Web design

Designing Seattle Websites Since 2005

Eagle Eye Painting screenshot

A rebuilt WordPress site for Eagle Eye Painting, a family-owned Seattle residential painting company.

This project involved cloning a commercial (paid) Theme Forest Theme (Salient) into a WordPress-approved open source Theme. Project goals were to improve performance, security, and content management. Plugins were consolidated and limited to simplify site management and improve page load speed. PHP 5.6 (deprecated in  December 2018) was upgraded to version 7.3 on the existing web host. By reducing overall page size 35% and web server requests 59% – page load speed improved 3 fold.

Salient’s  heavyweight Visual Composer editor was replaced by WordPress’ native Gutenberg Block Editor, customized and color-coordinated around the company’s existing brand identity. The painters can now more intuitively edit content and duplicate Portfolio template layouts to showcase new painting jobs.

Scott is the best! I highly recommend him. The “responsive” in his business name is no joke – he is lightning fast and not only knows his stuff but communicates clearly and patiently to boot. If you’re looking to replace frustration with competence and clarity, look no further than Marlow-Five-0.
Dianna Elam, office manager
Eagle Eye Painting, LLC

Scope of Work

Mobile Responsive Theming
Performance Optimization
Security Hardening
WordPress Training and Consulting

Google Lighthouse benchmarks
Mobile Page Load Speed: 84/100
Desktop Page Load Speed: 97/100
Accessibility: 100/100
Best Practices: 100/100
SEO: 93/100

WordPress Theming by: Scott Marlow

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DentistLink – Powered by WordPress

DentistLink screenshot

A redesigned website for DentistLink, a free non-profit referral service connecting Washington residents to dental care. DentistLink is supported by Arcora Foundation, the foundation of Delta Dental of Washington.

Page load speed was improved thru a 64% reduction in overall page size, a 21% reduction in web server requests, and a new WPEngine hosting platform. The new Theme integrates the WordPress Gutenberg Block Editor for more advanced layout and styling options. A Google Translate feature makes the site more accessible to under-served populations.

Scope of Work

  • Mobile responsive theming
  • Performance optimization
  • Security hardening

Google Lighthouse benchmarks
Accessibility: 100/100
Best Practices: 73/100
Performance: 92/100
Search Engine Optimization: 100/100

Visual Design by: David Owen Hastings
WordPress Theme Development by: Scott Marlow

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Weebly to WordPress Website Work

Family Voices of Washington screenshot

A redesigned website for The Family-to-Family Health Information Center – a nonprofit organization that helps families of children and youth with special health care needs, and the professionals who serve them, to find healthcare funding.

The 1.6 Mb Weebly homepage has been converted to a 625 Kb WordPress landing page (a 61% page size reduction), with 30% fewer web server requests, which results in better mobile performance.

ADA accessibility improvements included color contrast, ARIA elements, a keyboard-navigable menu with a site search option, reduced line widths for easier readability, and a Google Translate feature.

Scope of Work

  • ADA (WCAG AA) accessibility improvements
  • Mobile responsive theming
  • Performance optimization
  • Security hardening

Google Lighthouse benchmarks
Accessibility: 98/100
Best Practices: 98/100
Desktop Performance: 98/100
Mobile Performance: 70/100
Search Engine Optimization: 100/100

WordPress Theme Development by: Scott Marlow

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Discover WordPress

Venture fund website screenshot

My latest website build for Tacoma Venture Fund, investing in early stage companies in Pierce County. This new WordPress site features bold typography, accentuated with quality duotone and black & white imagery, in a clean, modern layout optimized for larger resolution monitors.

Site Statistics

Google PageSpeed Insights
Mobile Optimization: 94/100
Desktop Optimization: 99/100

WebPageTest Speed Index: 1.767 (median = ~3.519; top 10% = <1.381)

Total Page Size: 388 Kb (In 2019, the average page size was ~ 2.4 Mb; median = ~1.9 Mb)
Total Web Server Requests: 21 (3 images + 7 scripts + 6 CSS files + 2 Font + 1 HTML) Database-driven sites are performance-optimized when requests are < 20 – 40
Page Load Speed: ~2 seconds

Site Credits

Visual Design: Heidi Grace
WordPress Theme Development: Scott Marlow

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