— RESTAURANT CASE STUDY

How Downtown Joe’s Grew Its Digital Audience While Improving On-Site Engagement

WSI rebuilt the Downtown Joe’s website and strengthened its SEO and social foundations, growing the brand’s total digital audience while also improving how long visitors stuck around once they arrived.

The Challenge

As an established Napa restaurant and brewery, Downtown Joe’s needed a website that could keep pace with a growing digital audience without losing visitors to a confusing or dated experience. The site needed a stronger technical foundation, a more durable organic search presence, and an active social channel, all working together rather than as separate efforts. This matches WSI’s broader approach of building digital systems that connect website, search, and social into one growth engine.

Our Approach

Social Media Marketing

WSI built out Downtown Joe’s social media presence as a consistent acquisition channel alongside organic search and direct traffic.

Services Delivered

• Website development
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Social media marketing
• Paid advertising

Business Impact

This project gave Downtown Joe’s more than a new website. Total site users grew by more than two-fifths between 2019 and 2022, with new-visitor growth outpacing that, and the site held its largest channel, organic search, steady at roughly 55% of total traffic even as the audience expanded. Bounce rate improved over the same period, meaning the larger audience is also a more engaged one.

Results

Comparing full calendar year 2019 to full calendar year 2022, Downtown Joe’s grew its total website audience by more than two-fifths, and new-visitor growth outpaced that gain, meaning a meaningfully larger share of the audience is discovering the brand for the first time rather than returning to a smaller, static base. Organic search held its position as the largest single channel across both years, growing in absolute volume while remaining a consistent 55% share of total traffic, evidence that the SEO foundation work is keeping pace with the site’s broader growth rather than being diluted by it. Social-driven traffic grew as well, reflecting a more active and sustained presence across platforms. Perhaps the most telling shift is in bounce rate, which improved rather than degraded as traffic scaled up: a larger volume of visitors arrived and a smaller share of them left after a single page, which is a harder result to achieve than raw traffic growth alone and points to a website experience that holds attention even as it reaches more people.

Website users increased by 44.2%

A substantially larger total audience visited the Downtown Joe’s website in 2022 compared with 2019.

New website visitors increased by 49.7%

New-visitor growth outpaced overall user growth, meaning the site is reaching a meaningfully larger first-time audience.

Organic Sessions increased by 43.9%

Organic search grew in close step with total traffic, holding its position as the brand’s largest channel at roughly 55% of total users in both years.

Social media users increased by 35.4%

Social-driven visits to the site grew alongside overall traffic, reflecting a more active and consistent social presence.

Bounce rate decreased by 11.7%

Bounce rate fell from roughly 44% to roughly 39% even as total traffic grew by more than two-fifths, meaning a smaller share of a larger audience is leaving after a single page.