The brief
Barton Accountancy is an ICAEW Chartered accountancy firm working with small businesses, contractors and sole traders across Ashby de la Zouch, Swadlincote and the wider South Derbyshire and North West Leicestershire area. The firm is one we know well — it is Ascent's own sister practice, which made it the right place to prove the build standard we hold every client site to.
The existing site was built on Wix. It worked, in the sense that it existed and it loaded — but it was carrying the weight every Wix site carries: heavy pages, a rigid page structure, limited control over the technical SEO, and a monthly platform fee for the privilege. For a firm that wants to be found for specific services in specific towns — "year end accounts Swadlincote", "self assessment accountant Ashby" — the template was quietly working against it.
The brief: rebuild it properly. Keep everything that was working, fix the foundations, and rebuild it on something that gives full control and costs nothing to keep online.
The strategy
A rebuild off a website builder is only worth doing if the new site is genuinely better underneath, not just re-skinned. Three things drove the plan:
- More indexable surface, done properly. An accountancy firm has more to say than a builder template lets it — a page per service, a page per town, a proper FAQ. Each one is a separate door into the site from Google.
- Lighter, faster pages. Wix ships a lot of framework code with every page. A site built lean — only the code each page actually needs — is something Google rewards and visitors feel.
- Full control of how it shows up in Google. On Wix you take what the platform gives you. Built properly, every page's search-result data is written and tuned by hand — and fixed the moment Google flags anything.
The visual design was kept clean, professional and recognisably Barton — the goal was a stronger foundation, not a jarring change for existing clients who already know the brand.
What we built
Structure
The site went from 29 indexable pages to 66 — dedicated service pages, town and area pages, a full FAQ, and supporting content, all internally linked so Google can crawl the whole site and understand how the pieces relate.
Technical SEO
Every page tells Google exactly what it is and how it fits the rest of the site — proper search-result data, clean previews when links are shared, and a structure search engines can crawl without tripping over. Every page also clears the same 40-point pre-launch check we hold every build to — zero critical findings before anything ships.
Performance
Average page weight dropped from around 51KB to around 28KB — roughly 45% lighter — with images sized to prevent layout shift, lazy loading below the fold, and caching tuned properly. The result loads about as fast as the web gets.
Running costs
The rebuilt site is delivered fast worldwide and costs nothing to keep online at this scale — no monthly website-builder subscription, and none of the framework overhead that was slowing the old pages down.
The numbers
Live figures from Google Search Console (last 90 days): 32,990 impressions across all pages, 198 clicks, average position climbing. Mobile CTR is 2.09% at position 11.4 — up from 1.3% a fortnight before — which is the metric that reflects real local buyers finding the firm. The rebuilt site went live in late April 2026 and the numbers above are what it earned in the eleven weeks since.
How we're growing it
A rebuilt website is the central cog. What turns it into work booked is what happens after launch — and we run that too. Every week for Barton, we’re doing this:
- Tracking rankings and impressions. If a page is climbing, we protect it. If it’s stalling, we know why before Barton does.
- Keeping an eye on the local landscape — so when the market moves, we move first.
- Feeding the local pack. Reviews drives, GBP posts, photo refreshes. In accountancy, the map results decide who gets the call — so we keep the profile alive.
- Managing indexing and crawl signals so Google can find, understand, and rank every page as intended.
- Turning real demand into new pages. When something worth ranking for surfaces in the data, that becomes the next page we build — because the demand is already proven.
None of this is glamorous. All of it compounds. That’s the difference between a website and a marketing flywheel.
Why this matters for similar businesses
Three lessons from this rebuild that apply to most professional services firms on a website builder:
- A website builder is convenient until it isn't. The monthly fee, the page-weight tax and the limited technical control are real costs — they just don't show up on an invoice. For a firm that wants to be found, they add up.
- One page per service and per town beats one page trying to do everything. An accountancy firm offers distinct services to distinct people in distinct places. The site structure should reflect that — it gives Google more ways in and visitors a clearer path.
- Controlling how you show up in Google matters. When Google flags an issue with how a page appears in search, you want it fixed that day — not stuck waiting on a platform to expose the setting.
The takeaway
Same firm, same brand, same clients. The rebuild didn't change what Barton does — it gave the website the foundations to actually compete: more than twice the pages, almost half the weight, full control of how it shows up in search, and nothing to pay every month to keep it online.
We rebuilt our own sister firm's site to the exact standard we hold every client build to. If we wouldn't ship it for ourselves, we wouldn't ship it for you.