A bilingual brand site and shop, through its relaunch

The brand’s new site and shop were close to launch but not ready. In August 2024 they still had placeholder content and no English version, and a designer had just delivered a new design for parts of them. The agency had built the site on Elementor Pro, WooCommerce and WPML, and it had to go live and then be looked after.

I brought the buttons to one style across all pages and asked the designer to check it. I rebuilt the header as one sticky header that shrinks on scroll, with a new language switcher that shows both languages at once on phones. Team names went on two lines, so every card lines up. I set up the contact form in German and English, with translated fields, messages and an auto-reply, and tested it by sending from both versions.

Bugs that turned out to be settings

Several reported bugs came from settings. The English menu was empty because the pages were not translated in WPML. A magazine block was empty because it was limited to one category. A hotspot had its own hover style. I explained each one, so the team could handle it next time, and showed them on the live site how to create translations for both page types. I tested plugin updates on a separate copy first, and the live site stayed untouched.

The site moved from its pre-launch build to the live domain in October and November 2024, in German and English, with the shop.