AT Rent – converting an HTML template to WordPress
#wordpress #html #rentalfunctionality
Background
AT Rent rents out cars, vans, minibuses and electric vehicles in Tallinn. The client had a website running on WordPress. It had gone through a technical refresh a couple of years earlier, but on that occasion the update amounted to moving the data onto a slightly newer version of WordPress. That kept the site in line with a current PHP version. Unfortunately no significant visual or functional improvements were made – the appearance became a little more modern, but the larger changes were left undone.
The client also faced considerable challenges on the content management side. Adding a new car, or changing the details of an existing vehicle, meant making changes in five different places. There was also no simple, modern way of showing vehicle availability. We proposed to the client that we could at least rebuild vehicle management and make it centralised. During those conversations it became clear that AT Rent needed rather more functionality than that.
The solution
We decided to build a custom solution based on a template that had already been designed and built in static HTML. We connected it to WordPress and added search and booking functionality using suitable plugins. Connecting an HTML template to WordPress is nothing new in itself, but this project is an excellent example of how to create a functional and attractive website on a small budget, with a design distinctive enough to stand out.
We often find that HTML templates offer considerably more distinctive and stylish designs than ready-made WordPress solutions. The reason is that many templates built for WordPress rely on Elementor or Visual Composer. Producing the solutions a design calls for is difficult with those tools without considerable effort, which in turn demands more from the template’s authors.
It is also worth noting that ready-made WordPress templates often bundle a great many plugins in order to cover the functionality the design requires. These plugins tend to be general-purpose and free, but the result is a slower website weighed down by excess code and resources. Clients often do not need much of that functionality at all, which makes the whole system inefficient.
For the AT Rent solution we took the suitable content elements from the HTML template and connected them to WordPress using our favourite plugin, ACF Pro. For the car rental functionality we used a plugin called Car Rental System. The project took five working days in total to finish the site and make it ready to go live. The biggest challenge proved to be adapting the rental plugin to the client’s specific needs.
The result
The client now has a very capable solution in which managing vehicles is many times faster and more convenient. Users can search for vehicles, see their availability and make bookings. Bookings are saved into the system and displayed in the availability calendars, and various notifications are sent about them. The design is deliberately simple and clear, offering an intuitive user experience.
Managing the site’s content elements has been made considerably easier for the client. The site loads very quickly even on modest hosting. In our judgement this project delivered a great deal of value for the money.
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