The same website, moved off WordPress and five times faster
A land clearance contractor kept the design they had and changed what runs underneath. WordPress to Next.js and Sanity, every address kept, and the homepage on a phone test down from 15.2 to 2.8 seconds.
2.8s
Main content on a phone (was 15.2s)
pbforestry.com · October 2026
The rebuilt homepage: the same design as the WordPress original, now on Next.js and Sanity. Live since 24 September 2026.
Homepage, simulated phone test
Same look, a fraction of the wait.
2.8sMain content on a phone (was 15.2s)
96Phone speed score (was 65)
37Files to load the homepage (was 99)
Where PB Forestry started.
PB Forestry & Landscaping is a commercial land clearance, fencing and tree safety contractor, with offices in Warwickshire and Bristol. The design of their website was staying. What ran underneath it was the problem: WordPress with the Elementor page builder, pulling in 27 scripts and 34 stylesheets before anyone saw the homepage.
So the brief was narrow on purpose. Move the site to a faster platform, keep it looking the same, keep every address Google already knew, and let the team edit it themselves.
Keep the existing design, page for page.
Keep every live URL, typos included.
Keep the enquiry form, attachments and all.
Make it fast on a phone.
Approach
Copy the design. Replace everything under it.
Nobody visiting the site should notice the move, apart from the speed.
A faithful rebuild
There was no design file, so the live site was the spec: its pages, its Elementor styles and its images. Each rebuilt page was compared side by side with the original at desktop and phone widths until the two matched.
59 pages rebuiltSide-by-side checksDesktop and phone
A new platform
Next.js on Vercel, with the content in Sanity so the team can change text and images without touching code. The enquiry form still takes attachments up to 8MB, as the old one did, and enquiries still land in the same inbox.
Next.js on VercelSanity CMSEnquiry formCookie consent
Same addresses, less weight
Every live page kept its exact address, including one with a typo in it. The handful of old paths that had to change got permanent redirects. The homepage went from 99 files to 37, and from 2.2MB to 1.2MB.
URL parityRedirectsSitemapImage loading
Timeline
From WordPress to live.
May 2026Start
The live site becomes the spec
With no design file to work from, we captured the WordPress site page by page, styles and images included, and started rebuilding it in Next.js with Sanity behind it.
Jul 2026Review
Every page checked against the original
59 pages rebuilt and compared with the old site at desktop and phone sizes. The client reviewed the preview, and we worked through their notes.
Sep 2026Launch
The new site goes live on 24 September
We moved the domain over to the new site on 24 September 2026. The first enquiry came through the new form three days later.
Oct 2026Where we are
Five times faster on a phone
In the same test on the same day, the old homepage took 15.2 seconds to show its main content on a simulated phone. The new one takes 2.8. Google's real-visitor data for the new site is still building up, and we'll add it here once there's enough of it.
2.8sand still measuring
Speed in detail
Old homepage against new, same test, same day.
Both homepages were tested on 13 October 2026 with Google's Lighthouse on a simulated mid-range phone. Three runs each; we kept the middle result.
2.8sMain content on screen
Down from 15.2 seconds on the old WordPress site.
1.0sPage visually complete
Down from 7.4 seconds. Lighthouse calls this the Speed Index.
1.2MBHomepage weight
Down from 2.2MB.
37Files to load the homepage
Down from 99.