ILILISELECTED WORK
WEBSITE REORGANIZATION AND SEO MIGRATION
The project
I cut ilili’s website from 43 pages to 25 and its main menu from eight items to five. The rebuild added a shared location-page template, custom components and an SEO migration plan for the addresses that search engines and live ads already used.
What I did
I wrote the reorganization playbook and sitemap reports, planned the new structure and navigation, wireframed the location template, built the homepage locations section and footer in custom HTML and CSS, and planned the redirects, metadata, structured data and launch checklist.
Site structure
Project context
Years of additions had left the DC menu at three different addresses, catering spread across four pages and four event venues with about a paragraph each. Delivery links sent guests straight to DoorDash.
The new navigation
I cut the main menu from eight items to five: Locations & Menus, Events, Order, About and Reservations. Everything a guest looks for sits under one of those, and Reservations stays in the same place on every page.
I moved gift cards to the footer and made the email signup a pop-up instead of its own page.
What changed and why
I compared the old and new site section by section in the sitemap report and wrote down the reason for every change, so ilili’s team could see why pages were going away before anything was deleted.
What changed and why
| Section | Old site | New site | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Locations and menus | 3 location pages plus 6 separate menu pages | Menus built into the 3 location pages | The same menu at several addresses splits search ranking |
| Order | Delivery linked straight to DoorDash | A pickup and delivery page on ilili’s own site | ilili can now rank for delivery searches |
| Catering | 4 marketing and info pages | 1 page, with the catering store kept at its fixed address | One strong page instead of four weak ones |
| Events | No section of its own | Events: Private Events and Happenings | A permanent home for seasonal programming |
| Private events | 3 location pages plus 4 thin venue pages | A hub, 3 location pages and an inquiry form for each | Venue pages had about a paragraph each |
| Reservations | SevenRooms reservation links | SevenRooms explore links | The newer booking flow works better on phones |
The implemented structure
I checked the new structure on the live site in August 2026: the five-item menu, an Events section holding Private Events and Happenings, menus built into the location pages, and the new pickup and delivery page.
Location pages and components
Project context
ilili’s website runs on BentoBox, a restaurant website platform with a fixed set of section types. The new structure needed layouts those sections couldn’t produce, so I built them as custom HTML and CSS blocks inside the platform.
From wireframe to live pages
I set one eight-section order for every restaurant in the wireframe: hero, about, a two-column menu preview, a gallery, reservations, private event rooms with capacities, location and hours, and the footer.
A guest who knows one ilili location page can find everything on the others, and each restaurant still gets its own neighborhood details.
Components I built
I marked the editable copy inside the code so ilili’s team can change the words without breaking the layout.
SEO migration
Project context
Consolidating the site changed addresses that search engines, guests and active ads already used. I planned the switch so each of those paths still led somewhere.
Fixing duplicate and thin pages
I recommended one address for each menu and fuller event pages that brought the venue details together, so every retired page had a destination. The site structure table lists the pages affected.
An ordering page ilili owns
I planned a pickup and delivery page on ilili’s own site to replace the DoorDash links, covering all three restaurants, with a title and copy written for delivery searches.
Redirects and running ads
I mapped 17 retired URLs to replacement destinations for the development team. I also checked the active Meta and Google ads against the new sitemap: six landing pages could stay, and six needed replacement destinations.
Ads that would have broken on launch day
| Ad | Old landing page | New landing page |
|---|---|---|
| Meta DC dinner video | /ililis-menu-dc/ | /location/ilili-dc/ |
| Meta DC lunch video | /ililis-menu-dc/#lunch-dc | /location/ilili-dc/ |
| Meta DC brunch video | /ililis-menu-dc/#brunch-dc | /location/ilili-dc/ |
| Meta dinner video | /ililis-menu-dc/ | /location/ilili-dc/ |
| Google drop-off catering | /drop-off-catering/ | /catering/ |
| DC catering | /catering-dc/ | /catering/ |
Titles and descriptions
I wrote a title under 60 characters and a description under 155 for every page, each written for what people search: neighborhood and cuisine for the location pages, party sizes and room names for private events, delivery terms for ordering.
Titles on the live site
| Page | Title |
|---|---|
| Homepage | ilili | Lebanese Mediterranean Restaurant in NYC & DC |
| ilili NoMad | ilili NoMad | Lebanese Mediterranean in Flatiron, NYC |
| ilili Midtown | ilili Midtown | Lebanese Dining in Midtown Manhattan |
| Pickup and delivery | Pickup & Delivery at ilili | NYC & DC |
| Private events | Private Events at ilili restaurants |
| Happenings | Happenings | What’s On at ilili | NYC & DC |
Structured data and the launch checklist
I wrote JSON-LD templates for restaurant markup at each location, menus with sections and prices, and FAQ markup for the accordion content.
The launch checklist covered the XML sitemap, canonical tags, links between the three location pages, Google Business Profile updates for each restaurant and page speed for the hero video and images. It also flagged what not to delete without a plan: the blog had real search traffic, and the FAQ answered real guest questions.