At Hop Studios, we love building long-term partnerships with clients who share our passion for creating exceptional digital experiences. One of our favourite partnerships is with Oak Bay Softrends, a talented team of FileMaker developers and strategists based in Vancouver. With over 30 years of experience crafting custom solutions for their clientele, they’re exactly the kind of people we enjoy working with.
We’ve been collaborating with Oak Bay Softrends since 2006—nearly two decades! Over the years, we’ve tackled everything from copywriting and analytics to marketing strategy and ExpressionEngine upgrades. It’s been a rewarding experience helping them strengthen and evolve their online presence as their business grows.
In 2024, we completed our second major CMS upgrade for Oak Bay Softrends, updating their site to ExpressionEngine7 (EE7). Our first upgrade back in 2021 took them from EE2 to EE6, and this latest move to EE7 delivered even better performance, security, and usability.
As part of the EE7 upgrade, we also updated their PHP version from 7 to 8, refreshed key add-ons like Freeform, Detour Pro, SEEO. We also rolled out updates to several of our own Hop add-ons, including Hop Edit This, Hop Minifizer, and Hop Deploy Helper.
With every upgrade, we make sure to remove any outdated or unnecessary add-ons. This streamlines the backend, making the site faster, more secure, and easier to manage and maintain in future years.
One of Oak Bay Softrends’ biggest frustrations was a constant flood of spam submissions through their contact form. We implemented the now built-in reCAPTCHA spam protection, which completely solved the problem. No more junk messages!
We also made some smaller, but impactful updates: we revamped their 404 page to guide visitors back to useful content (which helps with SEO and reduces bounce rates), and we helped them create a new privacy policy page that clearly explains how Oak Bay Softrends handles user data—essential for transparency and compliance. These kinds of updates not only improve user experience but also strengthen the site’s credibility and search engine visibility.
Beyond the technical improvements, we’ve also worked closely with Oak Bay Softrends on the content and marketing side. Over the years, we’ve researched, interviewed, and then written their client success stories, created team bios for new hires, and helped refine their Google Ads strategy to improve campaign performance.
We set up Google Analytics on their site and provided guidance to help the team make data-driven decisions. These insights help them understand their audience better, measure marketing results, and find new opportunities to improve the visitor experience.
Collaborating with the skilled team at Oak Bay Softrends for nearly 20 years has been both rewarding and inspiring. Their dedication to creating thoughtful, custom-built solutions mirrors our approach at Hop Studios. We’re thrilled to keep building on this partnership and can’t wait to see what the future holds.
Does your site need a CMS upgrade or performance refresh? We’d love to help. Send us a message to start a partnership that will keep your website performing at its best for years to come.
