experience recommendations being adopted by 38 of the 41 markets on the new platform. The exercise helped both Škoda UK and PHD UK forge a closer and more productive long-term relationship with Škoda Global, allowing us to cement our position as key stakeholders in SEO and user experience decision making and strategy.
This incredible piece of work led us to win the SEO Campaign of the Year Award at the recently held Automotive Marketing & Communications Awards 2021.
If this news wasn’t enough, PHD UK and Volkswagen UK then went on to win Communications Team of the Year as well! All winners have now been published on the Auto Marketing & Communications Awards website.
