Aviation website design case study
Aviation website design case study: Aero NextGen
From a Webflow site that wasn't working to an aviation marketplace that ranks, matches and syncs itself.
This aviation website design case study follows Aero NextGen, a vendor-neutral matching platform for airlines, MROs, OEMs and distributors. We moved it off Webflow, rebuilt it on WordPress, and gave it a vendor directory of 485 profiles that update themselves every day from Airtable. One month after launch, its ranking keywords had doubled.
CLIENT
INDUSTRY
AUDIENCE
PLATFORM
LAUNCHED
WHAT WE DO
aero-nextgen.com, homepage, 2026
2x
+127.9%
485
84.47K
Where it started
A big idea on a site that couldn't carry it.
Aero NextGen helps aviation companies find the right software and services: ERPs, maintenance systems, parts platforms, consultants and more. The idea is simple. Answer a three-minute quiz, and a matching engine returns a shortlist of vetted providers built for your operation.
The old Webflow site could not keep up. Every vendor page was built by hand, the same capabilities block sat on every profile, the directory could not be searched or filtered, and growing from dozens of vendors to hundreds meant hundreds of manual edits. In January 2026, Google ranked the whole site for just 82 keywords.
The platform needed a website that looked like the leader in its category, and a system that could publish and update hundreds of vendor profiles without a person touching each one.
Jan 2026
Jul 2026
Aug 2026
Aug 2026
Sept 2026
Sept 2026
Sept 2026
Oct 2026
The build
Built like the leader in its category.
Aviation buyers are engineers, operators and executives. They trust precision. Every template was designed to look the part, then engineered to move a visitor toward one action: taking the quiz.
A landing page that blew the old one away
The homepage opens with the promise and the process side by side: match your operation with vetted software and services, then three steps to a shortlist. A Get My Free Shortlist button sits in the banner and the header, trust badges confirm it is free, vendor-neutral and aviation-native, and a logo wall from Pratt & Whitney to Delta, Emirates and Bombardier backs it up.
Below that, the network story, a live vendor directory, how it works, why Aero NextGen is independent, customer testimonials and an FAQ that hands off to the quiz.
A searchable directory of 485 vendors
Meet the Vendors is a custom directory with live search, a category filter and paging, built as a shortcode so it can drop into any page. Every card carries the vendor’s logo, a short summary, its solution categories, the year it was founded, its headquarters, its reach and its ratings, with a button to the full profile.
- Live search and filters across every solution category in aviation.
- Add your profile, free, for any vendor not yet listed.
Vendor profiles that look professional
Every vendor gets a full profile: a dark hero with logo, status, summary and solution tags, a key facts bar, and a claim card for unclaimed listings. Below it, an overview and differentiators, every solution category with its own icon, the industries served and the customers it works with.
Claimed and unclaimed listings share the same design, so the directory always looks complete, while contact and pricing details stay hidden until a vendor verifies.
The engine
A website that updates itself.
Right after launch, Aero NextGen pivoted to a marketplace run from Airtable. Instead of starting SEO, we built a custom WordPress plugin that pulls vendor data from their Airtable base and publishes it to the site every day, safely, on its own.
Daily sync
Every active vendor record in Airtable becomes a live profile page on the site, updated in place every morning.
Adopts what exists
Existing pages are matched by record and slug and adopted, so years of indexed URLs keep their rankings.
Verified and unverified
Paying vendors get the full template; unclaimed listings match it visually while sensitive fields stay hidden.
Safe by design
A safe mode, preflight checks, paced builds and a rollback for anything the sync created, so production never breaks.
Draft, never delete
Deactivated vendors go to draft instead of the trash, so removals stay reversible and answerable.
Images by people
Expiring Airtable files stay out of the sync; the team gets one digest of new pages that need logos and images.
The results
The pages we changed most ranked best.
We were worried. Rewriting templates and hundreds of vendor pages right after launch is exactly what search engines are supposed to punish. Instead, Semrush counted ranking keywords go from 241 in August to 483 in September, and estimated organic traffic jump 174%. Ubersuggest independently shows keywords rising from 113 to 330 and traffic from 301 to 567 in the same month. The vendor profiles we rebuilt most often are the pages now ranking for names like Quantum Control, Flightman and InfoTrader.
Ranking organic keywords, US
Source: Semrush, Jan to Sept 2026
13K
6.2K
465K
2,255
Google Search Console
Search Console, web search, April 14 to October 2026.
Google Analytics 4
GA4, Jul 1 to Oct 4, 2026, vs previous period.
Semrush, the month after launch
Semrush organic rankings, Oct 1, 2026.
Authority and links
Ahrefs, aero-nextgen.com, Oct 2026.
The expansion
More pages, more doors.
A technology hub for every solution
Aviation & MRO Technology Solutions maps 68 solution categories across enterprise systems, maintenance, operations, compliance and the workforce, each card leading to its own landing page or to the quiz. Technology landing pages built for search and paid campaigns are the next phase.
Insights, case studies and press
The Aero NextGen Journal publishes buyer guides, vendor comparisons and decision content twice a month, with custom blog listings and post layouts. Case studies, podcasts and an As Featured In section with 17 publications give the platform the credibility a B2B buyer looks for, and feed the press and referral traffic coming in from FlightGlobal and Aviation Business News.
AI search
Built to be recommended.
A directory of 485 structured vendor profiles is exactly what AI assistants read when someone asks which aviation ERP to choose. In the last 60 days AI crawlers made 84,470 requests to the site, 14.76% of all traffic, led by Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity.
Those reads are turning into visitors: ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity sent 26 referrals in the same window, and Semrush counts 35 pages cited by Google AI Overviews, AI Mode and ChatGPT.
Where visitors come from
Since launch, Google sends the most visitors, followed by LinkedIn, FlightGlobal and Aviation Business News. The Solution Finder quiz is the most visited page on the site, ahead of the homepage, which is exactly where the design was built to send people.
Strategy, then precision
Not just pretty. Engineered.
A successful website is not something built to look good. It is a strategy, executed with precision. Aero NextGen needed a design that earned trust, a structure built for Google and AI assistants, and a data engine that could run a marketplace without a team of editors.
There were hiccups along the way, as there are on any build this ambitious. The result is a platform that went from a site nobody could find to one that search engines and AI assistants read every day, and a pipeline of blogs, technology pages and campaign landing pages still growing.
485
68
500+
95
15 minutes. A plan, not a pitch.
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