Project Overview
Blue Ridge Seamless Guttering is a locally owned gutter installation company serving Southwest Virginia. Although the business had a strong reputation for quality work, it faced a major digital challenge: market confusion.

Multiple competitors in the same region used nearly identical business names — including a family-owned company and another local service — which led to misdirected calls, brand mix-ups, and lost opportunities.

I partnered with the owner to design a website that would clarify identity, strengthen trust, improve local SEO, and convert the right visitors into confident leads.

My role: UX-focused Website Designer
Deliverables: UX strategy, information architecture, visual design, SEO-informed content structure, conversion flow
Timeline: Full website build + iteration phase
Platform: Squarespace

The Challenge
This was not simply a design problem — it was a clarity and trust problem.

Before the new website, the business struggled with:

• Confusion caused by similar competitor names
• Customers unsure which company they were contacting
• Wrong calls and missed opportunities
• Low-quality and inconsistent leads
• Poor local search visibility
• Brand mix-ups with a family-owned business using a similar name

The core challenge:
How do you design a digital experience that immediately communicates who you are — and who you are not — in a crowded local market?

Goals & Success Metrics
Experience goals

• Eliminate confusion about the business identity
• Clearly communicate service areas
• Establish trust and professionalism
• Help users quickly understand what makes this company different

Business goals
Increase calls and form submissions
Improve lead quality
Strengthen local search presence
Outrank similarly named competitors
Build long-term confidence in the brand

Success indicators

• Clearer inquiries from customers
• Fewer wrong calls
• Increased volume of phone calls
• Improved confidence from the owner
• Stronger local visibility

Understanding the User
Primary user mindset
Most visitors came to the site with one critical question:
“Am I contacting the right company?”

Users were often:

• Comparing multiple gutter companies
• Confused by nearly identical business names
• Unsure which provider served their area
• Unclear on what made one company better than another

This meant the UX priority wasn’t just aesthetics — it was certainty.

The experience needed to answer three things immediately:

1. Who this company is
2. Where they serve
3. Why they are the right choice

UX Strategy & Information Architecture
The website was designed around a single guiding principle:
remove doubt, build confidence, and make the next step obvious.

Structural decisions

• Clear, brand-forward messaging at the top of every page
• Prominent service-area visibility
• Straightforward navigation with no clutter

Content hierarchy that emphasizes:

• Experience
• Craftsmanship
• Warranty
• Reliability

SEO-informed UX
Search behavior showed that users were often looking for:

• Location-based gutter services
• “Seamless gutters” specifically
• Companies they could trust

This insight shaped:

• Page titles and headings
• Service descriptions
• Internal linking
• Local relevance throughout the site

UX and SEO were treated as one system, not separate efforts.

Key UX & Design Decisions
Designing for immediate clarity
Because confusion was the biggest barrier, the homepage was structured to answer identity questions in seconds — not paragraphs. Clear brand positioning, concise language, and confident tone replaced vague marketing copy.

Trust-first visual hierarchy
Instead of leading with flashy visuals, the design prioritizes:

• Professionalism
• Readability
• Credibility

This supports users who are making a practical decision, not an emotional one.

Service-area visibility
Many users couldn’t tell whether the company served their location. Service regions were intentionally surfaced early in the experience to reduce friction and wasted calls.

Conversion flow built on confidence
Calls-to-action were placed after users had:

• Confirmed identity
• Understood services
• Felt assured of quality

This shifted inquiries from curiosity-based to intent-driven.

Usability & Accessibility Considerations

• Clear typography for easy scanning
• High-contrast buttons for visibility
• Mobile-first layouts for on-the-go users
• Simple forms for fast contact
• Plain language for all audiences

These choices ensure the site supports real people making real decisions — often quickly, often on mobile.

Results & Impact
After launch, the redesigned experience supported measurable shifts in both perception and performance:

• Better-quality leads — inquiries became more specific and informed
• Clearer customer intent — fewer wrong calls, more ready-to-hire prospects
• Increased phone activity — the business began receiving more consistent calls
• Improved owner confidence — clarity in branding translated into confidence in growth
• Stronger local presence — the business became easier to find and easier to understand

Even without formal analytics dashboards, these real-world signals confirmed that the UX strategy was working where it mattered most: in day-to-day business outcomes.

Reflection & Next Steps
This project reinforced how powerful UX can be in service-based businesses, where clarity and trust are often more important than visual flair.

Future enhancements include:

• Continued SEO refinement
• Expanding service-area education
• Adding FAQ content based on real customer questions
• Optimizing form flows for even faster contact

What This Project Reinforced
Designing this experience showed that UX is not only about usability — it’s about removing uncertainty.

When users feel:

• Clear
• Confident
• Understood

They take action.

And when businesses are finally represented accurately online, they don’t just get more traffic — they get the right traffic.