Iโ€™ve done everything from creating high-impact resources to generating new leads through marketing โ€“ but nothing has been quite as satisfying as building an entirely new website for my company.

This was part of our Rebranding project: a top-to-bottom transformation of our visual identity to match our growing range of services. And at the heart of that rebrand was a brand new website that brought everything together.

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Hereโ€™s how it happened:

  • Translating ideas into a clear vision for the website
  • Mapping out structure and content
  • Building and iterating ๐Ÿ› ๏ธ

The site runs on WordPress with an army of plugins โ€“ think forms, analytics, spam-cleaning and more โ€“ to keep things running satisfactorily (plugins, however, have their own pitfalls). For the visual build, Elementor Pro (plus some add-ons) was the way to go.

The drag-and-drop widgets got us pretty far, but when it came to the finer customisations, it was time to roll up my sleeves and dive into code.

Under the hood was:

  • HTML/CSS โ€“ for the visual layout and design flair
  • JavaScript โ€“ to add interactivity and dynamic behaviour
  • PHP โ€“ to customise the theme, handle form submissions and manage privacy/authentication

Of course, a shiny front-end is only half the job. A functional, professional site needs a lot more behind the scenes:

  • Mobile responsiveness โ€“ because what looks good on your laptop might look like a jigsaw puzzle on a phone
  • Form validation โ€“ so users donโ€™t accidentally (or purposely) break things
  • Crash monitoring โ€“ to catch and fix issues before anyone else notices
  • Backend management โ€“ think databases, cache control and keeping the bad guys out ๐Ÿ”

Before I started this project, I had no idea just how much goes into building and maintaining a website. Now itโ€™s safe to say Iโ€™ve gone from rookie to seasoned soldier.

Challenging? Absolutely.

Rewarding? Even more so.

Would I do it again? Absolutely!