840 MB of WordPress replaced by a static site — without losing a single URL

The problem

The official site ran on an 840 MB WordPress install on shared hosting: slow, hard to update, and exposed to endless plugin maintenance. The client wanted a site that repositioned the company — twenty years in business, around 500 operations a year, France and Europe — without losing the SEO the old site had built.

Stack

Services involved

• Marketing & editorial sites
• CMS work & WordPress exits
• SEO & visibility

What we did

• Full rebuild in plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript: no dependencies, no server build, no database to back up — the right call on shared hosting with neither Node nor nginx.
• Production switch with 301 redirects for every legacy WordPress URL, each verified one by one from the sitemap.
• All photos converted to WebP: the image folder drops from 10 MB to roughly 2.5 MB, 14 unused files removed.
• Complete English version with language switcher, hreflang, clean canonicals, bilingual JSON-LD and an annotated sitemap.
• Legal notice and privacy policy written, mandatory GDPR checkbox validated server-side, PHP contact form with spam protection.
• Full editorial repositioning run with the owner: A-to-Z service chain, five areas of expertise, direct clients separated from brands reached through agencies.
• WordPress kept intact in a dated archive: rollback stays possible at any time.