Web Strategy

A better way to connect users to products.

The ask.

Scoular came to Ervin & Smith with a challenge: how to better connect prospective customers with the niche products and services they were looking for on Scoular’s website. With hundreds of agricultural offerings spread across an eclectic mix of business units, the existing site featured product and category pages that had been built individually over time 

The truth.

Due to the gradual evolution of the site build, each business unit had its own approach to product and category pages. There were structural inconsistencies, a disjointed user experience and limited scalability.

Without a unified navigation strategy, Scoular risked missing opportunities to support its business units, capture organic search traffic and convert interest into leads. They needed a solution that could bring order to their catalog and improve product discoverability while still leaving some room for flexibility to serve unique business unit quirks.

The solution:

Ervin & Smith developed a standardized, yet scalable, approach to showcase Scoular’s full product portfolio. The heart of the solution? A custom-built back-end catalog upgrade designed to interconnect existing product and category pages across business units — transforming what had once been a fragmented collection into a cohesive, user-friendly catalog. 

 

To support this, we: 

  1. Gathered input from the various business units to understand the most complex scenarios and determine the lowest common denominators, allowing us to design a solution that would satisfy all asks while future-proofing the site. 
  2. Conducted SEO research and analysis to prioritize products and categories, ensuring the most relevant content was elevated for both users and search engines. 
  3. Created flexible page templates that could adapt to different levels of content depth and category importance. 
  4. Implemented careful schema markup, clear metadata and structured interlinking — all of which are considered generative engine optimization (GEO) practices to make the catalog more visible to AI-driven search experiences. 
  5. Built a custom, automated import process to efficiently populate more than 200 product pages. 
  6. Designed a new site navigation and mega menu that allowed Scoular to showcase, search and organize products in a way that could be tailored for each business unit. 


The result was not just a product catalog but a future-proof system that improved the on-site experience, streamlined management for Scoular’s teams and enhanced visibility in both traditional and generative search environments.
 

Scoular's Food Ingredients web page on a laptop.

The impact.

Within the first six weeks of launch, the new product catalog delivered immediate and measurable improvements: Scoular saw a 19% increase in users and a 23% lift in organic search sessions, demonstrating stronger visibility and engagement. 

Results.

32% more page views

after implementing GEO best practices​.

38% more downloads

of marketing materials.

37% lift in form inquiries.

50+ new keyword rankings

and 100+ improved rankings.

Scoular now has a scalable, SEO- and GEO-friendly product ecosystem that not only supports its business units but also provides a better, more connected experience for customers worldwide. 

Leanne Prewitt

President & Chief Executive Officer

Shaped by her background in creative direction, Leanne leads the agency’s culture and creative vision and also oversees the operations that allow a team of marketing, design and media specialists to create powerful and effective work for their client partners.

Leanne began her professional career in New York City working for some of the nation’s leading agencies. In 2016, after a five-month sabbatical around the world, she returned to her hometown and joined Ervin & Smith. Her global perspective and expanded professional experience influence the work she does today.