Local Spring Selected work Charity Essentials
Case study · Charity accounting · Canada
Building Charity Essentials’ online presence
I built Charity Essentials’ first website in 2024, then developed its search presence, Google profile and review process without paid ads. The 2026 redesign reflects the practice’s growth.
01 Results
Results after two years
- #3
- For “charity accounting canada” third organic result, Google Canada
- $0
- Spent on advertising in two years of growth
- 5.0
- Google rating every review, five stars
- 44
- Google reviews asked for, never bought
Ranking checked on Google Canada, August 2026; rating and review count from the Charity Essentials Google Business Profile. 1
The project
- Client
- Charity Essentials
- Founder
- Andrey Timofeev, CPA
- Sector
- Accounting and CRA compliance for charities
- Market
- Canada, and US charities expanding into Canada
- Build
- Low-code builder (2024) → custom build (2026)
- Engagement
- Ongoing since 2024
- Live site
- charityessentials.ca
What I did
- First website, 2024 Designed and built from scratch
- Redesign, 2026 Custom build, in client review
- Google Business Profile Set up, optimized, coordinated
- Local SEO Structure, pages, search terms
- Review process 5.0 across 44 Google reviews
- Founder profile Positioning and personal brand
- Articles & FAQ The questions charities search for
- Enquiry handling Form, routing and delivery
- Owner-editable content AI-assisted edits with checks and version history
02 Two years
Website, search and reviews
The work covered the website, Google profile, client reviews and the founder’s content. No paid advertising was used.
- 2024 Launch
The first website
In 2024, I built a clear first website for a practice with no reviews, search presence or advertising budget.
- 2024 - 2026 Growth
Search growth without paid advertising
I developed the Google profile, review process and useful articles without paid ads. In August 2026, the site ranked third for “charity accounting canada” and appeared as an AI overview source.
- 2026 Redesign
A redesign for a larger practice
The redesign makes room for fifteen reviews, twelve named client organisations, five services and a blog.
Where that puts them
Google Canada, August 2026: third organic result for “charity accounting canada” and a source in the AI overview. 2
Not a cent of that position was bought.
03 Feedback
What the client says
“Dima built our first website when we had nothing to show - no reviews, no clients we could name, and no budget for advertising. Charities find us, read the site and get in touch, and that has not stopped since. Two years on he rebuilt the whole thing around what we had actually become. He is the person I call for anything that touches how we look online.”
- Built from nothing
- Steady enquiries
- No ad spend
- Two-year partnership
Andrey Timofeev, CPA Founder Charity Essentials Draft - written up from Andrey's feedback and awaiting his approved wording.
On the record
This screenshot records Charity Essentials’ five-star review of Local Spring. The review was removed during a Google profile change; a reinstatement request is open. 3
04 The brief
What the redesign needed to do
The brief stayed the same: plain service descriptions and a clear, minimal website. The redesign stays on a noindex staging site until client approval.
05 What changed
Before and after
Each pair below is the same job on the 2024 site and the 2026 one. Select any screenshot to open it full size.
01Services
All five services visible
All five services are visible, with expandable details that also work on phones.
02Proof
Reviews and client organisations
A rating panel, review cards and client logos make the practice’s experience easier to assess.
03Enquiries
A form that asks which service is needed
The form asks for the organisation, service and preferred contact method.
Other screens from the redesign
-
After - client organizations
-
After - the founder section
Mobile views
-
Before · 2024 site
-
After · 2026 redesign
06 Handover
The owner updates the site himself, in plain English
Andrey can request content edits through Claude Code or Codex. Restricted files, automated checks and version history support the workflow.
- No CMS
Content requests in plain English
The owner describes a content change in plain language, without coding or a CMS.
- Fenced
Editing limited to content files
Content files are separate from design, forms, deployment settings and secrets.
- Checked
Every edit is checked before it can go live
Each proposed edit is checked and rebuilt; changes outside the allowed content are rejected.
- Reversible
Version history and rollback
Version history lets the owner review changes and restore earlier wording.
07 Speed
The rebuild, measured
- 1.99→0.24
- Seconds to first paint when the page first shows anything
- 59→29
- Requests on first load files the browser has to fetch
- 690→59
- Server response, ms time to the first byte
- 512→331
- Page weight, KB bytes transferred on a first visit
Median of five cold loads of each homepage in the same browser at 1440×900, no cache. 4
Need a first website or a redesign?
Starting a practice or outgrowing your site? Send me the details for a practical review.
Notes
- How to read the figures. The 5.0 rating and its 44 reviews are the ones Google shows on the Charity Essentials Business Profile, so they can be checked; fifteen of those clients also let their reviews be published on the site. The ranking is the position of the site in Google's organic results, below the paid ads and the AI overview. Together these describe the practice's standing, not its revenue. ↩
- How to read the ranking. A search result is one search on one day. Positions move, and they vary with where the searcher is, what device they are on and what Google already knows about them, so treat it as a snapshot of where the site stands, not a fixed rank. ↩
- The Google review. The review was left on the Local Spring profile and later removed by Google during a profile change. A reinstatement request is with Google; the screenshot is shown as the record until it is resolved. ↩
- How the speed was measured. Five cold loads of each homepage in the same Chrome build at 1440×900, median reported: the 2024 site live at charityessentials.ca, the redesign on its production build. The old homepage finishes loading before it paints - its scripts hold the content hidden until the fade-in animations start, and that gap is what a visitor experiences as waiting. ↩