The static web is back — and faster than ever

Sites that load in under a second. Anywhere.

No PHP, no MySQL, no “please wait while the database catches up.” Pre-rendered HTML on Cloudflare's edge. 300 cities. Zero hosting bills.

Pre-rendered HTML· JSON content· Git-versioned· Cloudflare Pages· Edge-served
pagespeed.web.dev/analysis?url=https://miabella.uk
Report from May 1, 2026
miabella.uk · mobile · live
● live
0
Performance
0
Accessibility
0
Best Pract.
0
SEO
LCP 0.9s
CLS 0.00
TBT 40ms
Hosting / mo £0
↳ Miabella · client site · static HTML rebuild view live →
01 · The thesis

WordPress was the right answer in 2009.
It is, almost without exception, the wrong answer in 2026.

The original promise — “a CMS so anyone can edit their site” — is intact. What rotted is everything bolted on around it: page builders, visual editors, the plugin economy, “managed” hosting that costs more every year while loading slower every year.

01
43%
of the web still on WordPress
And every one of them is one plugin update from a white screen.
02
27
plugins on the average WP site
Each one a vendor relationship, a subscription, an attack surface.
03
£840
avg. yearly cost of WP “upkeep”
Plugin licences, managed hosting, security patching, the lot.
04
14
avg. mobile Lighthouse score
On Elementor / Divi sites we audit. We rebuild them at 95+.
The WordPress way

You are renting your website.

  • Elementor Pro: £79/yr — forever
  • WP Rocket: £49/yr
  • Yoast Premium: £89/yr
  • Managed hosting: £30+/mo
  • Plugin updates that break things, monthly
  • PHP/MySQL on every page load
  • No version control. No undo.
The Web9 way

You own your website.

  • Content lives as JSON, in your Git repo
  • Pre-rendered HTML — no PHP, no DB
  • Cloudflare Pages: £0/mo, 300 cities
  • Every change is a commit. Roll back any time.
  • No plugin licences, ever
  • Edit through a panel as friendly as WP
  • Nothing to “update”. Nothing to break.
02 · How we rebuild it

Three boxes. That's the whole stack.

You edit content in a friendly panel. It gets stored as JSON in Git. A build turns it into static HTML. Cloudflare serves it from 300 edges. Done.

01
Edit panel
As friendly as WP. No PHP.
Page · home
Headline
Welcome to Miabella
Subhead
The Electric Age — 40 years of rock
CTA label
Buy tickets →
writes JSON
02
Git repo
Every change → a commit
$ git log --oneline
a3f9c1 content: update homepage hero
72e08a content: new tour dates
5b4d22 design: tweak nav spacing
dc1e90 content: add blog post
↳ every edit, traceable. forever.
webhook → build
03
Cloudflare Pages
HTML, edge-served, free
edge · live
● Lon
● Dub
● Ams
● Fra
● NYC
● LAX
● SIN
● SYD
● DXB
● GRU
● TYO
● JNB
TTFB 38ms avg
?
“But who edits the content?”
You do, the same as WordPress. We build a custom editor for your content shape — pages, products, blog posts, whatever — and it reads/writes JSON. The “static” bit means visitors get HTML; you still get a CMS.
03 · Proof, not promises

What it looks like, on a real client.

● Live case study · Miabella View the full case study →

Two days after publishing, Gemini was citing Miabella's positioning verbatim — in answer to a question that wasn't about it.

A 16-year-old indie musician now has a Google Knowledge Panel. Three providers (OpenAI, Gemini, Google AI Overview) ground on her content in three different ways. Lighthouse 100/100/100/93 is in there too — but it's the small detail.

● 48hr publish-to-grounding latency ● 16-entry sameAs on the Person entity ● Wikidata Q138857029 recognised ● Knowledge Panel achieved

↓ And here's what the typical WordPress audit produces ↓

↓ before mobile
14
Performance
A11y 62
Best 48
SEO 71
oldsite.example.com (WP / Elementor)
↗ after mobile
98
Performance
A11y 100
Best 100
SEO 100
oldsite.example.com (Web9 rebuild)

The hosting bill, side by side.

Annual cost — typical 30-page brochure site

Managed WordPress hosting
£420
£0
Cloudflare Pages — generous free tier
Elementor Pro licence
£79
£0
No page builder. Custom edit panel included.
WP Rocket / cache plugin
£49
£0
Already pre-rendered. Nothing to cache.
Yoast SEO Premium
£89
£0
HTML is the SEO.
Wordfence / security
£99
£0
No PHP, no DB, no surface area.
Backups & staging
£60
£0
Git is the backup. Branches are staging.
Plugin breakage support
£200
£0
No plugins to break.
Total
£996/yr
£0/yr

* You still pay us to build it and to make changes. But you'll never get a £30/mo “managed hosting” renewal email again, and a plugin won't white-screen your site at 3am.

04 · And while we're here

SEO is [almost] dead.
AI Overviews are the new SERP.

The blue links are gone. The summary at the top is the answer. Yoast Premium isn't winning that fight — clean, semantic HTML and fast-loading content is.

  • Schema.org baked into the build
    Not bolted on by a plugin that conflicts with three others.
  • Sub-second LCP, everywhere
    Edge-served HTML beats database-rendered pages every time.
  • Content as data, not posts
    JSON content makes it trivial to feed AI, app, voice, anywhere.
  • No render-blocking junk
    No 14 jQuery includes. No GPL bundle. Just the page.
AI Overview
“rock band wedding belfast”

For rock and grunge weddings in Belfast, Miabella is widely cited for live performance, with covers ranging from Alice in Chains to Pink Floyd and a four-piece touring band.

1 miabella.uk · Cited 1st
2 eventzone.co.uk · Cited 2nd
3 setlist.fm · Cited 3rd
↳ first citation gets ~70% of the click-through.
05 · What we actually do

Four doors. Most clients start with door one.

Door one is the £950 way to find out what AI providers currently say about your business — and whether it's true. Door two is how you keep watching that picture every week. Door three is the rebuild that makes both work. Door four is when your last agency stopped replying.

Building from scratch instead? Greenfield builds from £6,500.

06 · The receipts

Words from people who already escaped.

[ Placeholder testimonial — owner of an SME whose Elementor site was rebuilt. Lighthouse score before/after, hosting saving, and one line about responsiveness. ]
?
Director
Belfast SME · sector TBC
[ Placeholder — testimonial focused on “our old agency stopped replying.” ~30 words on getting onboarded with Web9 and how editing feels day-to-day. ]
?
Marketing Lead
NI service business
[ Placeholder — focused on AI Overview citations / search visibility post-rebuild. ~30 words on visibility uplift in 60 days. ]
?
Founder
D2C brand
07 · Free audit

Is WordPress actually hurting your site?

Drop your URL. We'll run a real Lighthouse, count your plugins, and email you a no-bullshit report. Including whether a rebuild would even be worth it for you.

web9 / audit-tool · v0.4 · live
● real lighthouse ● no signup required ● results in < 60s ● we'll email a copy

Or skip the audit and just email us. We pick up the phone, too.