Sheffler & Company: a 50-year-old engineering firm, a new digital front door

The short version

Sheffler & Company is a civil engineering and land surveying firm outside Pittsburgh that has been doing serious work for the tri-state area since 1970. When they came to me, their public-facing website did not reflect any of that. We rebuilt it. In the middle of the build, they acquired another surveying firm, and we integrated that into the site as part of the launch.

The site has been live and serving the business for over a year and a half.

How it started

I got referred into this one through Performance PC in Pittsburgh. Justin and Steve have been running that IT shop for years, and we have had a warm professional relationship since I first met them back when I worked at RE/MAX Select Realty. They take care of the IT side of a lot of small-to-mid businesses in the area, and when a client asks them for website help, they sometimes send the lead my way.

First email landed January 29, 2024. A few calls with Dana Penfield, who ran point on the project internally. Bud Sheffler is the founder and CEO. The engagement kicked off in April, and we launched the new site at the end of July 2024. About three months, pitch to live.

The state of things

Sheffler has been in business since 1970. That is not a marketing bullet point. That is real work, real reputation, real projects in the ground across Western Pennsylvania. Civil engineering, land surveying, site development, permitting, geospatial, oil and gas work.

The website was not that.

They had a basic Wix site that predated the engagement, built years earlier as a simple placeholder. It did the job of existing online. It did not do the job of representing a 50-year-old firm with real technical depth. No meaningful service pages. No information architecture that reflected the actual practice areas. No lead intake worth the name. No story.

That gap was the whole reason they called.

What we built

A real public presence

We scrapped the Wix site and rebuilt the whole thing. WordPress with Bricks Builder on the backend, which was where my stack was at the time. Real service pages for each of their practice areas: land planning and site development, civil engineering and permitting, surveying services, builder services, oil and gas, geospatial and GIS. About and careers pages that actually say something. Clean, professional, modern, and appropriate to the gravity of the firm.

The Sperdute integration

This is the part I am most proud of from the build.

While we were mid-engagement, Sheffler acquired Sperdute Land Surveying, a smaller local surveying firm. That changed the scope. Now we were not just building a new site for Sheffler — we were also figuring out how to bring Sperdute’s digital presence under the Sheffler umbrella without losing anyone who was already going to the old domain looking for them.

I got access to the Sperdute domain. We built a bridge landing page on the new Sheffler site specifically for inbound Sperdute visitors. If someone showed up from the old Sperdute brand, they landed on a page that said, in plain language, “you are in the right place — here’s what changed, here’s where to go next.” No 404, no confusion, no bounced leads.

That was not in the original scope. It became the scope because the business changed mid-build and the site had to change with it. That is the job.

The lead form

Sheffler does a lot of different kinds of work. A homeowner asking for a property survey is a completely different lead than a developer asking for site development engineering on a 50-acre commercial project. Same firm, very different intake.

We built a custom lead form with conditional logic that asks the first question everyone has — what kind of project is this? — and then branches from there. The questions change based on the answer. The data that arrives in Sheffler’s inbox is actually usable. The right people see the right leads.

Honestly, this is one of the nicest forms I have ever built. It took real back-and-forth with the team to nail what they needed at each branch, and the result is something they have been using ever since.

The ongoing relationship

The site went live end of July 2024. Since then we have been on a monthly care plan cadence, with check-in calls to review how the site is performing and talk through what to do next.

I will be honest about where this one is versus the other success stories on this site: Sheffler is a firm with 50 years of established process, and big ideas take time to work through an organization like that. That is not a criticism. It is the reality of the archetype. The website does its job. It has been doing its job for a year and a half. When they are ready for the next chapter, I am still here.

What’s on deck

A few things I have put in front of the team for when the timing is right:

• Content refresh. Their work is visual. They already have strong assets, including aerial footage of completed projects. Putting more of it to work on the site would make it significantly stronger.
• Google Ads. Targeted campaigns for the higher-intent practice areas, especially the residential survey side where search demand is predictable.
• AI systems audit. Looking at the internal operations side of the business — not marketing, actual workflow — and identifying where modern tooling could save time.

None of these are committed yet. They are conversations. That is how most of my engagements start, so some of them will happen.

Why this one matters

The mandate with Sheffler was never to reinvent a 50-year-old business. It was to make sure the digital version of that business finally matched the real one. That is what we did. A firm that had earned a reputation over half a century now has a website that does not undersell it. The acquisition got handled gracefully. The lead form works. The door is open for whatever comes next.