cathyloerzel.com

Web development
Screenshot of Cathy Loerzel's homepage
Client project
Blog site
Migration
Content management
Frontend
Backend
Full-stack development
User experience

Problem Statement

A local mental health practitioner needed a professional website to establish her online presence and transition to full-time private practice. The client required complete content control without technical dependencies, including blog management, media uploads, and event scheduling.

Initial inquiry email from Cathy

The initial React SPA solution, while functional, suffered from poor SEO performance (61% score), slow load times, and an inflexible custom admin system that made content updates cumbersome and required developer intervention for design changes.

Solution Approach

  • Designed and developed a complete website redesign using modern web frameworks optimized for performance and SEO.
  • Migrated from a custom PostgreSQL backend to Sanity.io headless CMS with GROQ queries, enabling structured content management and automatic type generation.
  • Implemented Next.js with React 19 server-side rendering for improved performance and search engine optimization.
  • Created a component-based design system with 30+ reusable UI components that the client can customize through Sanity Studio without developer assistance.

Implementation Details

Next.jsReactTypeScriptSanity CMSTailwind CSSshadcn/uiNode.jsPostgreSQL

I built the current version using TypeScript, Next.js, and React 19 server components for performance and developer experience.

I integrated Sanity.io CMS with custom schemas that automatically generate TypeScript types, which eliminated any hardcoded values and reduced complexity in handling errors.

I developed a component architecture where UI elements maintain design cohesion while still allowing extensive customization through the CMS interface.

The system supports blog management, media uploads, event scheduling, and dynamic page creation, all manageable through an intuitive portal with visual editing for the user.

Results and Outcomes

Finding a list of podcasts, selecting one, and playing the audio
Searching for a term globally and finding the blog post you were looking for
Editing the website with the Sanity studio
Building a custom form in the Sanity studio
  • SEO scores increased from 61% to 98% through server-side rendering and proper metadata implementation.
  • Page load times decreased by 67%.
  • The new content management system enabled the client to operate independently, updating content and redesigning layouts without developer intervention.
  • This success led to the client achieving full-time private practice status, while at the same time, generating a reusable template that expanded my freelance business to serve additional clients.