PROJECT SUMMARY
AUQ has optimized and designed an e-commerce company’s website for yaasa.com – an ergonomic furniture company in Santa Barbara. The team has also helped the firm with their SEO strategy. They’ve designed and developed their website using WordPress, Figma, and WooCommerce.
“After seeing so many difficult site launches, I’m blown away by how smooth their process is.”
The Client
Introduce your business and what you do there.
I’m the CEO of Yaasa, an e-commerce company that sells ergonomic furniture, mattresses, and weighted blankets.
The Challenge
What challenge were you trying to address with AUQ?
We engaged AUQ to redesign our website. They also did some SEO work for us.
The Approach
What was the scope of their involvement?
Before designing our website, we asked AUQ to help us with our SEO efforts. We strategized together. Initially, I told them the general keywords that I wanted to target. Then, they did a site analysis and gave us a list of keywords that we could rank for; we then created our entire SEO strategy around those keywords.
From there, our team gave AUQ a rough idea of what we wanted for the website, including the design of the homepage, category page, product pages, and other features we needed. They then turned our ideas into a Figma-based mobile and desktop design. After that, their team developed the entire site on WordPress and WooCommerce, building it from scratch.
At present, the website is live. It uses WordPress as its CMS, while all other functionality is powered by WooCommerce. We’re using Stripe as our payment gateway. Moreover, our entire checkout process has been custom-coded. We’ve integrated a financing tool into the website. It splits payments and shows our pricing via the product pages. We also continue to use AUQ’s SEO services. Apart from optimization, they also provide us with three or so blog posts per month. They also help us build backlinks and internal links.
What is the team composition?
Kirill (Founder & SEO Specialist) serves as our project manager. We also work with Andres (UI/UX Designer) and Eugene (Lead Developer). Two other people work on the site’s SEO.
How did you come to work with AUQ?
I found AUQ by doing a LinkedIn search. I wanted to work with a local company. The AUQ team used to be based in Santa Barbara — that’s where we are — and that was what led me to them.
What did you find most impressive about them?
AUQ’s work is great and affordable — it’s not the same as any other services I’ve seen after launching several other websites. The team is great at explaining any issues they face in terms of the code. After seeing so many difficult site launches, I’m blown away by how smooth their process is.
Beyond that, I’m also impressed with their communication skills. They respond to me within 1–2 hours; sometimes, it’s within minutes. I don’t receive that kind of service from other companies; that’s a truly good part of our work together.
Are there any areas they could improve?
They’re a small company. While they’re flexible, their size makes larger-scale projects difficult to handle.
However, in terms of our project, their management is top-notch. They’ve delivered results, and it’s easy to communicate with them. That’s the most important thing for me.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Set clear expectations, targets, and KPIs. Then, conduct weekly or bi-weekly meetings to discuss your progress. AUQ offers progress- tracking, but it’s better if you also do it. Check-in with them, and interact with the team to understand what they need.
How much have you invested with them?
We’ve spent around $90,000. That includes their SEO fee, which is $2,000 per month.
What is the status of this engagement?
We started working together in January 2020, and the engagement is ongoing.
The Outcome
What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
We currently have around 25,000 organic visitors per month, up from 3,000 per month before engaging with AUQ. Similarly, our conversion rates have doubled since the website’s launch, though this isn’t purely because of the website’s redesign.
How did AUQ perform from a project management standpoint?
Their project management is great, and we’ve launched the site on time. To communicate, we have a Slack channel with AUQ. We have weekly meetings, but we haven’t used any project management tools.