How To Code A Simple Website From Scratch Part 1: Preparing the Design

“We’re very pleased with both the front end and back end of the build. We especially appreciate your attention to detail, communication, and the thoughtful implementation of design/functional elements throughout, which did a great job bridging the gap between our original design files and the live website. The back end also feels very clean, modular, and aligned with the scalable, sustainable development practices we’ve come to value from our partners.”

The new website has been live for a couple of weeks now, and we’re already seeing positive results. Our traffic has nearly doubled, our bounce rate has dropped by 22%, and we’re seeing increased downloads of our research….website development was one of the strongest parts of the process. I’ve been involved in dozens of website redesigns, both as a client and on the creative agency side. Nonetheless, this was the smoothest process I’ve been involved in and with the strongest end product.

When we moved from static designs to web page development, there was no loss of design fidelity. What Studio Simpatico developed looked identical to the designs they had provided, so we didn’t have to correct anything, allowing us to save a lot of time in the process. Ultimately, it was very clear that their developer and designer worked closely together and that the developer really cared about the designs.”

It’s simple really. Amber is the kind of developer you WANT to work with. She’s fast, she’s friendly, she communicates well (even across borders!), she’s straight-up about her work and her abilities and most importantly of all…she delivers what and when she promised. It has become rare in this field to find someone that knows their stuff and can deliver an amazing finished product on-budget and on-time, but Amber is definitely one of those rare gems. I’m almost remiss to spread the word about her work, because I don’t want others to know what a find she really is, but someone this talented makes you take notice. I would happily recommend Amber to any of my fellow designers, but maybe I’ll wait a little bit longer before sharing the big “secret” to my web development success. Thanks Amber, keep up the good work!”

From the myriad of WP developers on the internet, we took a gamble with Amber because of her love for knitting and London. We were not disappointed. Working with her was easy and efficient. Amber answered to our many questions and always provided us with useful suggestions. During the QA process she was infinitely patient with our changes and additions, and there were many. We are really happy with the website and so is our community!”

A truly good WordPress developer is hard to find, especially if you’re a layman. On some level, you have to have faith that the person you’re working with is smart, earnest, and just simply cares about what they’re doing. And that’s Amber. She’s affable and easy to work with. She keeps up with trends, gives honest advice if you have bad ideas, and wants to do quality work — in our case, making fast and simple-to-update WordPress sites. We’re extremely pleased with the results.”

If I had the ability to clone someone, I would clone Amber before literally anyone else. Her understanding of design and attention to detail combined with her passion for code makes her a perfect development partner. It’s easy for things to get lost in translation from design to execution, but Amber just gets it. She’s responsive and a great communicator- she makes a usually stressful process delightful.”

I work with a lot of developers on a daily basis but no one is easier to work with than Amber. All of the websites she builds is on-point to the design files, functions beautifully, and has a user-friendly CMS. Amber is very time efficient and cost- conscience.  She is also is very patient and pleasant to work with. Basically, she’s awesome and if I could clone her, I would!!”

Working with Amber was a total pleasure. She did not waste my time with any needless interactions or issues, this was greatly appreciated. The work exceeded my quality expectations. She communicated at all times very effectively, reducing typical stress when working remotely with people. In 17 years of hiring freelance designers and developers, I’ve only known one other who is as professional and pleasant to work with as Amber. I just selfishly hope that giving a great testimonial does not help mean she won’t have availability for my future needs.”

Amber took the reins of a very complicated project — a news site — and knocked it out of the park. She worked quickly to meet our exacting stylistic and technical expectations and was professional throughout the process. Amber’s attention to detail is unparalleled and she has a deep knowledge of WordPress and best practices for responsive design. The result is a well-coded site that’s easy to use and maintain. We definitely will not hesitate to rely on Amber for our next project!”

Industry professionals and clients too often underestimate how essential it is to a project to hire a top-notch front-end developer. Amber is the best there is…I cannot wait to work with Amber again.”

Working with Amber as an agency has made our process, workflow and product unbelievable. I would recommend anyone to her for development. Thank you for your attention to detail and the ability to bridge the gap from designer to development. We love you at S2N!”

Working with Amber was an absolute pleasure. Nothing was too much trouble and she totally gets responsive design, which can be somewhat of a rarity! Despite the time difference between London and Nashville, Amber always got back to us straight away. Our experience with Amber completely supports our company proposition of working ‘Freely’ – you really can work with incredible talent across the pond with fantastic results. In fact, I’d argue the communication was better than that of some of our developers in the UK! This won’t be the last time we work with Amber (if she’ll have us!).”

