The client
A1 Machinery has sold and rented new and used forklifts since 1991. The company is based in Saint-Mathieu-de-Beloeil, on Montreal’s South Shore, and serves Montreal, Montérégie, Laval, Ontario and beyond. Its customers are businesses: warehouses, plants and distributors.
A1 wanted an online store that could sell its units through Google Shopping, with Google Merchant Center’s buy button. For that, Google needs a site that works end to end: pages that load, a checkout that works, and listings that match the real units.
The challenge
When we took it on, the store couldn’t sell anything:
- The site was offline. The server no longer answered, so neither customers nor Google could reach it.
- Checkout didn’t work. Once the site was back, checkout showed “no payment methods available”. No order could go through.
- Emails weren’t arriving. Neither the contact form nor the order confirmations reached anyone.
- Product, cart and checkout pages didn’t look like A1, and the menu didn’t open on phones.
- Listings no longer matched the real inventory: photos of other models, units no longer offered, a price that differed from A1’s main site.
- Everything was in French only, while A1 also sells in Ontario and the United States.
- The site was slow on phones: a score of 67 out of 100 for the home page and 61 to 77 for product pages.
What we did
- Back online. A new server, the domain pointed to it, and security certificates for the domain with and without “www”. The site answered again the same day.
- A checkout that works. A1 confirms every order before shipping (units worth thousands of dollars that nobody buys on impulse), so we turned on an offline payment option: the order goes through and A1’s team confirms it. A card processor can be added later.
- Google Merchant Center. Site verification tag, a product feed rebuilt with real units only, and full structured data on every product (brand, used condition, return policy).
- Emails fixed by sending them through the Google Workspace account, tested end to end.
- A store that looks like A1: header, footer and colours on every product, cart and checkout page, a product page with a spec table (capacity, year, engine, hours), and a working mobile menu.
- An honest inventory. We checked every listing against the inventory on A1’s main site: right photos, right prices, units no longer offered marked “out of stock”, and only real units for sale.
- A complete English version (products, categories, pages, menus) with a language switcher and the tags that tell Google which language to show to whom.
- Technical SEO: sitemaps, canonical URLs, single-hop redirects, internal links to the categories, security.
- Quebec Law 25: a cookie banner in French and English, with Google Analytics in consent mode.
- Speed: WebP images, fonts that no longer block the page, and unused payment scripts removed from product pages.
- Eight buying guides (five in French, three in English), written from keyword research: electric stackers, inspecting a used forklift, tires, propane forklifts and batteries.
Results
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Site reachable | Offline | Online, secure |
| Checkout | No payment possible | Orders go through, confirmed by A1 |
| Emails (contact and orders) | Not received | Received |
| Mobile speed, home page (Lighthouse) | 67 | 100 |
| Main content shown, home page | 6.7 s | 1.3 s |
| Home page weight | 1,063 KB | 564 KB |
| Mobile speed, product pages | 61 to 77 | 88 to 91 |
| Languages | French | French and English |
| Buying guides | 0 | 8 |
Speed figures are from Lighthouse on mobile, with several runs per page. The store is now ready for Google Merchant Center’s review, with a feed that only lists real units.
What we learned
Merchant Center judges the whole path, not just the feed
A perfect product feed isn’t enough if the site is down, checkout stalls or a photo doesn’t match the unit. Google checks the whole path. So we always start by buying something ourselves, from the product page to the confirmation.
An equipment store doesn’t need one-click payment
For units worth thousands of dollars, buyers want to talk to someone. An offline payment option confirmed by the team matches how A1 already sells, and lets it sell online without risk.
On the South Shore too, you need French and English
A1 sells in Quebec, Ontario and the United States. A French-only store left part of its buyers out. The English version has its own addresses, so Google shows the right language to the right person.