SKDistribution
A speed-first rebuild for a Buxton road-haulage firm on the Palletways and Pall-Ex networks — turning a slow, dated site into a fast, high-converting home for UK pallet delivery and full-load freight.
Role
- Brand & Web Design
- Full-Stack Engineering
- Performance & Technical SEO
Year
2026
Tech Stack
Overview
SK Distribution is a family-run road-haulage firm in Buxton, moving pallets and full loads across the UK and Ireland through the Palletways and Pall-Ex networks. Their old site was slow, dated and scoring in the 50s on Google PageSpeed — quietly costing them enquiries. The brief was a ground-up rebuild: a fast, credible, mobile-first site that reflects a serious logistics operator, makes getting a quote effortless, and stays fast as it grows.
Brand System: "Done Right"
The identity had to feel as solid and dependable as the fleet on the road. We paired a confident signal red with a deep black base and set the whole site in a heavy, condensed display type — the visual language of the road: high-vis, direct, no fluff. "UK Road Haulage, Done Right" leads the homepage in the same tone the business speaks in.
Colour Palette
Signal Red
#DA1F2C — Brand accent & CTAs
Pallet Blue
#00AEEF — Network & secondary accent
Tarmac Black
#0A0A0B — Primary background
Fleet White
#F5F5F5 — Headings & body on dark
Typography
- Barlow Condensed (Display): Tall, industrial headings that carry the "done right" confidence at any size.
- Inter (Body): Clean, highly legible body and UI text — quotes, service detail and network copy stay effortless to scan.
Engineered for Speed
Speed was the whole point. The previous site averaged 53 on Google PageSpeed with a 4.8-second mobile load — slow enough to lose enquiries before the page ever appeared. We rebuilt it to prerender the homepage as static HTML, ship a compressed hero, defer everything below the fold and load fonts without blocking the first paint. The result is a site that lands the headline almost instantly on a phone at a depot.
PageSpeed
53
90+
Mobile Perf.
58
90+
Accessibility
64
95+
Mobile Load
4.8s
<2.5s
Every metric moved from failing to green — and an ongoing care plan keeps Core Web Vitals above 90 month after month, so the site stays fast as content and traffic grow rather than quietly slipping back.
Explaining the Network
SK's reach comes from being a member of the Palletways and Pall-Ex networks — a hub-and-spoke model that most visitors don't understand at a glance. We built a dedicated explainer with a custom hub-and-spoke map (theme-aware, so it works in both light and dark mode) that makes it obvious how a single pallet reaches anywhere in the UK and Ireland, while being clear about what SK runs on its own fleet versus through the networks.
Vehicles & Capacities
A fleet section with branded icon panels breaks down the vehicle range — from Luton vans through 18-tonne rigids to artics — so prospects can self-qualify what they need before they ever pick up the phone. A Moffett offload capability is called out on the Industries page for sites without a forklift.
Tracking Portals
Existing customers land straight on the action they came for: Palletways and Pall-Ex consignment-tracking portals are surfaced in the hero, with the external login handed off cleanly rather than buried in a menu.
Frictionless Enquiries
The quote path is stripped to the essentials — a name and a phone number or email is all it takes. "Get an instant quote" sits front and centre, turning a slow, form-heavy process into a single, obvious next step.
Found Locally, Read by Machines
A haulier lives on local and referral search, so the SEO foundation was built in from day one — not bolted on later.
Rich LocalBusiness Schema
Structured data enriched for AI and local search, so SK surfaces correctly in Google and to answer engines.
FAQ & Breadcrumb Schema
Marked-up questions and navigation to win richer, more clickable search results.
On-Page & Search Console
Meta, headings and sitemap dialled in, with Search Console wired up to monitor indexing.
Clean Migration
A leftover DNS record and an old /index.html link were redirected so the domain points only at the new, secure site.
"A haulage site doesn't need to be flashy — it needs to be fast, trustworthy and dead easy to get a quote from. We took SK from a PageSpeed score in the 50s to a site that loads before a customer at a depot has finished reading the headline, and made the Palletways network make sense at a glance."