TW Carbon isn’t your average bike shop. Based in St. Louis, they are master craftsmen specializing in carbon fiber repair and custom painting. They take high-end bicycles that have been crashed or damaged and restore them to, or often better than, factory condition.
Their work has been featured in Forbes for creating custom “dream bikes” and serving as the custom paint supplier to National Champion bike racer Lucas Bourgoyne. However, while their craftsmanship was world-class, their digital presence was stuck in the slow lane. They were operating on reputation, but their infrastructure wasn’t built to scale.
The Problem
Nick Hand, the founder of TW Carbon, faced a dilemma common to many specialized small business owners: he was too busy doing the work to sell the work.
The business was bootstrapped, running on a DIY Wix website that didn’t reflect the premium quality of his repairs. The site lacked basic UX best practices or a content & SEOSEOSearch Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing web content to improve its visibility and ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). strategy, meaning potential customers weren’t finding him organically.
But the biggest bottleneck was the process. Nick had no system to field or manage customer inquiries. Every lead was just another email in a crowded inbox. Without a CRM or tracking system, conversations were hard to organize, and the sales cycle, which is already lengthy for high-end custom work, was prone to slipping through the cracks.
Nick needed to be in the workshop painting and repairing bicycle frames, not wrestling with a clunky website or digging through Gmail to find a quote from three weeks ago.
The Solution
We recognized immediately that trust was the currency TW Carbon was trading in. When a cyclist crashes a $10,000 bike, their biggest fear is safety. They need to know the repair will hold up at 40 mph down a twisty mountain. It’s also important that the bike looks like a $10,000 bike—they want the bike to look beautiful again.
I reframed the brand narrative to address these fears head-on. I focused the messaging on “Safety” and “Craftsmanship,” ensuring every page of the new site reinforced the quality and structural integrity of TW Carbon’s work. And we reinforced this with beautiful imagery of their work.
To support this strategy, we executed a complete technical overhaul:
- High-Performance Web Development: We replaced the slow Wix site with a beautiful, scalable, and lightning-fast website. We built a dedicated blog to showcase their intricate repair jobs and custom paint projects, proving their expertise to any visitor.
- HubSpot Integration: We implemented HubSpot and custom email automations. This replaced the chaotic inbox with a structured pipeline. Now, when a prospect reaches out, they are immediately entered into a system that tracks their status, ensuring Nick and his team can manage the sales process without confusion.
- Content & Analytics: We rolled out a comprehensive content strategy to build organic reach, paired with a full suite of analytics. For the first time, Nick stopped guessing where his customers were coming from and started seeing the data.
Result
The transformation was immediate and measurable. By professionalizing the digital experience, we turned a local repair shop into a high-converting digital machine.
- Traffic Surge: Site traffic is currently 300% higher than day one.
- Organic Reach: In the last 12 months alone, we have seen a 200% increase in organic clicks and impressions.
- Elite Conversion Rates: We took conversion tracking from non-existent to a steady 10% conversion rate (growing from an initial 6%).
- Technical Excellence: The new site scores a 90+ on Core Web VitalsCore Web VitalsCore Web Vitals are a set of specific factors that Google considers important in a webpage, ensuring Google loves the site as much as the customers do.
Most importantly, Nick has reclaimed his time. The new system manages the leads, allowing him to focus on being a craftsman while the business scales in the background.
Conclusion
TW Carbon proves that you don’t need a massive team to have a massive impact, you just need the right foundation. By aligning their digital strategy with the quality of their physical work, they unlocked growth that was previously impossible.
We continue to optimize their site and strategy, ensuring they stay ahead of the curve.
If you are tired of your website being a digital brochure that doesn’t generate revenue, it’s time to fix the foundation.