In the highly competitive London legal market, appearing on the second page of Google is equivalent to being invisible. HighStreet Legal, a multi-disciplinary firm with offices in Islington and Shoreditch, was struggling with a massive decline in organic enquiries. Their existing WordPress site was "technically toxic"—laden with broken redirects, bloated CSS, and a mobile experience that failed every one of Google’s Core Web Vitals.
They approached Custom Coded Websites with a clear mandate: reclaim their search rankings and transform their website into a high-performance lead generation engine. Here is how we used Django’s technical superiority and advanced SEO strategy to deliver a 215% increase in organic traffic in just three months.
The Challenge: Digging Out of a Technical Hole
HighStreet Legal’s digital presence was being actively suppressed by search engine algorithms. Our co-founders, Charlie Shortman and Louie Long, identified three primary "deal-breakers":
- The Speed Penalty: The site’s Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) was over 6 seconds. Google was penalizing the firm for a poor user experience, pushing them down the rankings in favor of faster competitors in Central London.
- Thin Content Architecture: Their practice area pages were "thin," lacking the semantic depth and structured data (Schema) required to rank for high-intent keywords like "Employment Lawyer Shoreditch."
- Crawl Budget Inefficiency: Thousands of "ghost" pages created by old plugins were wasting Google’s crawl budget, preventing new, high-value content from being indexed.
The CCW Solution: A Performance-First SEO Recovery
We didn't just suggest "better keywords." We performed a total technical overhaul, migrating the firm to a bespoke Django framework designed specifically for search engine dominance.
1. Fixing the "Engine": Django Performance Optimization
Charlie Shortman engineered a backend that achieved a perfect 100/100 performance score. By utilizing Server-Side Rendering (SSR) via Django, we ensured that Google’s bots received a fully-rendered, lightning-fast HTML page every time. We eliminated the "JavaScript Bloat" that plagues WordPress sites, reducing the total page weight by 85%. This immediate boost in speed signaled to Google that HighStreet Legal was now a high-quality destination for users.
2. The "Knowledge Hub" & Topic Clustering
Louie Long designed a custom "Legal Insights" hub. Instead of isolated blog posts, we built a Topic Cluster architecture. By linking detailed guides on "London Tenancy Laws" to their core "Property Law" service pages through custom Django models, we built "Topical Authority." We also implemented Advanced Schema Markup, allowing the firm’s FAQs and lawyer profiles to appear as "Rich Snippets" directly in the search results, significantly increasing their click-through rate (CTR).
3. Local SEO Domination
To capture the North and East London markets, we built location-specific landing pages that utilized Geo-JSON Schema. This ensured the firm appeared in the "Map Pack" for hyper-local searches. We also optimized the site for the 2026 "Answer Engine" landscape, ensuring their content was structured to be the top choice for AI-driven search queries.
The Results: 215% Traffic Growth in 90 Days
The synergy of custom code and strategic marketing delivered results that far exceeded the client's expectations:
- Organic Traffic: Total monthly sessions grew by 215% within 12 weeks of launch.
- Conversion Rate: Enquiries via the website tripled, as the faster load times and cleaner UX kept potential clients on the site longer.
- Keyword Rankings: The firm moved from "unranked" to the Top 3 for 15 high-value local keywords, including "Commercial Law Firm Shoreditch."
- Search Health: The site achieved "Green" status across all Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, and CLS), providing a long-term competitive moat.
Why Technical SEO Requires Custom Code
HighStreet Legal’s success proves that you cannot "plugin" your way to the top of Google anymore. Search engines prioritize websites that are technically perfect, secure, and fast. A Django build from Custom Coded Websites provides a level of technical control that template builders simply cannot offer.
Based in London, we understand that SEO isn't just about keywords—it’s about engineering. We don't just optimize websites; we build the fastest, most indexable platforms in the capital.