Why marine businesses outgrow template websites
Yacht brokerages and private owners aren't buying a generic service. They are buying someone who already understands vessels, the water and how the industry talks. A template site hides exactly that.
- Several services, each needing to sell alone. A buyer who wants drone work, photography or presenting shouldn't have to hunt for it.
- Portfolios that don't fit stock categories. Off-the-shelf portfolio plugins force generic labels like "Photography" and "Video", and their own styling.
- A premium brand fighting its theme. Bought themes and plugin styling clash with a navy-and-gold identity and make a specialist look ordinary.
- Pricing that's hard to compare. A ladder of packages and add-ons needs to read clearly on one screen.
- The owner is at sea, not at a desk. The site has to be editable from the dashboard without calling a developer.
What I build for marine and yachting businesses
- A custom WordPress site, not a bought theme. AI WordPress website development starts from $999, with custom design on every project. The Complete package, from $2,200, gives every service its own page. Builds with custom post types and templates sit in the Advanced package from $4,500, and anything bespoke, like a custom plugin, is scoped and quoted in writing first.
- A page per service that gets found on its own. AI SEO services from $600 a month keep each service page optimized against its own keyword, with schema and content structured so AI assistants can quote it.
- Enquiries with an owner and a reply. AI CRM integration and automation from $1,100 puts every enquiry from forms, email and social into one list, with an instant reply and follow-up that keeps going until the buyer responds.
Proof: Boat Promote Marine Media
Boat Promote is run by James Dumergue, an MCA Yachtmaster Offshore captain with decades commanding luxury motor yachts, who also films them. His clients are yacht brokerages and private owners, and the business line says it all: stop explaining your boat to photographers.
I built a custom design system in navy, gold and the captain's seal rather than buying a theme. Each of the five services has its own page and keyword: drone, photography, presenting, the AI tech centre and web development. The client's four pricing tiers plus add-ons, from $399 to $1,199, are compared on one screen.
The portfolio runs on a plugin written for this site alone, with its own post type, taxonomy and templates and no third-party licence to renew. Its eight filters use the client's own vocabulary, such as Bluewater Battlewagons and Powered by the Wind, and narrow nine projects instantly with no page reload. Everything is editable from the dashboard. The site shipped in five days at a fixed $2,650.
How a marine website project runs
- Discovery. Not what pages you want, but what work you want more of, and who is buying it.
- Architecture. Sitemap, service pages and the keyword for each page, approved in writing before design begins.
- Design. A full design concept for your key pages, revised until it is right before development starts.
- Build and launch. A minimal-plugin build with your real content, then documentation, recorded walkthroughs and a live training session.
Standard, licensed WordPress tooling does most of the work, and bespoke code is written only where nothing off the shelf fits. Hosting and domain are bought in your name, so another developer can take over at any time.
You work with me directly. I've shipped 1,400+ projects since 2014 for clients in 40+ countries. Book a free 30-minute call, tell me what your business does on the water, and I'll tell you what it would take.