Best developer a gal could ask for!”

We’re awfully spoiled by your working style and professionalism”

As a designer, I’m always on the lookout for developers who’ll put as much care into bringing a site to life as I do. Amber is exactly that kind of developer. She worked with me to pick the right technical options for the project (and budget!); was quick to answer each question I had along the way; and, when the time came for the build, was meticulous in making sure everything looked and functioned just as I’d envisioned. She even went over and above to help figure out how to integrate a quirky third-party system! I eagerly look forward to working with her again.”

I’ve outsourced several web development projects to Amber and her flexibility, enthusiasm, knowledge, and quick turnaround are what keep me quoting her for more work. Her strong understanding of current development best practices, her creative eye, and her attention to detail foster a confident partnership as well as leave no room for any surprises. She’s a true pleasure to work with!”

Amber was truly a pleasure to work with and she really understood our vision for the site and she did everything in her power, even going above and beyond our initial agreement, to make that happen for us. Her attention to detail, speed in implementing both big and small elements of the site, and technological capabilities all contributed to a very successful project. She is also incredibly knowledgeable and was even willing to help us understand topics that were out of scope of her work areas. We will definitely use Amber again in the future!”

Amber is an absolute pleasure to work with, her vision and professionalism is so on point that she managed to give me exactly what I wanted, without me actually knowing what I wanted myself. Amber made moving site as stress-free as possible, and her after care services has been second to none! Thank you Amber for giving me a website to be proud of, and my customers thank you too, they now have easy navigation and product photo’s they can actually see! Best business decision I have made, I Recommend your services highly to any one that will listen”

I am very happy with the site and the work you have done. It’s such a pleasure to see the site look so exact to my design. I know I have praised you already, but it’s not often that I work with a programmer as good as you.”

We have so thoroughly enjoyed working with you and your work is fabulous! We would love to continue and send you a lot more sites.”

We really lucked out on finding Amber. She is a great developer and very easy to work with. It’s great to finally find a developer who is professional, efficient, sensitive to deadlines and understands the importance of communication. I look forward to teaming up with Amber on more projects in the future!”

I also wanted to thank you again for your great work at short notice, and your help in getting me started with WordPress and the site structure. I’ve since dug deeper into the css and php and it’s been a pleasure to find out how well everything’s been structured, so it was easy for me to make adjustments and additions.”

I am so so so pleased with the outcome. You did such a fantastic job, and the entire process has been so quick! I mean, unbelievably quick. I will tell every designer that I know (that doesn’t have ego issues about coding their own stuff) that you are the jam and that I highly recommend you!”

As a designer, I couldn’t ask for a better developer to work with! Her vast ability and knowledge allows me to expand the breadth of my creativity and offer more to our clients. All around fantastic developer and person to work!”

When it came time to develop the site for our most prized app launch, there was only one choice….Amber!”

Amber is one of the most efficient and talented developers we have had the pleasure of working with. All her work is clean, well coded and delivered on time…Well done!”

Amber was an absolute pleasure to work with on our e-commerce site. She definitely exceeded our expectations by finishing the project extremely quickly and efficiently. She has the technical expertise to handle any problem. She is completely professional and we would work with her again in a heartbeat.”

Working with you was an absolute pleasure. Usually I have to spend huge amounts of my time comparing the live version to my mock ups and detailing dozens of tweaks. You copied my look exactly, lined everything up beautifully and used extremely high quality code. I really look forward to working with you on more projects in the future.”

Amber is one of the best developers we have done business with. She is extremely knowledgeable in her field, and is an absolute pleasure to work with. She rearranged her busy schedule to ensure our site was launched in time for a large presentation we had, and even launched it a day early. Her prices are extremely competitive and her customer service is top notch. We will be hiring Amber for many more web projects in the future”

You rock. I’ll send you more money.”

Finding great people to work with is tough; that’s why I’m excited that Amber was able to help me out. What I got back is clean and beautiful, and it’ll go a long way towards helping me release something my users are going to love. In other words: she kicks ass!”

Most people love to claim that they are fast, reliable, good communicators and highly skilled. The difference however, between Amber and everyone else is the fact that she really does embody all of those things and more. I was seriously impressed by her tenacity and enthusiasm for seeing our project through and making every tiny detail absolutely perfect. I can’t recommend her highly enough.”

