As a highly respected boutique recruiter based in Houston, Texas, Marie Mikelson (Founder of ProFound Staffing) had a reputation for finding the “hidden talent” that other agencies missed. However, ProFound’s online presence didn’t quite match the calibre of her team’s delivery.

We agreed from our earliest catchups that the previous website was starting to feel a little dated and cramped, struggling to contain the sheer volume of content required to showcase the firm’s expertise. With a recruitment portfolio spanning a huge range of sectors —in senior level IT, software development, technical leadership to engineering, professional services and corporate operations— the old site made it difficult for users to find relevant information quickly, and had some issues in usability for mobile devices in particular.

Furthermore, while the site hosted an impressively expansive blog, the content was effectively invisible to search engines, generating almost zero impressions, as we discovered on auditing the blog before commencing work. Marie needed a modern, fully responsive website that would organize her complex information structure into an easy-to-digest format, while simultaneously capturing the “heart and soul” of the ProFound brand.

Working closely with Marie, we identified that the core challenge wasn’t just design—it was information architecture. ProFound Staffing operates across dozens of niche verticals, and listing them all without overwhelming the user was a significant UX hurdle.

We developed a streamlined navigation structure that categorised these massive lists into intuitive, expandable sections. Utilising modern web functionality like accordions, tabs and sidebars, we were able to feel confident that candidates in the ‘Oil & Gas’ sector, or clients within Technology, to give two random examples, would be able to find their specific niche immediately, without wading through irrelevant content about ‘Accounting’ or ‘Healthcare’.

Beyond the structure, the site’s philosophy had to be distinct. In an era where many agencies rely on AI to screen candidates, ProFound prides itself on engaging with professionals and building real relationships. We designed the user journey to reflect this high-touch approach, ensuring the copy and Calls to Action (CTAs) felt personal and inviting, rather than funneling candidates through cold, automated systems.

Visually, we leaned heavily into the unique “Puzzle” concept that sits at the heart of the ProFound brand (“Your Missing Piece is in our Circle“). We moved away from the cramped layout of the prior version, introducing breathable whitespace, modern typography, and a colour scheme that properly utilised the powerful brand palette to create a professional yet distinct identity.

From a commercial standpoint, we rebuilt the site’s SEO foundation from the ground up. We audited the existing blog content, identifying that while the ideas were good, the structure and focus wasn’t optimised for Google, meaning evergreen content was a focus. We implemented a robust content strategy, rewriting and restructuring posts to target high-intent search terms. We also ensured the site was technically flawless, ensuring high-speed performance on mobile devices—a critical factor for modern job seekers.

I hope I’m not blowing my own trumpet when I say that I feel the new ProFound Staffing website is a transformation. We successfully migrated a vast amount of sector-specific data into a clean, modern interface that invites users to explore rather than overwhelming them.

The SEO results were immediate. By properly optimising the site architecture and revitalising the blog content, ProFound Staffing saw a 60% increase in search traffic within just two months of launching. The blogs are now ranking for key industry terms, driving a steady stream of relevant traffic to the site.

The new design captures the professionalism and “hunter” mentality of Marie’s team, with modern features like dynamic job search integration and responsive sector breakdowns ensuring that whether a user is on a desktop in a corporate office or on a mobile in the field, the experience is seamless.

We decided to use dynamic design features like tabs and accordions to tackle the challenge of navigation through industry verticals, while using the full palette of Profound’s logo’s colours to bring these elements to life in a visually striking way.

So, how do I think we did? I’m personally very proud of the new site and also of the feedback we – well, mainly Marie, as you might expect – have received since launch, which has all been very positive.

I’ve included a couple of screenshots below of a couple of my favourite sections on the new site. On the left, a personal highlight – the bios page for the site. All of the profiles are very funny (Marie and team have a great sense of humour and wrote what I think are exceptional biographies for the varied personalities within the team), but I especially love both of the pugs’ (who work as expert security specialists for the ProFound team) profiles. Cooper’s profile in particular always makes me laugh, so I chose him for the highlight!

On the right, I’ve taken a nerdier approach to highlight the biggest technical challenge on the site. Namely, customising the notoriously inflexible WPJobs plugin to create a dynamic layout that would function on all devices and create an effective source of leads (in the form of resumes) for the recruiting team. It would be dishonest to say this was anything other than difficult, and more challenging than I originally thought. I had to push back a catch-up call or two along the way to get this to work – which I always hate doing – but I’m delighted with the end outcome.

All in all, this was a great challenge to take on, what with the brand colour scheme change, usability complexities, and an impressive amount of content to port across to the new design. I very much enjoyed the challenge, got to try out a few new design ideas, and of course I’m thrilled that Marie and team love the results as well!