Marzipan

Marzipan: The Rebuild Story

Marzipan sustainable web deign - Built with Lovable

Written by

ben

in

, ,

TL;DR

I rebuilt my agency website from the ground up. It took me over 8 weeks, two existential crises, 200+ questions to Lovable, numerous false starts with static generators, one contact component meltdown, and more conversations about redirects than I care to admit. But I made it (mostly). This is the full, unfiltered story—from nervous beginnings to structured data dreams, SEO spirals, and some very real talk about what it takes to launch a new, ultra sustainable web site that actually feels like you. Finally.

SEO Agency Sydney

Chapter 1: When Your Own Site Becomes Embarrassing

You know that feeling when you go to send someone your website and you flinch a bit? That was me. I’ve been building fast, beautiful, high-converting websites for clients for over a decade—but my own? It felt slow, outdated, and completely disconnected from where Marzipan was heading.

The truth is, the site was still ranking for things I’d long outgrown (digital content creator Sydney, anyone?) but not for what I actually wanted to be found for—like sustainable web design, AI-powered SEO, or web design Sydney. I was getting leads, but not the right ones. Something had to shift.

So I did what all web designers dread. I took the newly refreshed and rebranded website down… tore it up and started again.

There’s an old adage in web design that goes something like… “building you’re own website is a bit like cutting your own hair. Just because you can. Doesn’t mean you should…” I was determined not to fall into that trap. We’ll let you decide if we managed to pull it off or not.

Chapter 2: The Rebuild (aka The Beautiful Chaos)

The plan was simple: build a fast, flexible, future-proof site that actually felt like me. Clean design. Fast load times. Sustainable from top to tail. I had tried to make my existing, rather recently refreshed WordPress site more sustainable. It broke the design, ruined the flow and used lots of weird images. I’m not proud but it was short lived.

All around me was the buzz of AI and I was curious to see how soon it might put me out of a job. I’d experiemented in B12 and the likes this time last year and felt certain I’d never be replaced, but 12 months is a long time in the world of AI, so I dug a little deeper.

I quickly fell down a rabbit hole of Lovable and Replit. Staring with Lovable I started with the simple prompt:

“I’d like to create a super sustainable website for my marketing agency. Mazipan.com.au

We specialise in Sustainable Web Design & AI-Driven SEO for Purpose-Driven Brands
Could we use tailwind and astro to get the building blocks and content can include: home, blog, projects, services pages.

My existing website for reference is here www.marzipan.com.au.

My colours are

marzipan: ‘#F1E9D0’,
brandRed: ‘#ae2012’,
brandBlue: ‘#186074’,

Use modern eo friendly fonts

I love the tag line: Ensuring your online presence is as powerful as your purpose.

Let’s focus on best practice, sustainable design.. Less big images, more use of colour blocking, gradients and perhaps a subtle retro beachy tone
Lovable
13:34 on Apr 02, 2025

The first run scared me. In a matter of minutes my new website appeared to have been created. Just like, from a few easy prompts. Much of the basic structure of this site, you see today was generated instantly. Fast, clean, sustainable design it ticked all the boxes. It was quite exciting, but deeply concerning all at the same time.

Luckily for my ego, once you began to scratch away at the surface the initial output quickly lost it’s shine. Critical SEO errors, surface level pages that went nowhere, non-existant schema and janky AI copywriting plagued the initial site. In true AI form, it looked pretty but behind the scenes was lacking in depth and character.

Looked as though my job is safe for a little while longer yet. But I was keen to persist nonetheless.

Then came the real work: structuring content, building dynamic routes for blogs, adding scroll reveal animations, and questioning every.single.choice. I asked Lovable over 200 questions about best practices, schema, redirects, dark mode toggles, blog setups, SEO implications, and how not to break everything.

Some days I felt like a wizard. Other days I fantasised about setting the whole thing on fire and crawling back to the saefty of WordPress.

By the three-quarter mark, here’s how things looked:

🧮 By the Numbers:

  • Total Feature Requests: 28
  • Distinct Pages Built/Refactored: 11+
  • Design Iterations: 4 (hello homepage alt, footer transitions, and one failed beach theme)
  • Tools Added: 3 inclusing a Website Carbon Checker, our ‘no fluff free SEO checker‘ and a subscription based, pro-level SEO Booster that we’r particularly proud of. There’s more in the in the pipline
  • Crashes/Error Fixes: 23 (the Contact component saga / LCP issues repeatedly and a weirdply stubborn image) We got stuck on a endless update and crash loop for what felt like days. Basic changes seemed to have instant, negative, knock-on impacts to our Light house scores for weeks…
  • Mentions of “subtle animations”: 34 (trend alert)

Here are our Top Learnings for using AI web builders:

  • Ask for ALT layouts early
  • Modularise from the start
  • Performance isn’t just speed—it’s a vibe
  • Sustainability is more than messaging—it’s strategy
  • Micro-interactions really do matter

And if this were a personality test? My new BFF ChatGtp remarked: You’re site-build strategy says:

Purpose-Led Tech Head: Combining AI, performance, and ethical design with a beachy brand feel? That’s Marzipan through and through.

