I recently developed a website in WordPress in the likeness of the client’s existing website that had been developed using proprietary software. The client chose WordPress for easy content updating.
The owner of Ferris Wheel Finance, Inc. of Venice, FL liked the look-n-feel of her proprietary website, however, found that updating web page content and adding blog posts were cumbersome and non-intuitive tasks.
Prior to moving to the proprietary system, she had years of experience working with WordPress. She knew that she and her staff could easily work within that interface, so, she contacted me about recreating her website in WordPress.
The owner and I had met each other and worked together in the early 2000’s. We networked together at BNI and spent time socializing with mutual friends. I even created a blog for her website (different business) way back then.
Our Latest WordPress website Development Project
My mission this time around was to develop a WordPress website that was almost identical and included similar functionality and style to her existing website.
Since I am in Marlborough, MA and she is in Venice, Fl, we had our project kickoff meeting via Zoom. We walked through each page of the proprietary website, discussing the design and functionality.
The owner highlighted the must-haves and non-negotiables for the WordPress version of the website. (See requirements below)
After the kickoff meeting, we communicated mostly via email until the final walk through.
For the final walk through, we met up again on Zoom. This meeting was just a double check on the state of the website. The owner and her staff had done a complete review on their own a month before and had sent a final punch list of items to tweak. I made those final adjustments and here we are.
Business Requirements
The primary goal of this website project was to replicate the current design and functionality.
That meant that I had to find plugins that provided the same or similar functionality. We wanted to stay with plugins (as opposed to tweaking WordPress functionality via custom PHP programs) so that the owner and her staff could work independently without having to rely on a WordPress specialist like myself.
One of the first things that we did was to find similar images and icons, and purchase those.
- I started roughing out page templates that mimicked the current page design.
- I resized and renamed the newly purchased images and placed those in the WordPress pages.
- Then I copied the content from the existing website and placed it in its appropriate areas.
Next, I searched for plugins that provided functionality similar to that on the existing website. Functionality like the expand-and-contract content sections on the FAQs page, the table displays on the home page and other pages, and the sliding accessibility toggle and sliding share icons on every page. I installed those and tweaked them to work as they did on the existing proprietary website.
One of the most challenging tasks was getting the same spacing as in the original website in a couple of areas on several pages in the WordPress website. I accomplished that with some precise CSS, changing the definitions for desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.
One of the funnest tasks was creating links that look like buttons, but, are not really buttons. I did this so that the owner and her staff could easily create buttons on their own just by adding a few words in a particular area (class definition) when defining a link. When they just want to create a regular link, they don’t add the words. Easy peasy!
The website launched in March. Since then, I’ve been tweaking the CSS for optimum viewing on laptops, tablets, and cell phones.
Now that the website is re-created and transferred to the new hosting account, the owner is looking toward the future. She and her staff have been trained on using the WordPress block editor and have already made updates to the website’s content.
This month, she asked me to make small changes to the design so that prospects get to the information they want more quickly. Once those are complete, we’ll reconvene to make a plan for additional structural updates she might require.