A website designed for Chilliwack's favourite pizza joint

The call to adventure

Remember those dark, quiet, moments in 2020 when everyone was glued to the news and binging Tiger King? Johnny Dhillon remembers the time well.

It's at that precise moment when Johnny found his life's passion: making pizza.

And not just any pizza. Through intense education, thousands of hours of testing, tinkering, and tasting, and what some might call an obsession with finding the perfect pie, Johnny managed to come up with a recipe that his friends and family agreed was worth sharing with the world.

All this led to a new business venture, the now BC-famous Elevated Pizza Co.

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Building a website to match the beauty of Elevated's storefront in District 1881

Elevated Pizza found the perfect home in Chilliwack’s District 1881. The European-style, cobblestone-lined neighbourhood couldn’t be a better fit for Johnny’s Italian-inspired pies. The oven and hood fans were installed, pizzas were flying out the door, and Chilliwack had a new favourite pizza joint.

But the business was missing one key ingredient. And no, we’re not talking pepperoni.

Elevated Pizza’s website simply did not reflect the incredible food, storefront, and spirit of the brand. It needed a fresh digital presence.

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The meeting

Unsure where to turn, Johnny took to social media to seek help. This is where Something Great Marketing enters the chat.

I took a call with Johnny where in less than 10 minutes we discussed Elevated Pizza’s history, challenges, and current needs. I provided Johnny with a rough estimate over the phone, and before the call was over we set a time to meet in person the next day.

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A trip to District 1881

The next morning, I drove to Chilliwack and met Johnny right down the road from Elevated Pizza at Smoking Gun Coffee Roasters (another gem in the Wack). For the next hour we reviewed web design examples, discussed rewards programs and online ordering systems, and decided on a CMS that would best fit Elevated Pizza’s needs from both a functionality and design perspective.

While we agreed that Something Great’s designs would push Elevated Pizza’s online experience to another level, there was still one big issue concerning Johnny. How much was all of this going to cost? We hear this concern from business owners all the time, and it’s warranted. Some marketing agencies charge an arm and a leg, and a hard sell that also wastes everyone’s time is the epitome of bad business. We worked within budget to come to a fair price, assured Johnny of our commitment to excellent communication throughout our projects, and showed him our industry-best hosting and maintenance fees. Contract signed.

With a plan in place, we headed to Elevated Pizza’s storefront where Johnny graciously let me sample virtually everything on the menu. It was my favourite meeting of the year, to say the least, and returning home at lunchtime with a full box of pizza put me in the good books on the home front, too.

Name a better way to celebrate a new client than with a slice of pizza drizzled in Mike’s Hot Honey. I’ll wait.

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The website development begins

The following day, the work began. We received access to Elevated’s existing WordPress website, made some long overdue changes to the information that Johnny needed updated, and began building Elevated Pizza 2.0 on our staging website.

First, we selected a new combination of fonts, colours and graphics to be used on the site. We collected new photos to highlight Elevated’s social channels (Facebook and Instagram), created a form for their email list, and made slight variations to their logo and mascot to fit the new design.

Next, we turned to the top navigation bar on the website. We built a new set of buttons that highlight Elevated’s colours upon hover, look like physical buttons, and add a drop shadow when pushed.

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Below the navigation bar, we built in a cascading menu that is the star of the website, flowing in seamlessly as you scroll on both desktop and mobile. We linked the site to a new online ordering platform, built-in Elevated’s new in-store rewards program, highlighted the location, made all elements on the site mobile-friendly, and shipped a preview to Johny for his review.

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) updates to help rank in Chilliwack, BC

Finally, we implemented our search engine optimization (SEO) updates. An updated sitemap, title tags, and meta descriptions were added along with a host of other technical updates to help with ranking in search engines in Chilliwack in particular. Because simply building a website isn’t enough - we make sure people can find it on Google, Bing and yes, for our grandparents, Yahoo.

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The feedback

Johnny loved the new design, but wanted a bit more animation added to the site.

Based on his feedback, we added a callout bar at the top of the site that flies in when the page loads, we animated the Elevated Pizza Yeti mascot to change colours and push in like a button when hovered over, and added a 360-degree spinning piece of pizza and calzone over Elevated’s hours and locations. We added some clever copywriting over the newsletter form (Stay in the dough), tweaked a couple of menu items, and were ready for a final review.

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Going live

Johnny loved the final version. We worked with his former IT team to get access to the DNS settings, updated his MX records so his emails would continue to work properly, tested all forms and ordering systems, and took the site live. We're very proud to hand Elevated Pizza one of the best websites in Chilliwack to represent the best pizza in the city.

Start to finish, we planned, built and shipped this project in about two weeks.

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The website's return on investment

Elevated Pizza’s new digital presence is sharp, clean, and cool. It matches the physical location perfectly, provides an easy-to-navigate menu, and offers online ordering so you don’t have to brave the big lines that have been forming at Elevated Pizza over the last few months. Online orders are up, online reviews are rolling in, and Elevated’s newsletter is growing faster than ever. We're building a great case study of what top digital marketing in Chilliwack looks like, and how it can help local businesses grow online and offline.

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It’s been a huge hit for not just Johnny, but for us at Something Great as well. Not only does our Vancouver Webflow Agency have a new favourite pizza place, but we’ve received new work from other pizza shops as a result of our work on this project, along with a few of the many great businesses in Chilliwack’s District 1881.

Do not miss your chance to taste the elevated crunch. If you live in Greater Vancouver, plan a stop the next time you head east. If you live in the Fraser Valley, order now - maybe on their shiny new website? :)

Our sincere thanks to Johnny and the team at Elevated Pizza Co.