Aubrey Portwood, Freelancer
hire.aubreypwd.com- Built with Jekyll
- Hosted for free on Github Pages
- Template-based
I redesigned this website to align with my 2026 focus: Building fast, unhackable, zero maintenance websites.
My first site was built quickly in 2025 when I first switched to freelancing. It worked, but it no longer reflected where I was headed and needed updating.
Since I was updating the content anyway, I refreshed the design too. I used an existing HTML template as a foundation and customized it to fit my brand, which let me launch quickly.
My previous design was simple, and I loved that.
The new one needed to be simple as well, but feel fresh and updated.
It featured a sidebar that sends simple “blue bubble” messages to you per-page.
- Keep it simple
- A new fresh coat of paint
- Must be quick to get built
- Template-based
- Blue-bubble messaging
- Clear CTAs
- Calendar booking integration
I needed to save time, like many of my clients.
I wish I could have created a design from scratch, but I’m spending most of my time building websites for my clients. I needed a way to get a new site done quickly (I gave myself two weeks) and I knew that meant I had to go with a pre-existing design.
Using a pre-existing template.
This is something I do often for my clients. It helps them save money, time, and sometimes they already know what they want, bring in a template, and I work with that. This re-design was a good example of what I can do for you when you need quick, maybe cheap, but still good!
Performance audit required.
That meant, once I got the template, I needed to make sure it ran smooth. That meant taking the template and pacing it through my performance audit:
- Examine JavaScript, remove anything unnecessary, and make sure nothing was slow
- Examine it through Core Web Vitals
- Check HTML semantics to ensure HTML is optimized for SEO
- Reduce unused code and bloat
The template was honestly already pretty good, so it didn’t take long to perform the audit.
If a client ever brings in a current design (maybe from a current website), wants to use an HTML template to save time or money, I always perform a similar performance audit to ensure that what your site is built with remains fast, SEO optimized, accessible, and ready to go online.
Finally, tweak the template.
The last step was tweaking the original template, to fit my specific brand:
The end result was a re-built website built in 6 days, that I could get up quickly, keep fast, that was ready for launch!
Ready to start a similar project?