We’ve moved house! By migrating from WordPress to Hugo, page loading has become lightning fast. What a stress-free experience.
Before launching Callum & Sally, Callum had actually advised me that ‘you can build stylish sites with static site generators these days.’
But I had no idea what a static site even was. My understanding was something like ’those websites from the ’90s and early 2000s with the default blue hyperlinks, right?'
It looked something like this, didn’t it?
I first created a website over twenty years ago. I used to fiddle with HTML and upload it to the server using FTP software (FFFTP). The thought of going through all that again put me off, so I chose WordPress instead. I’d also run a WordPress site about ten years ago, so I assumed that ‘if you want a website, WordPress is the way to go.’ And above all, I simply couldn’t resist the gorgeous themes on offer.
Before long, though, problems started cropping up — three in particular:
- Theme limitations (restricted customisation and plugin conflicts)
- Running costs
- Painfully slow loading
WordPress does give you more design freedom than social media platforms, where the layout is fixed. But it turns out that with a complex theme, there are certain things you simply can’t change. For instance, I wanted to make the site logo on the homepage a bit smaller, but the theme had it locked in place — no resizing allowed. I’d splashed out on a premium theme, so there was no turning back. It did look lovely, mind you.
The real dealbreaker was the MP3 player plugin — the pause and skip buttons didn’t work when you clicked them. That’s not a player, that’s just decoration!
The post editor was fiddly, too. I much preferred the Classic Editor, but it clashed with the theme. Most of the bugs could be traced back to the theme. Gutting.
I’d gone for a budget hosting plan to save money, so the site was sluggish from the start. Plugins are practically essential for extending WordPress’s functionality, but the more you add, the heavier everything gets. The only fix was to upgrade the plan — but that would’ve cost over 20,000 yen (roughly £100) for a 36-month contract. Ouch. I’d had an inkling of this ten years ago, but running WordPress properly really does cost money. There are free hosting options out there, but they come with limited storage, slower speeds, and adverts.
So that’s how Callum & Sally was born on WordPress — but this time, with Claude’s help, I’ve rebuilt the whole thing as a static site. The design from the old site has been reproduced almost perfectly! Result! In fact, I’ve been able to tweak the colour scheme to my liking, and the MP3 player actually works as a player now (imagine that).
It’s genuinely so much better.
Callum, I’m sorry. You were right all along.
🎃A single click might help brighten someone’s future.🎃