DH

Case Study

Custom WordPress Theme for a Government Consulting Firm

Led the design and development of a custom, performance-optimized WordPress theme for a government consulting firm, focusing on SEO, accessibility, and long-term scalability.

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Overview

A government strategy and management consulting firm needed a new website that was performance-optimized, SEO-friendly, and accessible, reflecting the professionalism and reliability required by its high-profile clients. The goal was to create a custom WordPress theme with a mobile-first approach that would be easy to maintain, adaptable for future needs, and ready for long-term growth.

My Role

As the Lead Developer, I owned the end-to-end development of the project, focusing on both technical execution and strategic alignment. I served in multiple roles:

  • UX/UI Design: Delivered a clean, responsive interface following Atomic Design principles to ensure modularity and scalability.
  • Software Engineering: Developed the custom WordPress theme from scratch using PHP, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS.
  • SEO Architect: Implemented technical SEO strategies to maximize search visibility, including structured data and performance optimizations.
  • Technical Project Management: Led the project workflow using an Agile methodology, ensuring that the features were developed iteratively based on client feedback and evolving needs.

Research & Strategic Planning

I conducted a comprehensive SWOT analysis on smaller firms and major players in the consulting niche to ensure that the site would meet user needs and industry standards. This analysis informed the website's content strategy, information architecture, and feature set.

My design was based loosely on the client's previous Wix site, which lacked structure and needed a complete overhaul. Using Atomic Design principles, I refined the design and restructured the UI into reusable components, ensuring the theme was easy to manage and would scale with the client's future growth.

UX/UI Design Approach

The website was designed with accessibility and responsiveness as key priorities. I used a mobile-first approach, ensuring the design worked seamlessly across all devices. The modular design, informed by Atomic Design, allows the client to adapt the site to future needs easily. Key UI features included:

  • Mobile-first layout for optimized user experience across all devices
  • Responsive, accessible navigation to ensure smooth browsing for all users
  • Clear content hierarchy, with user flows optimized for the firm's target audience

The goal was to provide a site that looked great, intuitive, fast, and easy to navigate for senior government decision-makers and corporate clients.

Development & Technical Implementation

I built the theme using a component-based architecture to ensure future-proofing and maintainability. The theme was focused on the DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) principle, promoting clean, reusable code.

Technical Highlights:

  • Custom WordPress theme built from scratch, removing bloat and unnecessary WordPress components
  • Used PHP, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS to create a fast, secure, and scalable theme
  • Lazy-loading of images and dynamic assets reduces load times and improves performance on mobile networks
  • SEO strategies including semantic HTML, JSON-LD structured data, and optimized meta tags to enhance search engine indexing

As an SEO Architect, I also implemented OpenGraph metadata for social sharing. I worked closely with the client to ensure all content was optimized for search engine rankings from day one.

Agile Project Management & Workflow

In this project, I worked Agilely, ensuring that new features and enhancements were delivered incrementally and iteratively based on client feedback. I focused intensely on user-centered design, ensuring every decision aligned with the client's business goals.

  • Regular communication with the client ensured technical decisions were aligned with business objectives.
  • Cross-functional collaboration: Though this project didn't directly involve team members, in my previous roles, I've led teams and provided mentorship, ensuring that projects were delivered on time and to specification.
  • I used manual backups and local environment setups for version control and deployment. Although the project didn't incorporate Git, I would have followed best practices for version control and implemented CI/CD pipelines had the team required it.

Results & Impact

  • Performance optimization: The site consistently achieved 90-100 in Google Lighthouse scores, improving mobile performance by 50% due to dynamic asset serving and lazy image-loading.
  • SEO improvements: The structured data and optimized meta tags immediately improved search engine rankings and visibility.
  • Client satisfaction: The client appreciated the significant speed improvements, cleaner design, and better SEO performance. Although traffic is still growing, the technical foundation has set the stage for future success.

Future Enhancements & Vision

The website's modular, component-based structure allows it to be easily reskinned and maintained in the future, saving time and effort on future updates or rebranding. I also plan to integrate Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) for more flexible content management.

As the client's digital presence grows, I will continue monitoring performance with Google Analytics, Microsoft Clarity, and Google Search Console to ensure ongoing optimization. Additionally, I'll incorporate CI/CD workflows for future projects to improve development speed and streamline deployment processes.

Conclusion:

This case study demonstrates how I combined technical development skills, strategic thinking in SEO, and project management expertise to deliver a high-performing, scalable WordPress website. Using Atomic Design principles and focusing on performance optimization and SEO, I provided the client with a solution that will continue to scale with their needs. As a senior developer, I'm eager to take on complex projects and lead teams to solve problems at scale.

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