Shropshire printing company going from strength to strength after upgrading online operation

Carl Hajdasz, owner of CLH Design & Print in Broseley Wood, is reaping the benefits of using lockdown to bring his online operation up to scratch through the rebrand, the upgrade to a modern Wordpress website and employed an expert in Google and SEO to improve the prominence of the company.

The changes have worked well with Carl admitting that the business has never been busier and is struggling to keep up with demand.

Carl has 33 years experience in the printing industry and has been running his own business for 28 years – becoming firmly established in the Shropshire and wider Midlands areas supplying the printing needs of hundreds of businesses, schools, councils, charities and other organisations.

He said: “It was very tough at the start of the first lockdown. We literally went from one of our best months ever in March 2020 to probably our worst last April after Boris ordered everything to shut down.

“Jobs and orders in progress or planned were cancelled or postponed. Enquiries obviously stopped overnight and we couldn’t contact anyone or our suppliers as they were all shut so we couldn’t do anything.

“But after several months things started to open up again and it started to pick back up slowly month on month.

“I was determined to use the quieter times wisely so that when we came out of lockdown we were ready and raring to go. It has worked really well and the business is going from strength to strength now. I’m struggling to keep up at the moment because we are very busy!

“Anne Bode of Elysian Creative created a completely a new modern Wordpress website www.clhdesignandprint.co.uk which I can edit myself, which is fantastic – it’s now a sleek website, easy to navigate for people coming onto the site and is a good user experience for people who want to see what we do and what products we print.

“They can also ask for a quick quotation at the click of a button.

“I then asked Tosca Lahiri from Wicked Spider to get our Google Maps and Google My Business working for us. I knew Tosca through networking, she is an expert in her field on anything to do with SEO and Google.

“She has a proven track record and since she has worked her magic I have seen a lot more traffic and enquiries coming through. She then said now that my website was looking great, our logo would benefit from a new modern look to complement it.

“The new logo was designed by Dawn Fallon of Fallon Creative who works closely with Tosca and I can’t thank all three enough in helping us get up and running again after lockdown with each providing a smooth professional service in what has been a significant investment in the business.”

CLH Design & Print products include top quality laminated business cards, leaflets, newsletters, letterheads, magazines, brochures, booklets, compliment slips, perfect bound books, labels, posters, wall calendars and planners.

“We print pretty much anything you can think of on card and paper,” Carl added. “Things are really taking off and I’ve joined several networking groups with the biggest being taking a two-year membership to have the printing seat at BNI Thomas Telford to network with a great group of fellow local business owners in our chapter and access to thousands of others from chapters worldwide.

“Results are steadily coming through the website, we are getting more and more enquiries through recommendations and it’s also getting busier due to BNI and U2B. I only joined BNI a couple of months ago but have already done work for about a third of the members – so it’s all making a big difference. These are really exciting times for CLH Design & Print!”