Secure Enterprise CMS for Media Company

Outcome Snapshot
Redesigned a high-traffic B2C media site into a scalable, secure WordPress-powered CMS that handles 1900+ content pages, 5,000 media files, and sustained traffic spikes—while significantly increasing user engagement and SEO performance.

The Strategic Challenge
The client, a niche content-focused media company, needed more than a facelift—they needed a platform that could:

  • Scale with their content volume and growing audience
  • Support editorial agility with frequent content reshuffling
  • Handle large images and downloads without slowing performance
  • Improve UX across devices, especially mobile
  • Resolve persistent security vulnerabilities
  • Be staff-manageable without developer dependency

Their legacy CMS was buckling under scale and complexity, causing performance issues, security risks, and missed engagement opportunities.

My Role

  • Led full project strategy and execution
  • Defined content reorganization plan and mobile-first UX
  • Created visual design and editorial layout strategy
  • Managed distributed development team
  • Personally directed implementation of security, performance, and editorial workflows
  • Collaborated with client team to ensure adoption and future scalability

Strategy + Solution
Rather than investing in a high-cost proprietary CMS, I architected a secure, enterprise-grade solution using WordPress. Leveraging a commercial theme, smart plugin stack, and lean custom code, the site was rebuilt to be fast, stable, and flexible—with robust SEO baked in.

Key solution features:

  • Custom editorial workflow to support fast content updates and content reordering by trend
  • Responsive, mobile-first UX to capture growing mobile traffic
  • Gated downloads managed through a secure forms ecosystem
  • Third-party newsletter integration to support user retention
  • SEO-optimized architecture and content model
  • Performance strategies that sustained traffic spikes in a shared hosting environment
  • Secure plugin stack, updated core, and admin best practices to eliminate prior vulnerabilities

Business Impact

  • +16% new users
  • +18% total sessions
  • +19% page views
  • Significantly improved mobile experience and engagement
  • Streamlined content operations and internal updates
  • Resolved security concerns that had previously disrupted uptime

This case demonstrates my ability to lead enterprise CMS transformations with limited resources, deliver high-impact performance improvements, and align modern UX with editorial agility and business growth.