This was a really fun project that came about because of the Sports Bench WordPress plugin I sell and maintain. The people that run TheCup.us, which covers the U.S. Open Cup soccer tournament, found the plugin and reached out to see if I could not only set up the plugin, but also redo their website.

Previously, they had a website that was created with a page builder, but it was starting to look dated. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the biggest budget. But we were able to work around that.

Instead of a custom website design, I gave them a few options of StudioPress themes that I could install and style to meet their needs. They selected the News Pro theme and I got to work changing the colors and getting Sports Bench set up.

There were a few custom elements that needed to be created. For example, there’s a nightly scoreboard page template that can be used to show the games for a given night and for a user to select a game and see what has happened in said game so far. Also, there are custom landing pages for the history and qualifying sections. And the page for each year of the tournament utilizes a custom page template.

In the end it was a really fun challenge. Surprisingly, the launch went pretty well, and it was great to see the positive comments from their readers about the updated design. All of the posts and pages look great no matter what device they are viewed on. And the website is set up for the future.

If you would like to do something similar for your website or build your business’ first website, check out the Small Business Website Starter Kit to learn more about how you can get started today!