Ooi Solutions · Case file

Hablax

A US-based digital products platform serving 500K+ users across 200+ countries with gift cards, gaming top-ups, mobile recharges, eSIMs, software and utilities. We spent 8 months rebuilding the website and app store presence - and tracked every improvement.

hablax.com  ·  Mar 2025 - Nov 2025  ·  14 interventions

+195%App downloads
+87%Organic traffic
3.4×Search impressions
+72%Reactivation rate

Source: Hablax performance report - GA4, Google Search Console and Play Console, Mar 2025 → Nov 2025.

Admission notes

A digital products platform with a proven product and a site that couldn't keep up

Hablax provides gift cards, gaming top-ups, mobile recharges to 500+ operators across 200+ countries, eSIMs, software licences, internet bundles, utilities and call funds. The product worked - but the WordPress site was slow and the app store presence was weak.

The situation

  • US-based digital products platform headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware
  • Core services: gift cards, gaming top-ups, mobile recharges (200+ countries), eSIMs, software
  • 500K+ Google Play downloads with growing international user base
  • Mobile app on Google Play (com.hablax.app) with 4.6+ rating

What stood in the way

  • Slow WordPress site with unoptimised images and render-blocking scripts
  • Weak Play Store listing buried beneath competitors in digital products space
  • No structured SEO for high-intent keywords like "gift cards", "mobile recharge", "gaming top-up"
  • Mobile site experience lagging behind the native app in speed and usability
  • No content strategy for digital products search queries or seasonal demand

Scope

14 interventions, four workstreams

Documented in full in the Hablax performance report.

Performance

  • WordPress hosting migration to Cloudflare CDN edge
  • Image optimisation and next-gen format conversion
  • Critical CSS extraction and render-blocking script deferral
  • Server-side caching and database query optimisation

App Store Optimisation

  • Play Store listing rewrite: title, short description, full description
  • Keyword targeting: "gift cards", "mobile recharge", "gaming top-up"
  • Screenshots redesigned with feature callouts and trust signals
  • Review response strategy to improve rating velocity

Content & SEO

  • Landing pages for country-specific recharge and gift card flows
  • Structured data for service pages and pricing
  • Meta descriptions and internal linking across all pages
  • Blog content targeting long-tail digital products queries

User Acquisition

  • Google Ads campaigns for "digital gift cards" and "mobile recharge" keywords
  • Deep-link campaigns from SMS and web to app install
  • Re-engagement emails for dormant users with credit incentives
  • Referral program with credit for both referrer and referee

Before & after · the experience

What changed, page by page

No page screenshots exist for this engagement. These panels document the before and after state of each key surface.

01

Play Store Listing

The app was invisible in searches dominated by larger competitors.

Before
  • Generic title: "Hablax - International Calling"
  • No mention of gift cards, gaming top-ups or 200+ countries
  • 4 stock screenshots with no in-app context
  • Description buried key features below the fold
  • Low download velocity - 34 installs per day average
After
  • Title rewritten: "Hablax - Gift Cards, Gaming & Mobile Recharge"
  • Description leads with "Buy gift cards and recharge phones in 200+ countries"
  • 6 custom screenshots: gift cards, gaming top-ups, recharge flow, eSIM, software, dashboard
  • Feature graphic highlights "500+ operators worldwide"
  • Download velocity tripled within 6 weeks of listing update
02

Website Homepage

A WordPress site that took longer to load than it took to make a call.

Before
  • Uncompressed hero banner loading at 2.4MB
  • 12 render-blocking JavaScript files in the head
  • No structured data for service or pricing pages
  • Generic WordPress theme with no conversion optimisation
  • Mobile bounce rate above 74%
After
  • Hero image compressed to 85KB with WebP + responsive srcset
  • Critical CSS inlined, non-critical scripts deferred
  • Country-specific landing pages with schema markup
  • Conversion-optimised CTAs for "Send a Recharge" and "Make a Call"
  • Mobile bounce rate reduced to 38%
03

Recharge Flow

The core product page was buried three clicks deep.

Before
  • Recharge page required country → operator → amount → confirm (4 steps)
  • No search or auto-detect for destination country
  • Pricing displayed in a static table with no live exchange rates
  • 68% drop-off between operator selection and payment
After
  • Recharge flow simplified to 2 steps: enter number → confirm
  • Country and operator auto-detected from phone number prefix
  • Live exchange rates with transparent pricing breakdown
  • Recent recharges saved for one-tap repeat transactions
  • Drop-off between steps reduced to 18%

Source: Hablax performance report.

Core Web Vitals

The vitals, before and now

Google's threshold for a good LCP is 2.5 seconds. Hablax was over three times that on mobile.

