Start up Website SEO
A Case Study
ACFAS Start up Website & SEO
A Chef for All Seasons - Recruitment.
A Chef for All Seasons (ACFAS) was a hospitality recruitment agency connecting talented chefs with hotels, restaurants and catering businesses across the UK. They came to QED to build their online presence and set up a strong SEO foundation from day one. The project focused on a technically sound, search-friendly website that would attract both clients and candidates organically.
A note for transparencyA Chef for All Seasons has since ceased trading and the company has been dissolved. It is no longer a QED client. We have kept this case study live because the results it describes were real and achieved while the agency was active, and because they show what a well-built website and sound SEO can do for a start-up. The closure was a commercial decision unrelated to the website, which performed exactly as intended throughout.
About our website client
A Chef for All Seasons - Recruitment.
Based in the UK, A Chef for All Seasons was a temporary chef recruitment specialist with decades of combined hospitality experience. Their team helped hotels, restaurants and contract caterers find high-quality chefs at short notice.
What set them apart was their deep industry knowledge and hands-on experience, having worked in kitchens themselves.
We built them a website that reflected that professionalism while staying easy for busy hospitality managers to use, and we built the SEO in from the start.
The SEO Challenge
When A Chef for All Seasons launched, they were a brand-new business in a fiercely competitive sector, up against established agencies and national job boards with real budgets. Starting from scratch, they had no rankings, no traffic and no visibility.
Without being found on Google, the site could not reach the hospitality businesses searching for a chef, or the chefs looking for work.
The challenge was to build a website and an SEO foundation strong enough to compete with businesses many times their size, without a big-budget ad spend or any link-buying.
The Solution
The SEO strategy QED used
Our approach began with the technical groundwork. We built a bespoke, sustainable WordPress site, connected it to Google Search Console and GA4 for accurate tracking, and carried out keyword research focused on hospitality recruitment and temporary chef searches.
We structured every page around how people actually search, with one clear H1, logical H2 and H3 sections, and internal links between service pages to help Google understand the site's hierarchy. Keywords went in naturally, in headings and body content, never forced.
The site was also optimised for speed, accessibility and mobile use. Our sustainable web design approach kept it lightweight, fast-loading and easy to maintain.
The Results
Over a roughly ten-month period, A Chef for All Seasons achieved what most start-ups only hope for: front-page rankings for the exact commercial searches that bring in business.
It ranked first for “chef agencies near me” and “temp agencies for cooks”, and in the top three for terms like “temp chef recruitment agency” and “temp chef recruiter”. An independent rank tracker confirmed it: 40% of tracked keywords in position one, 80% in the top three.
This strong foundation helped ACFAS establish itself quickly in the hospitality recruitment industry, proving that a well-structured site with optimised foundations can achieve powerful organic growth, even for a brand-new business.
Business Impacts
Real Google Search Console data from the period, showing the site’s climb through the rankings and the search terms it came to own. These are the agency’s genuine figures, not estimates.
NOTE: The average position shows 37 because Google averages across every term the site appears for, including hundreds of broad long-tail searches.
For the commercial searches that matter, temp chef and chef agency terms, the site ranked in the top three. We would rather rank first for the searches that win work than chase a flattering average.
Testimonials
“The site’s functionality and branding perfectly capture what we do. The design and SEO performance have exceeded our expectations.”
– Damian, Co-Founder & Managing Director, Hospitality Recruitment
“Love it – It’s probably one of the best websites you’ve done”
– Ray, Co-Founder, Hospitality Recruitment