A faster, calmer home for 1,500 stories — and every ranking you've earned.
A modernization concept for greenbelt.org: move ~2,000 pages off WordPress & WP Engine onto a fast, owned platform your team actually enjoys editing — while preserving every URL, every redirect, and every hard-won position in Google.
Prepared for Daniela Ades & Tallulah Shepard · Greenbelt Alliance, Oakland CA · budgeting for next year
The site today — measured, not guessed
You've built something big. It deserves a foundation that keeps up.
greenbelt.org is a genuinely substantial site — fifteen-plus years of advocacy, research, and reporting. Today it runs on WordPress and WP Engine with Elementor, Divi and a 2020 custom theme layered on top. It works — but every edit fights the page-builder, performance and hosting cost creep, and any big change risks the SEO you've spent years earning. Here's the real footprint we'd be modernizing.
Figures pulled directly from your live Yoast sitemap on 23 Jul 2026. The blog archive alone (post-sitemap 999 + overflow 575) is why SEO preservation is the whole job, not a footnote.
Honest before → after
Same content and URLs. A completely different foundation.
Nothing here is a knock on the current site — it's a good site. This is about what a modern, owned stack buys you: speed, easier editing, lower recurring cost, and accessibility, with none of the migration risk.
The page-builder tax
Astra + Elementor Pro + Divi + a 2020 custom child theme
- –Edits mean wrestling Elementor/Divi; layout and content are tangled together.
- –Heavy plugin stack (WP Rocket, Jetpack, page-builders) to keep the site fast enough.
- –WP Engine hosting is a recurring line item that grows with traffic and storage.
- –Accessibility & Core Web Vitals are fighting the theme, not helped by it.
- –A big redesign here risks the rankings on 1,500+ posts if URLs or meta slip.
Content you own, on the edge
Static-fast pages · a friendly CMS · hosted on Cloudflare
- ✓Editors write in a clean CMS (Sanity) — content and design finally separate.
- ✓No page-builder bloat; pages render near-instantly, mobile-first by default.
- ✓Hosting folds into one flat care plan that replaces the WP Engine bill.
- ✓WCAG 2.2 AA and strong Core Web Vitals built in — better for people and for Google.
- ✓Every URL preserved or 301-redirected, every Yoast meta carried over — zero ranking loss.
The redesign concept · your content, modernized
What a modern greenbelt.org could feel like
Your real brand — leaf green, deep teal, warm cream — carried by full-bleed Bay Area landscapes and a warm editorial typeface. The six work areas, events, and the blog, all faster and easier to run. This is a direction to react to, not a finished design.
The Bay Area isn't ready for climate change. We're changing that.
Since 1958, protecting the lands and communities that make the Bay Area resilient — from wildfire buffers to climate-smart housing.
Our work
Concept layout · real Greenbelt work areas & imagery · open the live homepage →
Not just the homepage — every page type, redesigned
Your site is really a dozen different templates. We built each one as a real, clickable page — the same brand, applied to the page types you actually publish. Open any tile below, or explore the whole thing.
Why this migration is safe
The rankings stay. That's non-negotiable.
A careless migration can drop 30–60% of organic traffic overnight — and clawing it back costs more than the redesign did. Protecting your search presence is engineered into every phase, not bolted on at the end.
↺ Every URL accounted for
We preserve your existing URL structure 1:1 wherever possible, and build a complete, tested 301-redirect map for anything that must change — validated across all ~2,000 URLs before launch.
🏷️ Meta & schema carried over
Every Yoast title, description and canonical migrates intact, plus richer structured data (Organization, Article, Event, Breadcrumb) so you can gain ground, not just hold it.
📈 Watched after launch
Fresh XML sitemaps, a clean robots.txt, a 404 sweep, and two weeks of post-launch rankings + redirect monitoring so nothing slips through on day one.
A feature of your modernized site
Stay in the loop
A fast, accessible newsletter signup — this is a preview of your future site, not a live form.
✓ Thanks — this is a demo preview; on your real site this would join your mailing list.
The budget · confirming what we discussed
Confirmed: $8,000–$12,000, one-time.
You'd asked me to pin down the number for next year's budget. Here it is — as a labeled estimate, broken into fixed-fee phases, and anchored against what agencies actually charge for a job this size.
Fixed fee, phased below. Where you land in the range is driven by one thing: how much of the 1,574-post archive needs hand-reflow versus clean automated import.
