A Web Designer’s Journey to a Top-Ranked Brand with AI, UX & SEO

As clients’ budgets shrink and expectations for appealing, quick, and cost-effective websites persist, one truth holds: a well-built, SEO-friendly website can make all the difference.

Unsurprisingly, the idea continues to be entirely feasible. Even a modestly budgeted brand can achieve strong search engine rankings and deliver real results through thoughtful brand design and website structure alone. Let me walk you through my journey from web design to search engine optimisation, and share a brief case study of building a website for my therapist that demonstrates the powerful impact of great UX design on SEO outcomes.

My Journey Through 25 Years of Web Design

If you know me, you know I’m always passionate about learning new things. The possibilities are endless, as there’s always more to discover, even in the web design & development industry, despite my 25 years of experience in the field. Over the past year, at one client’s special request, I’ve been diving deeper into SEO, which never gets old. Competition, and thus evolving algorithms, keeps it very fresh and new!

In 2024, I expanded my offer to include a beginner-friendly comprehensive SEO audit report (up to 20 pages) for just under £200. It includes a free starter pack to help my clients improve their on-site and off-site SEO. I love mentoring, guiding, and ultimately empowering them through this process, as I find it very fulfilling to help them thrive.

That said, my passion for building websites remains undying. I started designing websites at just 12 years old, back when it was much easier to rank number one in the country (and it wasn’t even a big deal back then, as the Internet was so niche). My first paid commission came while I was still in high school, crafting an online portfolio for a local bell-caster. I only charged £100 for the project, as I was unfamiliar with the market at the time and my teenage financial needs were minimal. By the age of 22, I was self-employed full-time, working in the capital at a creative agency that specialised in branding and web development services.

Back then, we built our own CMS systems using various Content Management Frameworks, with MODx being my favourite. However this custom website creation process was time-consuming (every project required a bespoke mix of PHP, HTML, CSS, JS, SQL, and some platform-specific shortcodes). Basic server administration was also essential, along with manual code merging with colleagues. For e-commerce clients, we used CodeIgniter and OpenCart, often rewriting and customising almost everything for our major clients like Clarks and Scholl.

Times have changed, though, and so have client needs. Most clients now expect high-quality websites delivered quickly and at a lower cost. Despite my long-standing resistance to ready-made solutions (a mindset typical of developers of my era), I eventually embraced WordPress (and later, Squarespace), which, though simpler and harder to control in terms of code and pixels, became the new norm. It’s now funny to think that I used to build my own WordPress-like systems from scratch almost every month! And then, ten years ago, I made the transition to WordPress, grieving once and for all the redundant code it introduced.

Building My Therapist’s High-Ranking Brand

Earlier this year, I combined my web design and development skills with AI tools to create a brand and website for my therapist, Pete Joscelyne at Pesso Boyden Devon. The website now ranks first on Google, or within the top 5, depending on the keywords. What continues to surprise me is how his new client from Wales, searching for “Healing” and “Glastonbury”, found the website and travelled all the way to Devon. This unintended exposure has led to clients coming from as far as the Midlands to attend therapy group workshops in Ashburton, now often fully booked a month in advance, despite the fact that neither my client nor I set this as our target!

“This serves as a great reminder that sometimes a thoughtfully built website is all it takes to make a significant impact.”

What’s even more remarkable is that this project wasn’t even focused on SEO, as the budget didn’t include any SEO-specific work. Instead, I concentrated on building a well-structured website with UX and SEO-friendly principles in mind. Despite the lack of dedicated SEO strategies, a bold brand name, solid website structure, high-quality content, intuitive contextual navigation, and overall usability were crucial in helping the website rank highly in search results. This serves as a great reminder that sometimes a thoughtfully built website is all it takes to make a significant impact. While I’m proud that this WordPress website made my therapist easy to find on Google and allows more people to benefit from his services, I’m equally pleased that I could visually establish enough trust and credibility to convert his website visitors into real clients—given that trust is a major barrier to selling online. This is where my UX expertise in guiding users through their journey with a brand with care and intention really makes a difference. But that’s a topic for another blog!

Overall, I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to work on this project, as I have a deep passion for the wellness and mental health sectors. It’s always rewarding to contribute to meaningful work that supports those who support others. However, due to the limited budgets of many South Devon healers, it’s rare to see clients request a comprehensive brand-website-UX design package. Whether my client was aware of it or not, his decision to invest in this website has proven to be a wise and valuable one!