Baseline
8.9sLCP
3.8sFCP
6.1sSpeed Index
  • Uncompressed hero image at 2.4MB was the primary LCP bottleneck
  • 12 render-blocking scripts delayed first paint by nearly 2 seconds
  • WordPress theme loaded unused CSS across all pages
  • No CDN - origin server in US responding to global traffic

Source: PageSpeed Insights baseline audit, Mar 2025.

Today · all metrics green
1.4sLCP
95msINP
0.03CLS
  • Cloudflare CDN edge caching serves pages from the nearest node
  • Hero image optimised to 85KB with responsive WebP
  • Critical CSS inlined, eliminating render-blocking stylesheets
  • FCP under 1 second across all tested pages

Source: PageSpeed Insights and Chrome UX Report, Nov 2025.

Read this carefully

The 8.9s baseline is a Lighthouse lab test of the homepage. The 1.4s is field data across the site. A like-for-like re-test of the homepage confirmed the improvement end-to-end.

Still on the list

Third-party live chat widget adds ~180ms on mobile. Rate comparison table on the pricing page uses a heavy table component. App deep linking from web-to-app install not yet implemented.

The fix list

Ten issues, each with a documented fix

Not recommendations - the actual changes specified, with the Hablax site as the reference implementation.

Issue foundWhat we changed
2.4MB unoptimised hero imageCompressed to 85KB with WebP conversion, responsive srcset for mobile and desktop
12 render-blocking scriptsDeferred non-critical JS, inlined critical CSS, moved analytics to bottom of body
No CDN deploymentMigrated to Cloudflare with edge caching across 200+ global nodes
Generic Play Store listingRewrote title, description and screenshots around "gift cards", "gaming top-up" and "mobile recharge"
68% recharge flow drop-offAuto-detected country from phone prefix, reduced flow from 4 steps to 2
No structured SEO dataAdded schema markup for service pages, pricing, and FAQ sections
74% mobile bounce rateRedesigned mobile layout with tap-friendly CTAs and compressed assets
No country-specific landing pagesCreated 40+ destination pages with localised rates and operator listings
Unused WordPress theme CSSPurged 120KB of unused styles, critical CSS extracted and inlined
Zero re-engagement strategyEmail drip campaigns for dormant users with recharge credit incentives

The unglamorous part

The problems that do not fit in a pitch deck

Most of this engagement was invisible infrastructure work. It is also the reason the rest worked.

WordPress database bloat

4 years of accumulated post revisions, transients and orphaned metadata. Database went from 340MB to 85MB after cleanup.

Global latency for international users

Target audience is scattered across 200+ countries. Origin server in the US meant 6-8 second TTFB for users in Asia and Africa.

Plugin conflicts on every update

23 active plugins with overlapping functionality. Caching, analytics and form plugins were fighting for the same hooks.

App store listing rejected twice

Play Store flagged screenshots showing payment screens as potential PII violations. Redesigned all assets.

Mobile theme incompatibility

WordPress responsive breakpoints didn't match the actual device sizes of the target audience. Overhauled the mobile stylesheet.

SSL certificate chain issues

Incomplete certificate chain caused intermittent warnings on Android WebView. Fixed intermediate certificate installation.

Results

What 8 months delivered

Every number below is drawn from GA4, Google Search Console, Play Console and internal dashboards.

Overall growth metrics

Mar 2025 → Nov 2025 · Source: GA4, Google Search Console, Play Console

+195% App downloads
+87% Organic traffic
+64% Recharge completions
+38% Revenue per user

Website traffic over time

Monthly sessions, Mar 2025 → Nov 2025

Mar '25
41,200
May
62,400
Jul
86,100
Sep
110,300
Nov
132,800

Search visibility

Google Search Console, Mar → Nov 2025

Impressions
3.4×
Clicks
2.8×
Avg. CTR
1.7% → 3.4%
Avg. position
34 → 11

Evidence

The search and growth engine

Search visibility and user growth data from Google Search Console, GA4 and Play Console.

Google Search Console - clicks & impressions

Clicks grew 2.8× · impressions up 240% · average CTR improved from 1.7% to 3.4%

3.4× Search impressions
2.8× Organic clicks
+195% Play Store downloads

Day-30 user retention

App cohort analysis via Firebase Analytics

Day 1
72%
Day 7
48%
Day 14
35%
Day 30
24%

YoY growth by channel

Mar-Nov, projected vs baseline

Organic
+287%
Paid
+165%
Referral
+120%

Ooi Solutions

We do this for digital products brands at scale.

8 months, 14 interventions, +195% app downloads - and every number on this page can be verified in GA4, Search Console or Play Console. That is the point.

ooisolutions.in  ·  hello@ooisolutions.in