- ✓ Full design refresh on your real brand
- ✓ ~2,000 URLs migrated, SEO preserved
- ✓ Friendly CMS your team owns
- ✓ WCAG 2.2 AA + Core Web Vitals
Hosting + CMS + SSL, backups, security & uptime + a monthly block of content edits. Replaces your WP Engine bill — likely a net saving.
- ✓ Cloudflare edge hosting (fast, global)
- ✓ Sanity CMS included
- ✓ Security patches & monitoring
- ✓ Cancel-anytime after year one
| Phase | What it covers | Effort | Fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 · Discovery, IA & SEO baseline | Full ~2,000-URL crawl & content inventory; SEO baseline (top pages, rankings, backlinks, meta); redirect-risk audit; information architecture; kickoff. | 14–18 hrs | $1,000–1,400 |
| 2 · Design & brand refresh | Refined system from your real brand, accessibility-first; homepage + ~7 key templates; component library; two review rounds. | 24–34 hrs | $1,800–2,600 |
| 3 · Build + CMS | Next.js front-end; Sanity schemas for 6 custom post types + pages/posts; responsive mega-menu; site search; editor roles. | 40–56 hrs | $2,400–3,400 |
| 4 · Content migration swing factor | Automated import of 1,574 posts + 155 pages + custom types; media pipeline; hand-reflow of priority Elementor/Divi pages; bilingual EN/ES. | 26–44 hrs | $1,500–2,600 |
| 5 · SEO preservation, a11y & QA | 1:1 URLs + full 301 redirect map, tested; meta & schema migration; WCAG 2.2 AA; Core Web Vitals; 404 sweep; analytics. | 18–28 hrs | $1,000–1,600 |
| 6 · Launch, training & handoff | DNS cutover from WP Engine; launch checklist; 2-week post-launch monitoring; CMS training + documentation. | 10–15 hrs | $500–900 |
| Total — confirming the range you budgeted | 132–195 hrs | $8,000–12,000 | |
Optional, when you're ready — none needed for launch
This is a labeled estimate, not an invoice — we confirm the exact figure on a 15-minute scope call once we lock the migration approach and whether the Hotspots map is rebuilt or re-embedded. See how Intense Visions works at intensevisions.com.
The plan · what happens after "yes"
A detailed ~10–12 week path, built for budgeting.
Since you're planning for next year, here's the whole sequence as relative phases with the real dependencies named — so you can slot it into a fiscal quarter with confidence. No fixed calendar date until we pick a kickoff together.
Discovery, IA & SEO baseline
Inventory every URL, capture the search baseline, and agree the sitemap & content model.
needs: WP Engine + analytics + donation-platform accessDesign & brand refresh
Homepage + key templates on your real brand, one review round, then a sign-off gate.
gate: design sign-off (end W4) · needs brand assetsBuild + CMS
Front-end and Sanity schemas for pages, posts and all six custom post types.
starts on design sign-offContent migration (overlaps build)
Automated import of the full archive + media; hand-reflow of priority pages.
needs: content-freeze decision + EN/ES scopeSEO preservation, accessibility & QA
Redirect map tested across all URLs, schema, WCAG 2.2 AA, performance, 404 sweep.
gate: redirect-map approvalYour review on staging
Full stakeholder review on a private staging URL; redirect and content spot-checks.
needs: stakeholder review roundLaunch, monitoring & training
DNS cutover, two weeks of watch on rankings & redirects, and CMS training for your team.
needs: DNS access + launch-window pickBudgeting guidance for next year
Reserve $8–12k one-time + $99/mo in the fiscal year you choose. Pick a kickoff quarter that leaves a ~3-month runway and avoids launching during the year-end giving appeal or an active election window (your Voter Guide traffic spike). A ~1-week content freeze near migration keeps reconciliation — and cost — down. Approval turnaround on the two gates (design, redirect map) is the biggest lever on the schedule.
Next step — one low-friction thing
- Book a 15-minute scope call so we can confirm the exact figure in the $8–12k range and pick a target quarter.
- We lock two decisions: Hotspots map (rebuild vs. re-embed) and bilingual scope — the two things that move the number.
- You get a one-page written estimate to drop straight into next year's budget.
The design system · here's what we'd build you
Your brand, refined into a system
Not a new identity — a disciplined version of the one you already have, tuned for contrast, speed, and a warm, credible voice.
Palette · from your real brand globals
Type · Lora + a clean system sans
Components & motif
Full-bleed landscape scenes, soft-edged cards, pill CTAs, and a signature topographic contour motif drawn from the land you protect — used sparingly as the one moment of delight.
Voice