Corporate Website Redesign for Apex Consulting Group
We rebuilt a $45M consulting firm's outdated WordPress site into a high-performance Next.js platform — achieving a Lighthouse score of 98 and 127% more qualified leads within 90 days.
The Challenge
Apex Consulting Group had grown from a 12-person boutique to a 140-consultant firm over 8 years, but their website still looked like the startup version. Built on WordPress with a premium theme and 34 plugins, the site loaded in 3.2 seconds (desktop) and scored 41 on Lighthouse performance. Mobile experience was functionally broken — forms didn't render correctly on iOS, navigation required horizontal scrolling, and images loaded at full desktop resolution.
The business impact was measurable. Analytics showed 68% of traffic came from mobile, but mobile users had a 78% bounce rate versus 52% on desktop. The contact form — their primary lead generation mechanism — had a 1.4% conversion rate, well below the 3-5% B2B benchmark. Partners frequently complained that prospects mentioned the website's dated appearance as a concern during initial calls.
Apex had content worth showcasing: 200+ case studies, 40 industry reports, and thought leadership from partners with decades of experience. The content was trapped in a CMS that made updates painful — the marketing team averaged 45 minutes to publish a blog post due to plugin conflicts and formatting issues.
Our Solution
We rebuilt the site from scratch using Next.js 15 with Payload CMS as the headless backend. The architecture separated content management from presentation completely — Payload runs alongside Next.js in the same deployment, giving the marketing team a clean admin interface while the frontend delivers server-rendered pages with sub-second load times.
The design prioritized credibility and scannability. Large typography, generous whitespace, and a restrained color palette (navy, white, one accent) made the site feel substantial without being heavy. Case studies received a dedicated template with key metrics, client testimonials, and related service CTAs. The homepage was restructured around social proof — client logos, result metrics, and partner bios above the fold.
SEO was rebuilt from the ground up: proper heading hierarchy across 47 pages, schema markup for Organization and Professional Service, optimized meta tags with keyword targeting for each service line, and a programmatic sitemap that updates automatically when content changes. Images served through Cloudinary with automatic WebP conversion and responsive srcsets.
Implementation Process
1
Audit & Strategy(2 weeks)
Conducted a full technical audit, content inventory (47 pages, 200+ case studies), SEO gap analysis, and competitive benchmark against 8 peer firms.
2
Design & Prototyping(3 weeks)
Designed the complete visual system in Figma: 6 page templates, component library, responsive breakpoints. Tested with 5 partner stakeholders.
3
Development & CMS(5 weeks)
Built the Next.js frontend, configured Payload CMS collections, migrated 200+ case studies, implemented search and filtering.
4
SEO, QA & Launch(2 weeks)
Implemented schema markup, set up 301 redirects for 47 changed URLs, ran cross-browser testing, performance optimization, and staged rollout.
Results
The new site launched on a Thursday. By Monday, the marketing team had already published 3 blog posts — something that would have taken over 2 hours on the old WordPress setup. Within 90 days, the numbers told the story.
127%
More qualified leads
Contact form conversion rate jumped from 1.4% to 3.8%
98/100
Lighthouse score
Up from 41. Performance, accessibility, SEO, and best practices all 95+
0.9s
Load time
Down from 3.2s. Sub-second on both mobile and desktop
89%
Organic traffic growth
Proper SEO structure unlocked rankings for 23 new keywords in 90 days
5 min
Blog publish time
Down from 45 minutes. Marketing team publishes 3x more content
Technology Stack
N
Next.js 15
Frontend framework with SSR/SSG hybrid rendering
P
Payload CMS 3
Headless CMS for content management
T
Tailwind CSS 4
Utility-first styling with custom design tokens
P
PostgreSQL 16
Database for CMS content and analytics
C
Cloudinary
Image optimization and CDN delivery
Ready to Start?
No commitments. Tell us what you need and we'll tell you how we'd solve it.
“Within the first month, two prospects told us they chose to schedule a call specifically because the website made us look like a firm that takes quality seriously. That never happened with the old site.”
— Managing Partner, Apex Consulting Group
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