Amber is our main go-to front end developer. Everything about her and her business is professional. She is fun to work with and one of those rare to find “stick with it until it’s great” people. She is detail oriented and has the knowledge of photoshop and design to help with the transition to front end development. I highly recommend her for your next project.”

Amber was great to work with. She always responded to my emails in a timely manner and always had the answer to any problem I was having. There is no doubt I will be asking Amber for help with future projects.”

Amber is a fantastic developer! She has great attention to detail and an honest passion for her work that is very rare these days. Her passion and drive obviously and honestly comes through in everything she does. I would recommend Amber for any web project.”

It was a pleasure working with Amber Weinberg. She has the technical skills to make designs into usable, SEO friendly websites exactly like the design mock-ups I created. Her customer service is bar none. I would be hard-pressed to say there is another developer I’d rather have working on my website designs. Amber rocks!”

We worked with Amber on our e-commerce website. She accomplished the difficult task of matching our designs and creating custom CoreCommerce templates for us that we are able to maintain without much effort. Amber is very knowledgeable, extremely professional and really efficient. We would love to work with her again. In fact, I’m already recommending her to some of my other contacts.”

I’ve come across very few contractors who aren’t just skilled, but more importantly reliable. Amber not only embodies both of those qualities, she’s extremely fast to boot!”

Great turnaround! Very nice work…Our developer was impressed…We’re already talking about some additional work we can send your way. So expect to hear more from us!”

I must say thank you for doing it so fast and being such a good communicator. Other programmers I have worked with seem to take forever in getting me a response.”

Appreciate all your hard work on this project. Definitely happy with your work!”

You’ve been very professional and have far exceeded my expectations. I can’t say that about many Freelancers I’ve worked with in the past…”

You’ve really helped us out of a crunch with this one, we really appreciate it. You are very easy to communicate with and produce quality code.”

Amber was very professional, and has represented this hospital well on many occasions in the areas of marketing, advertising, public relations and internal and external communications. I can truly say that Amber is one of the most motivated people I’ve ever worked with. She tackles every job with energy and expertise.”

Wow! We’ve worked with plenty of graphic designers in our time, but Amber takes the cake. After one conversation she understood what we were all about and what we wanted to achieve and translated that into a visual identity that perfectly captured us. Amber is smart, intuitive and talented. In addition she’s price-conscious and provides quick turnaround. Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, we found out she’s fun to work with.”

…from a design and SEO perspective, the new site is significantly better than the old one. Previously, Google couldn’t find any of our food pantries — the pantries didn’t even have their own URL. On the new site, Google is indexing each of our 8,000 pantries’ URL.

Our staff and stakeholders love our new website. In fact, the new site has given us the confidence to talk with a big-box retailer. We wouldn’t have been able to do that before; we would have seemed an unprofessional program. The new site presents us as someone a corporate partner would want to work with.”

Our website has received an overwhelming amount of positive feedback! The design, brand updates the navigation, the stellar backend – it’s all seamless. We previously had a challenge communicating the variety of work our organization does and the new site helps us demonstrate our impact!

…our website was not only visually stunning, but also highly functional and user-friendly. Their backend system was intuitive and easy to navigate, making managing the website so easy! In addition, the way they managed the project and communicated with us was exceptional.”

Everybody loved the website delivered by Studio Simpatico, and they did such a fantastic job that we had no complaints. They exceeded expectations. I can’t think of anything they could improve; they were perfect.”

What stood out most about Studio Simpatico was their systematic approach to building a custom content management WordPress theme that aligned seamlessly with the vision of design. They demonstrated an impressive ability to combine creativity with practicality, delivering a thoughtfully designed solution tailored to our needs. Additionally, their responsiveness and clear communication throughout the project ensured that every detail was addressed promptly, resulting in a great final product.”

The outcomes of our new website have been immediately clear across our team and network. Internally, the difference has been night and day—updating the site is faster, cleaner, and no longer something we dread or avoid. Our staff has full control over content now, and we value our real-time support. That shift alone has made our communications more nimble and consistent.

Externally, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Funders, grantee partners, and peers have all commented on how much clearer and more inviting the site feels. The design presents our work with a new level of professionalism, and the added functionality—like our grantee map, searchable grant pages, and blog archive—makes it much easier for visitors to find and engage with our programs. We’ve also felt more confident directing people to the site in outreach and partnership conversations, which has translated into stronger visibility and more meaningful connections.”

Timelines and expectations were met and all Studio Simpatico team members were super engaged throughout the process, readily answering questions as they came up. We especially want to highlight their web development / UX experience – they were great partners in website creation and we love the final product.”