A custom home builder and remodeler in Central Texas was paying about $60 a month in hosting and plugins to keep a WordPress and Divi site alive. Andes Development first built service-specific landing pages for its Google Ads campaigns, then moved the whole site to Astro: 60+ static pages, mobile performance that went from 35 to 99 in PageSpeed Insights, and a visual editor so the client's team updates content without touching code.
// The challenge
The builder wanted to grow through paid and organic search, but its platform was working against it. The key challenges were:
- A Site That Charged Rent 35 pages, 28 posts, and 424 media files on WordPress and Divi, with monthly plugin updates and a fixed cost that did nothing for the business.
- Ads with Nowhere to Land Google Ads needed one page per service (whole-home remodels, kitchens, bathrooms, additions, and custom homes), each with a single call to action and measurable conversions.
- Keep What Google Already Trusts 77 indexed URLs, posts with traffic, and an active Business Profile: the migration couldn't break a single link.
- Marketing Autonomy Copy, projects, and the blog had to be editable without waiting on a developer.
- From the Event Floor to the Gallery The builder shows up at community events and needed its work one QR scan away, on a phone, in seconds.
// The technology solution
Andes Development built the landing pages first, then the full site, on the same static foundation:
- Landing Pages per Service Five pages on a dedicated subdomain, each with an embedded form and its own thank-you page, where the conversion is recorded. Leads arrive by email and in a shared spreadsheet.
- The Full Site on Astro Astro 5 and Tailwind v4, zero JavaScript by default, and typed content collections for services, projects, blog, and cities: 7 services, 8 case studies, 28 migrated posts, and a 63-answer FAQ.
- An SEO Migration with No Losses 301 redirects for every WordPress URL, a sitemap with real last-modified dates, per-page JSON-LD, and a Search Console coverage audit right after cutover.
- Ready for AI Assistants An llms.txt file and a Markdown twin of every page, so AI assistants quote the right content.
- Secure by Architecture A static site in the client's own AWS account, with no database or exposed admin panel, a strict CSP, HSTS, and a closed list of third-party services.
- Visual and AI-Assisted Editing Marketing edits in CloudCannon; the technical team updates with AI against documentation and brand rules versioned in the same repository.
- A Before-and-After Gallery A full-screen feed that opens from printed QR codes, shipping just 1.8 KB of JavaScript.
Forms live with a specialized provider by design: the site stores no personal data, so there's no database to defend.
// Results and key wins
The migration was measured before and after with PageSpeed Insights, on the same home page:
-
35 → 99
Home page mobile performance, before and after the move: LCP dropped from 4.4 s to 1.7 s, blocking time from 2,510 ms to zero, and accessibility rose from 76 to 100. On desktop, 79 to 100. All 64 pages on the new site score 97 to 100 on mobile. -
2 Weeks
From the WordPress export to the complete site; the service landing pages were built on day one. -
Zero Plugins
No WordPress licenses or updates: the site runs in the client's AWS account and the code is 100% theirs.
// The bottom line
The builder went from paying to keep a WordPress theme alive to owning a fast, measurable site, with landing pages that speak the language of each ad. Marketing publishes on its own, and every page loads almost instantly on the phone of someone planning a remodel. It's the same static foundation we use across our projects: secure by design, ready for search engines and AI assistants, and free of vendor lock-in.