Sonic Charters

The starting point

The original challenge

Our work with Sonic Charters began in 2018 with an existing WordPress website. The client’s brief described well-organized content and asked for a refreshed interface, better engagement with prospective guests, and help improving the mobile experience. Global MCS delivered a WordPress theme redesign for that stage of the business.

Later, the client used AI to generate a replacement website and brought it to Global MCS for refactoring. This was a new stage in an established relationship. The task was to turn the client’s replacement into a production-ready custom PHP site, addressing the structure behind its pages as well as the experience visitors see.

The charter website brings together boats, pricing, destinations, company information, and booking links. Shared page elements need to stay consistent while each page presents its own trip information. Visitors also need a route from exploring a boat or destination to the booking service.

Maintaining the website’s SEO foundations was an important consideration throughout the redesign and refactor. The original client brief described a site that had historically performed well in organic search. Changing its presentation and technology needed to respect the existing content and search context, while keeping blog publishing straightforward for the client.

Our contribution

What Global MCS delivered

WordPress theme redesign in 2018

We redesigned the theme for the existing WordPress website. The work responded to the original brief’s focus on the user interface and mobile experience, building on the content the client already had organized. This was the first project in our relationship with Sonic Charters.

The client’s AI-generated replacement refactored into PHP

For the later website, the client supplied an AI-generated replacement as the starting point. Global MCS refactored it into a production-ready custom PHP implementation, giving its public pages a shared structure. The client’s concept and our development work belong to this later chapter of the website’s history.

Shared structure for repeated elements

The PHP implementation uses shared configuration and includes for the page head, header, footer, and other common behavior. Those components separate repeated site elements from individual page content. The structure gives later development a common place to handle shared elements instead of requiring each page to carry an independent copy.

Page-specific information within a consistent site

The site presents fleet, pricing, and destination information through connected pages. Its shared page-head implementation handles page titles, descriptions, canonical URLs, and social-preview information, while individual pages supply the details relevant to their subject.

SEO continuity through a change in technology

SEO remained part of the refactor’s requirements. Existing charter and destination content gives visitors and search engines context about the business, so maintaining that useful content matters when rebuilding the interface. Page-specific titles, descriptions, and canonical URLs provide a consistent technical foundation in the custom PHP site. Together, these elements support the goal of maintaining search visibility through the transition.

Headless WordPress for familiar blog publishing

The client retained WordPress as the publishing system for the blog, with its content integrated into the custom PHP website. This headless approach lets the team continue creating and updating posts in a familiar WordPress editor while visitors read the articles as part of the Sonic Charters website. The publishing workflow and the public website can therefore use different technologies without separating the blog from the visitor experience.

Shopify products within the charter website

We integrated Shopify into the website so visitors can browse Sonic Charters products alongside the charter information. Products are displayed within the site’s public experience, connecting the merchandise offering with the wider Sonic Charters brand while retaining Shopify as the commerce platform.

A visible path into charter booking

The current public site includes boat details and FareHarbor booking links, allowing visitors to move from learning about a boat to checking booking options. Visitors can explore the charter information on the website and continue to the established booking service when they are ready.

What the website supports

• Visitors can explore boat, pricing, and destination information on the public website.
• The site provides FareHarbor booking paths alongside its charter information.
• Shared PHP components support common navigation and page metadata across the custom site.
• The client can continue publishing blog posts in WordPress, with articles integrated into the custom website.
• Visitors can browse Shopify products through the Sonic Charters website.

The ongoing relationship

Our relationship with Sonic Charters spans projects since 2018, from the earlier WordPress theme redesign to the later custom PHP refactor. As the client’s approach to the website changed, our work moved from redesigning the existing WordPress theme to developing the client’s AI-generated replacement for production.

In the client’s words