01 · Context
The site had to match the company's level of expertise
Polygraph Expert screens candidates and staff, runs internal investigations and confidential checks for businesses and private clients. The core audience is company owners, HR, security services and executives.
Per the brief, around 80% of enquiries come from B2B. So the new site had to do more than refresh the visuals — it had to explain the value fast: lowering the risk of expensive hiring and management decisions.
The site's key job is to convey competence, confidentiality and control before the first conversation even happens.
02 · Starting point
What held the old version back
The previous site ran on WordPress 5.4.19. It held useful content and a recognisable identity, but no longer met the demands of speed, SEO and regular updates.
- Dated visual style. A loud orange accent and an overloaded first screen undercut the sense of status and confidentiality.
- Technical debt. An old WordPress core and a stack of plugins complicated maintenance, speed and safe updates.
- Weak SEO structure. There were no proper landing pages for the different business and private-client scenarios.
- Editing was awkward. The team found it inconvenient to update experts, services, news and trust proof.
03 · Strategy
From the brief to an eight-stage plan
The work was set up so that design, content, development and the SEO migration were not separate tracks but one route for attracting and handling a lead.
Research and brief
Audiences, services, geography, competitors, design expectations and success criteria.
SEO and information architecture
Page map, semantic clusters, language mapping, URL rules and 301 redirects.
Prototype and content
Scenarios for B2B, B2C and the defence segment, plus trust, FAQ and conversion blocks.
Visual system
A graphite-and-blue palette, restrained typography, real photography and one component system.
Development on Hugo
A custom theme, bilingual setup, responsive layouts, optimised templates and reusable blocks.
Forms and administration
A CMS on top of GitHub, a protected form, a CRM-agnostic adapter and backup notification channels.
SEO migration
Metadata, canonical, hreflang, Schema.org, sitemap, robots, Open Graph and a redirect map.
Launch and audit
Checking all 38 URLs, the mobile version, technical SEO, analytics and PageSpeed.
04 · Design
Calm expertise instead of anxious orange
We kept the brand recognisable per the brief but changed the tone of voice. Graphite conveys confidentiality, blue conveys competence, and light surfaces keep the interface clean and readable.
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05 · Structure and content
A separate route for every audience
Instead of one general story we built landing pages for specific tasks and user intents. The Ukrainian version became the primary one; the Russian version got its own URLs under /ru/.
Screening candidates, current staff and senior managers.
Theft, information leaks, conflicts of interest and internal investigations.
Personnel security, risk screening and complex corporate scenarios.
Personal situations handled with discreet, confidential communication.
A dedicated track for the defence industry
As demand from defence and critical-infrastructure enterprises grew, a specialised page appeared with a different argument: here a hiring mistake is not only about money but about national security.
06 · Development and integrations
Fast static output, simple editing, controlled lead handover
WordPress was replaced by Hugo with a custom theme. The result: minimal server logic on the public side, a predictable build and a clean split between content, code and lead handling.
Services, news, experts, FAQ and SEO fields are edited in a structured interface.
Changes go through GitHub; staging updates automatically, production is released deliberately.
Cloudflare Turnstile, a honeypot and server-side validation cut down spam.
GTM, GA4, Meta Pixel and SEM.Chat are connected on the live site.
The lead-handling channel can be changed without rebuilding the forms or the site.
The architecture duplicates notifications so a lead never depends on a single service.
07 · SEO migration
Keep the search history, create room to grow
Moving to Hugo, it was critical not to lose the signals the old domain had accumulated. So technical SEO was built into the templates rather than bolted on at the end.
- Unique title and description for all 38 pages in the production sitemap.
- One H1, a correct canonical and consistent hreflang: uk, ru and x-default.
- Schema.org for ProfessionalService, FAQPage, Article and navigational entities.
- Sitemap, robots.txt, Open Graph, a dedicated 404 and noindex for utility pages.
- 301 redirects from the old WordPress URLs, legacy addresses included.
- Landing pages for business, private scenarios and the defence sector.
08 · Launch and QA
Not just the homepage was checked
After release we ran an external audit of every URL in the production sitemap plus separate PageSpeed tests for mobile and desktop.
- FCP
- 1.4 s
- LCP
- 2.0 s
- TBT
- 10 ms
- CLS
- 0
- SEO
- 100/100
- FCP
- 0.3 s
- LCP
- 0.5 s
- TBT
- 20 ms
- CLS
- 0
- SEO
- 100/100
Lab audit of 2 Sep 2026. The URL does not yet have enough 28-day CrUX field data.
09 · Result
The project became a system, not a set of pages
The new site brought positioning, content, SEO, analytics, administration and technical infrastructure together. The team got a platform they can develop without returning to the old technical debt.
What can still be improved
The next practical step is to optimise the size of a few images, improve CSS/JS caching and the contrast of secondary text, and to confirm test-lead delivery and analytics events using the client's own access.
10 · Sources
Links to verify
This case is based on the original brief, the delivered implementation and an audit of the live site. All screenshots show public pages with no personal data.