Project Type: Website Customization & Optimization
Client: Kickstar
Platform: WordPress + Elementor Pro
Role: Developer, Content Strategist, UI/UX Consultant, Performance Optimizer
🧩 The Challenge
Kickstar needed more than just a visual facelift. The site had started as a generic template and lacked the energy, structure, and relevance expected from a modern football platform. Key features like match updates, player highlights, and blog-style content were either absent or buried under irrelevant layout blocks.
There was no clear identity, and user engagement was low—especially on mobile, where responsiveness was inconsistent. The goal was to transform the site into a performance-focused football experience that could serve fans with content that felt alive, useful, and on-brand.
🎯 Project Goals
- Customize the structure and design to suit a football-focused audience
- Rewrite and organize the content to reflect the tone and pace of a sports portal
- Improve UI/UX for mobile and desktop users
- Optimize for speed, SEO, and long-term maintenance
- Turn the site into a reliable, content-driven experience ready for growth
🛠️ Key Contributions
1. 🏗️ Homepage Redesign
- Removed generic template blocks and introduced content-specific sections:
- Live scores
- Featured players
- Fast-read articles
- Ordered content by priority: fresh updates first, evergreen content next, and engagement CTAs last.
2. 🧠 UI/UX Improvements
- Refined font hierarchy, alignment, and padding for visual clarity across devices
- Applied a consistent grid system to balance text and image areas
- Highlighted navigation points and interactive elements for intuitive flow
3. ✍️ Content Strategy & Writing
- Replaced placeholder text with original copy designed to mimic real sports reporting
- Crafted punchy headlines, short summaries, and calls to action geared toward football fans
- Adjusted tone to balance between casual reader and sports enthusiast—clear, quick, and relevant
4. ⚡ Performance & SEO Optimization
- Compressed media and enabled lazy loading
- Integrated LiteSpeed Cache to cut page load time by more than 50%
- Cleaned up underlying HTML and semantic structure (headings, metadata, image alt tags)
5. 🧩 Site Flow & Navigation
- Rebuilt the header and navigation logic for faster access to key content types
- Added anchor links for in-page navigation on long-form articles
- Ensured every page followed predictable, user-friendly layout logic
📈 Results
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| Page Load Speed | ~4.3 seconds | ~1.8 seconds |
| Mobile Usability | Inconsistent | Fully responsive across all tested breakpoints |
| Content Clarity | Placeholder-heavy | Real, football-specific content in all major sections |
| Site Structure | Disorganized | Streamlined with proper hierarchy and action flow |
🔧 Tools & Skills Applied
- WordPress CMS + Elementor Pro
- Web performance optimization (LiteSpeed, lazy loading, image compression)
- Custom layout restructuring
- Responsive design (CSS-level adjustments and Elementor tweaks)
- Sports-style content writing and editorial strategy
- UI/UX design for mobile and desktop
- SEO foundation: semantic tags, content hierarchy, clean URLs
📌 Final Outcome
Kickstar now looks and behaves like a real football hub. It’s clean, fast, and easy to navigate—built with the end-user in mind. Whether for fans scanning for updates or casual visitors browsing player profiles, the site offers a reliable and engaging experience.
More than just visual polish, this project reflects complete ownership—from layout architecture to writing and optimization. The site is now in a position to handle regular content updates, user growth, and future expansions like ticketing or match schedules.
🚀 Why This Project Stands Out
- Shows my ability to go beyond templates and deliver a site with real function and brand relevance
- Combines technical cleanup with editorial vision
- Demonstrates full-cycle execution: planning, design, development, and post-build performance tuning
- Highlights real-world decision-making: which sections to remove, which content to feature, and how to shape the site’s voice to match the audience