A big website that nobody could safely update
Islandeering is the home of explorer and author Lisa Drewe. It covers hundreds of UK islands, paddleboarding routes, walks and wild swims, and sells signed copies of her guidebooks. Her work has been featured by BBC News, The Guardian, The Sunday Times and Outdoor Swimmer.
By 2024 the website had become a liability. It couldn’t be updated without breaking, and even the web company that built it said it couldn’t be fixed. For a site that lives on constant new content, that was a serious problem.
The structure didn’t help either. Hundreds of islands and routes were squeezed under a handful of menu headings, and the map that was meant to tie it all together was rudimentary and broken.
A site built to grow had stopped being able to change at all.
A fresh build, a structure that scales, and a map that works
A new site on WordPress
We rebuilt the site from scratch on WordPress, with a WooCommerce shop for Lisa’s signed books. We brought across the content worth keeping, dropped the pages the client no longer wanted, and gave pages cleaner URLs, redirecting every old address to its new home so nothing already earning traffic was lost.
A logical menu structure
We agreed a new structure with the client, then built it. Destinations now run from nation to region to island group to island, with separate routes into paddleboarding, walks and swims. Areas still being written up sit in the menu as “coming soon”, so new pages slot straight into place when they’re ready.
An interactive routes map
We replaced the old map with a proper interactive one:
- 523 locations across Britain, from islands and paddleboarding routes to campsites, motorhome stops, accommodation and pit stops
- Nine categories visitors can switch on and off
- A distance search, so people can find what’s near them
- Markers that link straight through to the matching route or island page
GPX route downloads that grow the mailing list
Visitors can download GPX files of the routes to load onto their phone or GPS. To get one, they enter their email address, turning each download into a conversion: a new contact on Lisa’s mailing list. That works alongside the standard sign-up forms across the site.
Built around a client who is rarely at a desk
The project ran for about six months, from the first meeting to launch in June 2024. Lisa travels constantly, exploring for her books and articles, and wanted to rewrite much of the content herself. So we built the structure first and let the content fill it as she went.
A website that keeps growing without breaking
The new site launched in June 2024. Every changed URL was redirected, and with careful WordPress SEO, search traffic held up through the relaunch.
Since then the client has added around a hundred new articles, plus whole new sections such as a run of Scottish island pages at the end of 2025, all slotting into the structure without any help from us. Beyond the occasional support call or email, the site simply runs.
- Content: over 500 pages and posts, and growing
- Map: 523 locations in nine categories, each linking to its page
- Shop: signed books and bundles sold directly from the site
- Email list: grows from GPX route downloads as well as the sign-up forms
- SEO: built to be search-friendly from the start, with clean URLs and redirects in place