Eleni Unfolds

I was always skeptical about no-code website builders. I thought everything had to be handcrafted, bespoke to a niche and unique to the client. I wasn’t going to use a drag and drop tool for my clients. I value my clients! And they deserve the best quality possible. To be honest that was the only way I knew how to build websites until just a few years back.

After some thought however, I realised that being able to offer a solid solution that falls within the client’s actual budget is also important. In fact, I would argue, being able to understand your customer’s needs and goals is also part of offering the best quality possible. Not everybody needs an enterprise website, where every single line of code is written for this project and this project only. Not every business owner needs a website full of unique features that cost them five figures just so it’s visible in one place.

Eleni from Eleni Unfolds was a client like that. Eleni needed a simple brochure website for her pilates studio. Its purpose was simple: tell her clients of the services she offers and give them a contact form as another way to reach her, outside of social media. That’s it! She understood the value that having a website brings to a small & medium business and went for it.

The technology

After our first chat where I gathered the information I needed to understand her needs, we agreed that we would keep this as simple as possible. I was going to use simple, pre-built tools that exist for this purpose, to ship something with guaranteed quality quickly. We agreed on using WordPress as our CMS, and an Astra template to use with Elementor. I would host it on Cloudways as it’s cheap to start with, and easy to scale up or down, depending on our needs.

The setup

The next step is the one where we cooperated the most. Eleni picked a template that she liked, and I asked for her help in defining the sections she needed for the website. When we identified those, we agreed on the assets that I would need from here (images, copy etc.). I guided her into buying the domain she wanted, and into creating a Cloudways account in order to purchase her server package. I understand this might sound intimidating to some, but I promise you that if we’re on a call through the whole process of creating and purchasing these things, you’ll quickly realise it’s only a matter of a few clicks. Service providers like Cloudways strive to make things as simple as that, and that’s part of why we chose the tools we did.

Why ask the client to go through all that, you might wonder? Because Eleni now owns everything! She has complete ownership of every single aspect of her website and just provides me with access so that I can do what I need to do. This way the client is not at the mercy of a tech agency, and they can take their business elsewhere whenever they wish. No need for lengthy and dragged-out migrations. We’ve all been through a few of those, and no one is happy in the end.

The build

When everything was ready, I started fleshing out the website as Eleni envisioned it, with the sections we agreed on, and the assets she provided me with. This is where using a tool like Elementor really shines, allowing me to amend a template easily, away from the default settings and closer to the client’s needs, with just a few simple actions. This is what keeps the budget down and the launch day near. 

When the content was ready, I made sure the assets were correctly optimised, such as image sizes and section titles, I connected the email services with our domain and double-checked everything was in place for SEO and security. This is where WordPress comes in handy. I have a selection of plugins I trust for specific jobs. They give us solid, reliable solutions, and integrations with third-party services like Google Analytics and email providers become almost effortless.

I believe everything was pretty much done in four days’ worth of work, spread amongst two weekends, which I’d say is not half bad.