How We Grew Hilltop's Leads by 127% in One Month

The short answer: Hilltop Serviced Apartments went from 57 to 130 monthly leads (+127%) in January 2025, compared with January 2024, across a website rebuild. No paid ads, no viral campaign - just a mobile-first design, HubSpot CRM integration, location-specific landing pages, and a proper SEO foundation replacing an outdated WordPress site.

Part of our client work and results.

Hilltop Serviced Apartments went from 57 leads per month to 130, comparing January 2025 with January 2024. That’s a 127% increase - from a single website redesign. No paid ads. No viral social campaign. Just a better website doing what it should have been doing all along.

Here’s exactly what we changed, why it worked, and what other SA operators can take from it.

Where Hilltop Started

Hilltop runs serviced apartments across Manchester and Sheffield. Before working with us, their digital presence had three problems:

An outdated WordPress site. The design was years old. It loaded slowly, didn’t reflect the quality of their properties, and gave no reason for a visitor to enquire rather than bounce back to Booking.com.

No mobile optimisation. Over 70% of Hilltop’s visitors were browsing on mobile. The old site wasn’t built for that. Buttons were too small, forms were awkward, and the booking journey was frustrating on a phone.

No CRM integration. Every lead came in via email or a basic contact form. The team had to manually enter enquiries into their system. Leads got missed. Follow-ups were inconsistent. There was no way to track which marketing channels were actually driving business.

What We Built

We redesigned and rebuilt Hilltop’s website around four pillars - each one targeting a specific gap in their lead generation.

1. Mobile-First Design

With 70% mobile traffic, we designed for phones first and scaled up to desktop - not the other way around. Every page had touch-friendly buttons (minimum 44px targets), clear pricing visible without scrolling, and a booking enquiry path that works with one thumb.

The result is a site that feels premium on every device. It reflects the quality of Hilltop’s properties rather than undermining it.

2. HubSpot Integration

This was the biggest operational change. We integrated HubSpot CRM directly into the website so that every form submission - whether it’s a booking enquiry, a corporate housing request, or a general question - flows straight into their CRM. No manual data entry. No lost leads.

The system automatically:

• Creates a contact record with all form data
• Tags the lead by source (organic, paid, referral)
• Triggers a notification to the sales team
• Starts a follow-up sequence if the lead isn’t contacted within 24 hours

Before this integration, Hilltop had no visibility on which leads were being followed up and which were slipping through the cracks.

3. Location Landing Pages

Hilltop operates across Manchester and Sheffield. Instead of one generic “our properties” page, we created dedicated location landing pages targeting search terms like “serviced apartments Manchester” and “corporate housing Sheffield”.

Each page includes location-specific content - transport links, nearby businesses, local attractions - along with property photos, pricing, and a clear booking path. This captures local search traffic that was previously going to OTAs or competitors.

4. SEO Foundation

We built technical SEO into the site from the ground up. Schema.org structured data (LodgingBusiness, Offer, Review markup), proper heading hierarchy, fast page loads, and clean URLs. This gives Hilltop a foundation for long-term organic growth rather than depending on paid channels alone.

The Results

The numbers tell the story. Comparing January 2024 with January 2025, the same month either side of the rebuild:

Metric	January 2024	January 2025	Change
Monthly leads	57	130	+127%
Website sessions	1,563	1,866	+19%
Lead-to-CRM flow	Manual	Automated	Operational
Mobile experience	Poor	Optimised	Qualitative

The lead increase came from two sources: more visitors converting (better design and UX) and more sessions from improved local search visibility. The 19% session increase happened with zero additional ad spend - purely from better SEO and a site that Google could properly crawl and index.

Methodology: Leads measured as contact form submissions in HubSpot CRM. Sessions measured in GA4. Both compare January 2025 with January 2024, the same calendar month either side of the 2024 rebuild, which removes seasonality. No paid traffic in either measurement window. Across January to October 2025, enquiries were up 51% on 2024 while visits fell 18%.

What Hilltop Said

“The new website has completely transformed our lead generation. We saw results from day one.”

— Jordan & Lewis, Hilltop Serviced Apartments

What SA Operators Can Learn from This

You don’t need Hilltop’s exact situation to benefit from the same principles. Here’s what applies to any SA operator:

Your website is either converting or losing you money. If 70% of your visitors are on mobile and your site doesn’t work well on a phone, you’re turning away the majority of your potential guests. Every visitor who bounces is a lead your competitor gets instead.

CRM integration isn’t optional. If leads come in and nobody follows up within 24 hours, the conversion rate drops significantly. A properly integrated website with automated lead routing eliminates this gap entirely.

Corporate demand needs its own enquiry path. Hilltop’s corporate housing form feeds a separate pipeline from leisure bookings. Corporate clients have different billing requirements, approval processes, and rate expectations. The corporate SA pricing model explains the full rate structure and why a standard booking engine doesn’t serve this segment.

Location pages capture local intent. Someone searching “serviced apartments Manchester” has high booking intent. If you don’t have a dedicated page targeting that search, you’re invisible to those guests. They’ll book through an OTA instead - and you’ll pay 15-20% commission for a guest who was already looking for you.

SEO is a long game, but the foundation matters now. The technical setup we built for Hilltop continues to drive organic traffic months after launch. Unlike paid ads, which stop working when you stop paying, a well-built SEO foundation compounds over time.

The Full Case Study

This blog post covers the highlights. For the complete breakdown including device mockups, the HubSpot integration workflow, and detailed before-and-after comparisons, see the full Hilltop case study.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long did the Hilltop website redesign take?

The project took approximately 6 weeks from initial discovery to launch. This included design, content creation, HubSpot integration, SEO setup, and testing across devices. The 127% lead increase compares January 2025 with January 2024, the same month either side of the rebuild.

What did the Hilltop website redesign cost?

We don’t share specific project costs, but a serviced apartment website with CRM integration, location landing pages, and SEO foundation typically falls within the range shown on our pricing page.

Can I get similar results for my serviced apartment business?

The principles that worked for Hilltop - mobile-first design, CRM integration, location-specific content, and technical SEO - apply to any SA operator. Your specific results depend on your current site performance, location, and market. Our free short-let marketing cheat sheet breaks down the same fundamentals into a practical checklist for your property.

What does “lead” mean in the 127% lead growth figure?

A lead for Hilltop is a contact form submission from their website, tracked in HubSpot. This includes enquiry forms, booking request forms, and corporate-stay enquiry forms. Phone calls and direct bookings through the booking engine are tracked separately. The 127% figure compares January 2025 with January 2024, the same calendar month either side of the 2024 rebuild, with no paid traffic in either window.

Why did mobile optimisation make such a big difference?

Over 70% of Hilltop’s pre-launch traffic was on mobile, but the old WordPress site wasn’t mobile-optimised — slow load times, small tap targets, awkward forms. When the majority of your visitors are on a device your site doesn’t work on, you’re losing them before they can consider booking. Fixing mobile-first removed the biggest friction point in the funnel.

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Want to see what a redesign could do for your property? Grab our free short-let marketing cheat sheet for the website development checklist that drives more direct bookings.