Agency saves time, money and SEO headaches

When Optix Solutions made the strategic decision to start outsourcing their development work, the agency began to worry that they had traded in one type of bottleneck for another. What they needed was a web creation platform that could give them the flexibility to say yes to client requests, without the logistical headache of always having to factor in someone else's timelines and costs. And most importantly for their in-house SEO team, it had to be a platform that could give them complete control over clients’ SEO. 

The business

Based in Exeter, England, Optix Solutions is a full-service agency with a special focus on digital marketing and web creation. Founded back in 1999 by two university pals, it has grown into a high-powered operation led by 17 staff who deliver everything from paid media strategy to creative TV campaigns. 

With a client list that ranges from much-loved local businesses to large government bodies like the UK National Health Service, it’s fair to say the projects that Optix Solutions take on never fall into the category of one-size-fits-all. As digital marketing makes up the biggest slice of their business, SEO is one of their key offerings.

The SEO challenge

After every client meeting, Optix Solutions’ Creative Lead, Samuel Skinner, always asked himself two questions: How quickly can we do this? and How much is it going to cost us? Without developers on demand, he now had another pressing consideration to add to the mix: Who’s going to do this for us?

Samuel Skinner, Creative Lead at Optix Solutions

Deceptively simple on the face of it, these issues all posed blockers for the agency. As Samuel notes, customers often came in with big plans and very little idea of the time, cost and logistics that it would take to bring them to fruition. 

“I've always had a problem explaining to a customer why something they can describe to me in very simple words is actually going to be painful or very expensive for them,” he shares. “They’ll say, ‘All I want to do is take this picture out, put this graphic in, and move that text there.’ But of course, a developer’s got to sit down and write the code, test the code, and deploy the code.”

When it came to factoring in SEO, Samuel found he was spending far too much time briefing developers and spelling out each website’s specific requirements. If he didn’t do this, he found that things could get skipped over, which led to bottlenecks for the SEO team further down the line. For example, it was essential that they were able to access the website’s metadata, make edits, add tags to pages, and do URL redirects. And while third-party plugins were an option, they were a messy route the agency would rather not go down. 

The solution 

Samuel had been a personal advocate of Wix for some time, having first picked it up in his college days to build his online portfolio. It would now prove to be a game-changer for his agency—enabling them to move faster and reduce costs, without having to rely on developers.  The upshot? Samuel’s team is saying yes to more clients than ever before. 

“Wix gives us a flexibility that’s incredibly powerful,” Samuel enthuses. “I can deliver a better customer experience because I'm not having to say no all the time—the old barriers are gone. Not only can we deliver at a fraction of the price and move really fast, we can also be quite experimental with it. We know that we can phase projects without unexpected costs creeping in. It’s opened up a lot of ideas and opportunities for us.”

As well as being ideal for one-off campaigns like landing pages, the agency finds Wix especially useful for mid-sized clients with sites anywhere between 40 and 50 pages—the bonus being that Wix offers them the ability to keep scaling. “You know those clients who want professional sites that look superb, but are a bit squeamish when it comes to putting tons of money behind it? That’s where we can come in and say hey, you know what, we have a great solution.”

Another major win is that Samuel’s team can now build websites with SEO in mind, rather than an afterthought. From the get-go, all the SEO capabilities they need are at their fingertips. 

“Things like the URL Redirect Manager and the built-in SEO tools for areas like the blog, especially OG images and Twitter cards, are really excellent features,” Sam lists. “Having worked with a lot of bespoke site builds, factoring these things into the specification and then testing thoroughly would always eat time. Wix’s features work straight out-of-the-box, so I can execute with speed—and without fiddley plugins.”

Optix Solutions’ newfound agility doesn’t end there. Samuel’s team can now enjoy far more flexibility in the placement of their in-house resources. “Wix is like an extra service that slots into our business and we can all jump on it,” he says. “The best part is that getting staff trained up is super efficient because I can direct them to all of Wix’s video guides and how-tos.” 

No bottlenecks in sight. 

The results

• “We can comfortably deliver an entire site within a couple of months (less if we needed to). In a typical project with specialist developers, we would run at least twice this. So our timelines have been cut in half.” 

• “Budget wise we’re able to deliver solutions well below the £10k mark and keep it viable for our business. This isn’t a figure we can reach with other platforms or options, so Wix is our sole offering for clients that need to work within these kinds of budgets.”

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