Oliver Packaging and Equipment partners with SPARK Business Works to undergo a transformative website redesign, resulting in a visually stunning and user-friendly online presence that drives engagement and boosts their brand.
Based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Oliver Packaging and Equipment is a bakery and food packaging manufacturer and distributor of meal packaging film, trays, and accessories. Despite being an industry leader, Oliver’s former website left much to be desired and didn’t showcase their innovative equipment well.
The Need for a Website Refresh
Since the website was over 7 years old, it presented a slew of challenges such as outdated branding, poor product searchability, and unresponsive pages for mobile users. The Oliver team was also frustrated with how difficult it was to update any content through the site’s backend, preventing them from making any changes without the help of a web developer.
It was clear to the Oliver team that they needed to overhaul the existing website – a fresh start to ensure that the site could serve their current and future needs as a business, such as offering online ordering of their bakery and food trays and parts.
“Our goal was to transform our website into a faster one with straightforward navigation, responsive design, and an intuitive backend platform,” shared Becky Neibarger, Digital Marketing Manager at Oliver Packaging and Equipment.
To help guide and complete their website, Becky and her team evaluated a handful of local digital marketing agencies near Grand Rapids. After careful consideration, they selected SPARK Business Works based on a referral from a trusted source, and SPARK’s demonstrated experience in meeting the project requirements and budget.
“The SPARK team was thrilled to have the opportunity to collaborate with a local business like Oliver Packaging, especially one that we knew shared similar values with us. We were confident that our team’s skills would match their website redesign needs perfectly,” shared Christie Vander Naald, Vice President of SPARK.
From Design to Development: The Making of A Custom Website for a Food Packaging Manufacturer
To kick off the project, the SPARK team spent time learning about the niche industry of food equipment manufacturing, enabling them to craft new brand messaging and creative assets to set the foundation for the rest of the website creation process.
“We wanted a better-branded website that was customer-first,” said Neibarger. “It needed to be visually appealing, while also explaining our products and showcasing our quality and customer service.”
Next, throughout the web design and development process, the SPARK team tackled the crucial piece of the project, ensuring that the site had clear navigation for Oliver’s multiple customer audiences to search its extensive product catalog.
“We knew that in a given month, over 30% of our site searches didn’t have any results,” explained Neibarger. “We wanted the website update to focus on our customer journey and implementing a better site-wide search program.”
The need for robust search functionality went beyond just customers. Sales reps at Oliver Packaging also rely on the website to pull up products and share videos when speaking with potential customers.
To redesign the new website, SPARK chose WordPress to deliver smooth designs, complex functionality, and faster page speed, while also giving Becky and her team flexibility and control to add new content when needed.
From project start to finish, SPARK was able to collaborate with Oliver to achieve the following:
- Establish brand messaging and creative assets for multiple audiences
- Define sitemap for 30+ pages
- Improve user experience and site navigation through a mega menu
- Implement robust search functionality for 150+ products
- Create website page content with on-page SEO and keyword optimization
- Create editable site page templates in WordPress and Elementor
- Ensure mobile-responsive design
- Provide website hosting and security
The result is a beautiful and intuitive website that helps Oliver Packaging and Equipment fulfill its vision – becoming THE brand of choice for organizations that feed communities
“Our new website launched on time, on budget, and had all the features that we needed. We now have a beautifully branded website that is mobile-ready, has a working product search, and a backend that is so easy to use to create and update pages,” praised Neibarger.
Since launching, Oliver Packaging has seen improved numbers across the board from increased organic traffic to better user engagement and search results.
- 14% increase in Organic traffic
- 60% increase in engaged sessions across all channels
When reflecting on the project, Neibarger commented, “The best thing about working with SPARK was their team and the investment everyone made in learning about our manufacturing niche so that we got exactly what we were looking for. During this project, it felt like we were all on the same team, not working as an agency and client. This was one of the best projects I’ve worked on in my career.”
