Case study · April 2026
Reed Lifts: from no digital presence to live, lead-generating website in 14 days.
Reed Lifts is a specialist platform-lift, stairlift, and hoist installer in Greater London. Sub-contracts for the largest names in the sector (United Lift Services, The Platform Lift Company, Only Lifts) and now winning direct work too.
The brief
Reed Lifts is under a year old and already cash-flow positive on sub-contract work alone. But the pipeline lives on someone else's phone. When the bigger firms go quiet, the work stops.
Harry had proven LinkedIn worked. A few direct jobs had closed off content alone. But he's on site five days a week, can't post daily, and had no website to send the curious to. Every direct lead was an unrepeatable accident.
The job: build the digital infrastructure to turn one-off enquiries into a stable, repeatable channel. Ship it inside two weeks. Costs Harry nothing in monthly fees.
What I built
Live site, deployed
Next.js + Tailwind on Vercel. Mobile-first. Service pages for every offering with click-to-call above the fold. Lighthouse score above 95 across the board.
Partner trust strip
Five named partner badges (United Lift Services, The Platform Lift Company, Only Lifts, Innovate Lifts, SMC) signal "the big firms already trust me" without Harry having to claim it himself.
WhatsApp widget
Floating WhatsApp button wired to Harry's 07538 084759 line. Most lift enquiries come from contractors mid-job who want answers in 30 seconds, not a contact form.
QR review system
Generated a QR code for printed business cards and van decals. One scan goes straight to the Google review form. Target: 15-20 reviews by end of May.
Boot-up animation
Custom intro animation that signals engineering, not marketing. Differentiator in a sector where most competitor sites look like 2014 WordPress templates.
Sector landing pages
Stairlifts, platform lifts, through-floor, hoists, LOLER. Each ranks independently for its own keyword cluster, each carries its own compliance language.
14-day timeline
Day 1
Brief
Sat down with Harry. Mapped his existing pipeline (sub-contract for United Lift Services, Platform Lift Company, Only Lifts), the gap (zero direct enquiries, no Google presence), and the north star (Pace Group, the firm he wants to be in 8 years).
Day 2-5
Site v1
Next.js + Tailwind + Vercel. Service pages for stairlifts, platform lifts, hoists, through-floor, LOLER. Mobile-first because every trade enquiry comes from a phone in the back of a van.
Day 6-8
Trust layer
Partner badge strip (United Lift, Platform Lift Company, Only Lifts, Innovate Lifts, SMC), boot-up animation that signals "engineering not marketing", review system pointed at his Google Business page.
Day 9-11
Lead capture
WhatsApp widget wired to Harry's 07538 084759 line, click-to-call CTAs above the fold on every service page, QR code generated for vans and printed business cards.
Day 12-14
Deploy + ops
Live on Vercel CLI deploy (no git remote needed, faster turnaround when Harry sends asset updates). Checkatrade signed at £30/mo. Google Business profile submitted.
14days
Brief to live site
5partner badges
Trust strip wired in
£30/mo
Checkatrade pipeline live
£0
Monthly hosting cost
Results, first month live
The site does the conversion job. The content engine on top of it does the demand job. The two together turned a sub-contract-only operator into a business with its own inbound pipeline inside four weeks.
13,200
LinkedIn impressions, 7 days
5,433
Members reached, 7 days
4jobs
Won from one post (£1k-£8k each)
+40%
Network size in 4 weeks
Direct work, no middleman
A single founder-led LinkedIn post pulled in four jobs from one decision-maker in Kent. Job values £1,000 to £8,000 each. The first non-sub-contract pipeline Reed Lifts has ever had.
Industry press
The editor at Lift Industry News reached out for a feature interview on Reed Lifts as a new entrant in the sector. Inbound, not pitched.
Inbound sponsorship
Shorts Industries kitted Harry out with workwear and tools after seeing his content. Free equipment, public partnership, 3,839 impressions on the thank-you post alone.
What this proves
A 14-day site + a daily content cadence is enough to turn a one-engineer trade business into a brand. The website is the foundation. The content is the engine. Neither works without the other.
Stack
What's next
Three tracks running in parallel: (1) public sector outreach to local councils where Reed Lifts is too young for framework bids but eligible for direct awards and DFG schemes; (2) a Google Ads layer once the organic foundation has proven itself; (3) a content engine for Harry's LinkedIn so the channel that originally drove direct work runs on autopilot.
The site itself is built to scale. When Reed Lifts hits five engineers, the same pages add a careers section. When it hits ten, a client portal. The infrastructure doesn't need rebuilding for the next stage of the business.
Want the same for your business?
I take on a small number of digital service builds each quarter. Same model: 14 days, owned outright, hosted free, no monthly lock-in. from £500.