Visionary: Always asking, “What’s missing that would take this to the next level?”

Detail-Oriented: No hover state or margin goes unscrutinised.

I’m proud of the site I was able to build. It scores so well on a sustainability level and Google Lighthouse:

marzipan sustainable web design agency australia

Chapter 3: The Robots Are Watching

About halfway through, I hit an unexpected wobble. I’d written most of the content using AI assistance—my own thoughts, my voice, just sharpened up by the bot. But then the discourse around AI detectors exploded.

Would Google punish me? Was I risking all this effort for a site that might get flagged for being “too machine-like”?

I tested everything. I tweaked phrasing. I spiralled. And then I remembered: the ideas were mine. The strategy was mine. The AI just helped me say it faster and better. If anything, that was the point—build leaner, work smarter, and help purpose-driven brands do the same.

Chapter 4: Redirects, Regex, and Realising I May Have Broken Google

Let’s talk about the part where my SEO tanked.

At one point during the build, I split the blog and the main site—putting the blog on a subdomain while testing shiny new things over on the main one. In theory, it was tidy. In practice, it was a slow, painful slide down the rankings.

Organic traffic dipped. Keywords I’d fought hard to earn disappeared. It was like watching my own search footprint vanish in real time—and yes, it hurt.

We realised the split was costing us authority. So, with some very careful surgery, we brought it all back together: the blog now lives on /blog where it belongs, content is served via API calls from WordPress into our shiny new frontend, and the site finally speaks with one strong voice again.

It’s not glamorous, but it worked. Rankings started to recover. Google started listening again. And I learned, once again, that technical SEO decisions can make or break the whole damn thing. Instinct and experience won consitently over AI, which was frightning and reassuring all at once.

(Also: shout out to the ‘discourage search engines from indexing this site’ checkbox that nearly destroyed me.)

Oh—and the redirects. Don’t even get me started. Why was that so hard?

I wanted to tidy things up with a clean move from the old blog to /blog, but Google did not like it. I messed up page rules in Cloudflare. Served the wrong canonical tags. Got stuck in regex nightmares I wouldn’t wish on my worst client.

There were moments I was sure I’d ruined everything. Rankings dropped. Leads slowed. Even ChatGPT had to pause a few times like, “uh, give me a second to think…”

Eventually, we cleaned it up. Redirects behave (mostly). The blog structure is tight. And I sleep (a little) better at night.

Chapter 5: Feedback from the Gods

Just when I needed a sign that this was all worth it, the lovely team over at Lovable reviewed the work-in-progress. And reader, they did not hate it.

They praised the structured data, SEO implementation, user experience, semantic HTML, and accessibility.

They also kindly nudged me to go deeper: local SEO, richer image metadata, more long-form content, and some delightful micro-interactions. Fair. But they said I was right up there with the best—and honestly? That meant everything.

Chapter 6: What I’ve Learned (So Far)

A quick word of caution to any brave souls thinking about doing the same:

This was not a plug-and-play rebuild. It took technical knowledge, patience, and more than a little stubbornness. Between API integrations, static site generation, a new headless CMS, redirects, and regex headaches, this is not (yet) a client-friendly path. Unless you really love debugging page rules and hand-tweaking schema, I wouldn’t recommend going it alone. I’ve learned new skills in React and Java I never knew I needed, I’m fluent in AI prompts and I’ve new wrinkles around my eyes from scanning reems of code, looking for endpoints, and improvements.

I promise, that’s not me gatekeeping. That’s me gently keeping my business afloat while saving you from stress-induced hair loss. Cool? Cool. We love AI, we use it daily but it’s not (yet) a magic bullet to web design.

And hey—if all this sounds like a bit much (because it was for me), you know where to find us. We build fast, sustainable websites for purpose-driven brands who want to stand out without losing their sanity. We’re still using the best of human design and web development to deliver new websites for purpose driven businesses right around Australia. While I’m exicted to see where AI will take us, I’m not confident of offering AI created websites just yet.

Rebuilding your own site is wildly different from building one for a client. The decisions feel heavier. The vision is blurrier. And your inner critic? Way louder.

But it’s also the best brand clarity exercise you’ll ever do. Because every design choice, every line of copy, every button—has to feel like you. Not just polished. True.

Let’s talk about your dream site →
We’ll handle the regex.

I’m proud of what we’ve built—even if it’s not done yet. Even if I’m still tweaking scroll animations and fussing over alt text. Because this site? It finally feels like the Marzipan I want the world to meet.

If you’re still stuck with a site that doesn’t reflect where you’re going—send this to your future self. You’ll get there. Just maybe keep our number on standby. We’re here to help!

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