Today I look at a case study in recreating a website in WordPress. I was contacted by Cambridge Motors to recreate their existing website for them. They were happy with the design of their existing website. But it had been written using a proprietary system and they wanted to take management of their website inhouse. They already had the knowledge and expertise to maintain a WordPress website. But needed someone to recreate the existing site for them.
About Cambridge Motors
Founded in 1959, Cambridge Motors is an independent family run car showroom based in Plumstead.
Recreating a Website You Are Already Happy With
Cambridge Motors wanted to be able to add content and make changes to their website themselves. The site they had, had been written using a proprietary system that could only be maintained by their previous web designers. They also wanted to add some features to the website that could not be achieved using the proprietary system.
Cambridge Motors felt the only way forward for them would be to recreate the website in WordPress. This was a content management tool they were already experienced with. However, they needed someone to initially recreate the website in WordPress before they could start making their own changes.
Finding the Right Balance Between Recreating a Website and Redesigning a Website
Although Cambridge Motors were happy with the design of their old website, and were keen to retain as much of the original design language as possible. They were happy for some areas of it to be modernised, and accepted some areas would necessarily undergo a change of appearance.
My first step was to try to match the new website as closely to the old one as I could, before making any design changes that would be beneficial.
Specialist Plugins
Another important part of the website was the showroom. Cambridge Motors needed an easy to maintain showroom that could be filtered by site visitors. They had previously experimented with WordPress plugins for this. But had found the US centric nature of them didn’t quite match the needs of a UK based showroom.
As a developer, I was able to customise the best quality showroom plugin to match the needs of a British car showroom.
Completing The Project
Having completed the website rebuild, I presented it to Cambridge Motors for their final approval. They were pleased with the result and the new site was soon up and running on their own hosting. Before long, they were happily making their own additions and changes to their website.
SAMWare UK creates bespoke software solutions and websites. Contact us to arrange a chat to discuss your needs and for a free no obligation quote.
