Like almost every year, I made some changes to my website in 2023. The reason for this is that I like novelties, I always like to develop something on my things. After all, a person changes, develops, gets influences, which makes him want to be better and better. This year was no different. That is, at the end of the year, I thought about a small update both in the design and on the backend side. My previous site was based on a Tailwind based CSS framework. I used OxyMade to create the look of my site.
In parallel, I read in many places and saw that more and more sitebuilders were using Automatic CSS. This was happening everywhere. That's why, and because I don't like the things that a lot of people hype or use, I didn't get into it at the beginning. But now I wanted to change something, and this time it was the right decision. Why is that? Because Automatic CSS is just brilliant. I come from a world where everything usually has to be pixel-accurate, but since it was my own side, I could afford so much comfort that I wouldn't rely on it this time. Instead, I took advantage of Automatic CSS to do a lot of “dirty work” for me. But what does that mean?
Let's start from the basics...
The previous page consisted of these main elements:
Main elements of the Stack (plugins)
- Oxygen Builder
- OxyMade
- Scripts Organizer
- Advanced Custom Fields
- CPT (Custom Post Types)
- Mautic (Form integration)
It was important for my site to use as few plugins as possible, to keep the code as clean as possible, and to be as fast as possible. In light of this, I try to reduce all the plugins that I don't need. So it was essential that I dump the current 27 plugins and find a solution that would do the job without the plugin. Why is that? Because almost everything (also) can be solved with plugins, but I like to make a page as clear as possible, as native as possible. Of course, I could have encoded everything. Why I didn't do that, I'll tell you in another article.
In terms of colors, I used the IDE colors of PHP Storm. I liked it. Contrasting and clean. I've also left out various complicated shapes now. I've looked at a lot of competing sites, and I've noted the elements that I don't like. First of all, I didn't want to write everywhere. Specifically, with the competitors, I saw text on the back. I understand this from an SEO point of view, but not from a client experience point of view. It is also an SEO factor. If there is too much information, the visitor will not wander and navigate. That is why I wanted a clear and transparent treatment on the site.
Of course, the content is constantly changing, because I implement newer and newer additions, but I want to do them in such a way that the content can be tracked and consistent.
So I changed a few things:
- Automatic CSS - CSS Framework
- Meta Box – CPT and Custom Fields.
- Piotnet Forms (Contact and Newsletter Subscription via API)
- WP CodeBox – Custom Codes, Scripts, snippets.
With the help of these, I was able to throw a lot of plugins out of the previous lineup. And I'm terribly happy about that.
I hope you'll like it too.
