Gardener Case Study: Website Migration with Zero Traffic Loss + Growth | SEO

Project Overview

Client: Gardener — a landscape design, landscaping, and garden maintenance company serving Lviv and the surrounding region. 9+ years on the market, 500+ completed projects. Niche: Landscape design, local business (Lviv region, Ukraine) Timeline: 6 months of work Agency: UPCORN AGENCY

What the Client Came With

The client approached us with a very specific request: migrating the website from another CMS. This is one of the riskiest moments in any website’s life — statistically, a large share of migrations end in months-long traffic drops, and sometimes in a complete loss of hard-earned rankings.

For a local business where organic search is the primary source of customers, a drop like that means a direct loss of inquiries and revenue. So the number one requirement was clear: preserve everything that had already been built — and only then scale.

Why Migration Is a Risk

• Changing the URL structure without proper redirects wipes out link equity and page rankings.
• A new CMS can introduce technical issues: duplicates, broken links, speed or indexing problems.
• Google re-evaluates a website after a migration — and any mistake during this period costs far more than usual.

What We Did

Phase 1. Migration with Zero Loss

1. Pre-migration SEO audit — we documented current rankings, traffic, and every indexed URL along with its value, creating an exact “map” of what could not be lost.
2. Redirect map — we set up page-by-page 301 redirects from old URLs to new ones, preserving the link equity of every page.
3. Metadata and content transfer — titles, descriptions, headings, and optimized copy moved to the new CMS without distortion.
4. Post-launch technical monitoring — we tracked indexing, Search Console errors, and page speed, promptly resolving every technical issue on the new CMS.

Phase outcome: the website migrated with no drop — traffic and rankings were fully preserved.

Phase 2. Growth After Migration

5. Expanding the site structure — we created new pages targeting commercial queries: individual services (lawn installation, paving, automatic irrigation, garden maintenance) and local landing pages for towns across the Lviv region.
6. Optimizing the new pages — we worked through keyword research, content, internal linking, and metadata for every new page.
7. Continuous analytics — we monitored rankings and user behavior, doubling down on the pages showing the strongest momentum.

Phase outcome: the new pages reached the top of Google for commercial queries and began consistently bringing leads into the business.

Results After 6 Months

• The migration went through with zero losses — a rare outcome: the website didn’t just preserve its traffic, it grew it after the move.
• New pages in the TOP — service pages and local landing pages secured top Google positions for target queries.
• Consistent organic leads — SEO became a stable channel of inquiries for landscape design services.

All target keywords in the TOP 10!

Client Testimonial

Conclusion

This case study proves that a website migration doesn’t have to mean losses. With the right preparation, a migration becomes a growth point: we didn’t just preserve what had been built — we used the new foundation to create a system that brings the business new customers every month.

Planning a website migration or a CMS change and worried about losing traffic? Let’s discuss your project →