Editorial design and search structure for a firm that can't outspend the billboards.
The baseline models a three-attorney firm on a legal-industry template. The rebuild shows how design and content architecture — not ad budget — make a small firm look and rank like an authority.
A rebuild study: a typical underperforming website, rebuilt to our standard under a fictional brand. The engineering is real — every number is measured on the build.
100
Lighthouse SEO & accessibility, mobile
Archetype
Small firm on the same template as a dozen competitors
Disciplines shown
Design & Build, Technical SEO, Content Architecture
Build time
6-week rebuild
The starting point
Small firms compete against billboard budgets with template websites that look identical to a dozen competitors — same stock gavel photo, same three practice-area cards, no content that answers what people actually search after an accident. The baseline reproduces that site faithfully, down to its 3.8-second load.
The rebuild
The rebuild treats the website like a publication: serious editorial typography, restrained color, and plain-English practice-area guides structured to answer specific long-tail questions — each with honest metadata and structured data, each with a low-pressure consultation path.
The architecture is built for content expansion: adding a new guide is a content task, not a development project.
What it demonstrates
Authority is a design and structure problem before it's a budget problem. This build shows the editorial system and the search architecture we'd construct for a real firm — measured, as always, on the build itself.
Measured on the build
100
Lighthouse SEO & accessibility, mobile
−72%
Page weight vs baseline
1.0s
Mobile load (lab)
12
Search-targeted guide templates in the architecture
Measured on the rebuilt concept in lab conditions: mid-range Android device, throttled 4G.
Before / after — measured on the build
[ Baseline ]
3.8s
Mobile load (lab)
- Same template as a dozen competitors
- Stock gavel photo, three generic cards
- No content for what people search
- No structured data
[ Rebuild ]
1.0s
Mobile load (lab)
- Editorial design system of its own
- −72% page weight
- 12 search-targeted guide templates
- Honest metadata + structured data
100
Lighthouse SEO & accessibility, mobile (lab)
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