Project Overview

Accendit Coaching, based in Bury St Edmunds and run by certified professional coach and NLP practitioner John Cockburn-Evans, approached me in need of a more flexible and future-proof website. Their existing site had been built on Squarespace, which was fine for a starting point but had begun to limit growth, performance, and adaptability.

The goal was to rebuild the site in WordPress, replicating the familiar look and feel of the old design while creating a leaner, faster, and more scalable platform that could evolve as Accendit Coaching grew.

The Challenge

The Squarespace platform came with several challenges:

• Limited flexibility for adding new features and functionality.

• Code bloat from an all-in-one system, slowing down performance and SEO.

• Restricted control over responsive layouts and image display.

• Scalability issues, making it harder to adapt as the business expanded.

The task was to deliver a custom WordPress solution that kept the client’s established brand identity but solved all of these limitations.

My Solution

I carried out a full rebuild of the site, developing a bespoke WordPress theme that mirrored the existing design but was significantly more efficient and adaptable.

Key work included:

• Custom WordPress Theme Development – Created a lean, efficient, and SEO-friendly theme designed specifically for Accendit Coaching.

• Content Migration – Seamlessly moved all blog posts and site content from Squarespace into WordPress without any data loss.

• Image Optimisation – Compressed and optimised images to reduce load times and improve performance.

• Responsive Image Focusing – Used custom CSS to ensure the focal point of images always displayed correctly across all devices.

• Social Media Setup & Optimisation – Set up a dedicated Facebook page and optimised Accendit Coaching’s professional profiles to align with the new site.

The Results

The finished site looks almost identical to the original, preserving brand consistency, but under the hood it is a completely different product:

• Much faster thanks to lean, WordPress-based code.

• SEO-friendly, with structure and performance optimised for Google.

• Fully scalable, allowing John to expand the site and add functionality as his coaching practice develops.

• Responsive across all devices, with images displaying exactly as intended.

• Easier content management, enabling John to quickly update, add new posts, or even refresh the site’s layout in future.

What This Means for Accendit Coaching

By moving to WordPress, Accendit Coaching now has:

• A bespoke site that maintains brand identity while being technically stronger.

• Greater flexibility to adapt the site as the business grows.

• A platform that supports both current needs and long-term ambitions.

• A professional online presence that reflects the quality of their coaching services.