TRAVEL & TOURS · FULL REDESIGN · OCTOBER 2026
Medieval history tours, with a modern front door.
Plantagenet Discoveries runs small-group medieval history tours through France and England, hosted by founder Max. She’d written a whole library about the dynasty. The website just wasn’t leading anyone from those stories to a tour. So we gave it a full facelift, and a path to follow.
A library of history with no front desk
Max had done the hard part already. Dozens of blog posts, a long-running series on the Plantagenets, book reviews, three beautifully planned 2027 tours.
But the best reasons to book were scattered across other pages. Older tour pages were still showing up in Google with out-of-date details. And nothing gently walked a curious reader from a story about the White Ship to a seat on the coach.
Her words, not mine
Max is a careful, considered writer, and her voice is a big part of why people travel with her. So the rule from day one was simple: the design could change completely, but the words stayed hers.
Every heading and every line came from what Max had already written, or was checked with her before it went up.
WHAT THE AUDIT FOUND
Not a thin site. An unorganised one.
The answer wasn’t more content. It was building a few pages that organise what was already there, and pointing all of it towards the tours.
WHAT I BUILT
A full facelift, with a path from story to booking
A complete redesign — royal purple kept, with a gold accent taken from the broom sprig in the logo, the plant the Plantagenets were named after.
Navigation people can follow — Tours, Travelling With Us and Explore History, so every visitor knows where to go next.
The reasons to book, up front — Google rating, a 20-guest maximum, Max hosting every tour and no-fee monthly payments, all in the first screen.
New pages that answer the big questions — How to Book, Payment Options, Solo Travellers, Guest Reviews and Past Journeys.
Old tour pages reframed, not deleted — past tours became Past Journeys, and anything with no future was redirected, so the search history came along.
Register your interest for 2028 — so readers who aren’t ready yet still have a next step.
A blog that sorts itself — tags and filter pills, so readers can browse people, places, personal stories and travel tips.
SEO foundations — one clear heading per page, rewritten titles and descriptions, and tour URLs kept exactly as they were.
COOL FEATURE ONE
A history series that files itself
Rise of a Dynasty is Max’s series on the Plantagenets, told in order from the White Ship onwards. It deserved a proper home, without becoming another page to maintain.
So the series page builds itself. Max writes the next part as a normal blog post, adds one tag, and it appears on the page in the right place. Part 1 sits at the top, and the newest part is found automatically.
No lists to update, no code to touch. Just keep writing.
Max writes a blog postExactly the way she always has
She adds one tag“Rise of a Dynasty”
The series page updatesIn reading order, Part 1 first
That’s itThe blog features the series automatically too
COOL FEATURE TWO
“Chat with Max”, from any page
Max’s guests come from all over the world, and most want to talk to a real person before they commit to two weeks in France. Max hosts every tour, so that person is her.
A gold “Chat with Max” button floats on every page. One tap opens a little panel with her photo and three ways to reach her: WhatsApp, Messenger or email.
It even explains the time zones, so nobody wonders why a message sent at 3am her time hasn’t had a reply yet.
FROM GOOGLE REVIEWS
“Looking at my website now, I can hardly believe how professional and well thought out it looks.”
“Nothing is ever too much trouble for Dana. Even all my little OCD, fussy requests were met with patience and a willingness to get everything just right.”
Max · Plantagenet Discoveries
THE DESIGN
Before and after
IN MAX’S WORDS
Four years after launching her first website, Max wrote about everything the business has taught her, and called the new site “sparkling”.
It’s a lovely read about itineraries, hotels, guests and what it really takes to run a small tour company. Well worth five minutes with a cuppa.
Read Max’s blog →And the numbers? The redesign went live in October 2026, so it’s too soon for results worth reading. Analytics are tracking from launch, and I’ll update this page once the 2027 booking season has had its say.
SERVICES USED
What this involved
A note on this site. Max can edit her own website, and that’s rather the point. Some copy, imagery and layout may have changed since I finished the work. What’s described here is what I built and why.
Written plenty, but nobody’s booking?
If your blog is full of good stories that never lead anywhere, you probably don’t need more content. You need a path through what you’ve already got. I’ll show you where it should go.
Request your free audit