A bold personal brand website for a former Wigan Warriors and Great Britain rugby league professional — now one of the UK's most powerful voices on mental health. Custom 16-template WordPress theme, video hero, speaking topics, testimonials, and a full booking enquiry system.
Danny Sculthorpe is a former professional rugby league player who represented Wigan Warriors, Wakefield Wildcats, and Great Britain. After a career cut short by serious injury — and a deeply personal battle with mental health — Danny rebuilt his life and now speaks nationally and internationally about mental health, resilience, and the importance of talking.
Danny needed a website that matched the weight of his story. Not a generic speaker template with stock photos and a contact form — something that put his personality, his journey, and his message front and centre. The design had to be bold enough to stand out in a crowded speaking market while remaining accessible and human.
The brief covered a full personal brand build — custom WordPress theme, video hero, speaking topic pages, testimonials from event organisers, media appearances, and a booking enquiry form that captured the right information without creating friction. Everything SEO-structured so Danny ranks when organisations search for mental health speakers in his area.
Danny's palette — black, gold, teal, and purple — was chosen to reflect the duality of his story: the darkness of mental health struggle and the brightness of recovery and purpose. Bebas Neue for display headings gives the site the same bold, punchy energy Danny brings to a room. Montserrat for navigation and Source Sans 3 for body copy keep the reading experience clean and accessible. The overall effect is premium and powerful without tipping into corporate.
The full site was built as a 16-file custom WordPress theme — every template written from scratch, no page builders, no bloat. Templates cover the homepage, full biography, speaking topics (mental health in sport, resilience, workplace wellbeing), testimonials, media appearances, mental health resources, blog archive and single post, contact, booking, and supporting pages. Each template is mobile-first and fully responsive, loading fast on every device.
The homepage opens with a full-screen video hero — Danny in his element, speaking on stage. This is the single most important design decision on the site: within three seconds of landing, visitors see exactly who Danny is and what he does. The hero overlays his core message and a primary CTA to book a call, with a smooth scroll transition into the biography section below.
The booking form captures event type, preferred date, expected audience size, organisation, and a brief description of the event — everything Danny needs to respond with availability and a quote. Configured via WP SMTP to deliver reliably to his inbox, with each enquiry arriving as a clear, structured summary. The form is low-friction by design — enough to qualify the enquiry without creating barriers to conversion.
Danny's site is structured so Google understands exactly who he is. Person schema declares his name, occupation, description, and areas of expertise — making him eligible for Knowledge Panel visibility in branded searches. FAQPage schema covers common questions about booking and topics. BreadcrumbList schema throughout. Google Search Console verified on launch day, XML sitemap submitted, and all key pages manually requested for indexing.
Personal Brand Speaker Website Case Study: This case study details how Mako Digital designed and built a custom WordPress website for Danny Sculthorpe, a former Wigan Warriors rugby league professional and mental health speaker based in Wigan, Greater Manchester. The project included a fully custom 16-template WordPress theme with a black, gold, teal and purple brand palette, Bebas Neue display typography, a full-screen video hero, speaking topic pages, testimonial sections, media appearances, and a structured booking enquiry form with WP SMTP email delivery.
The project also included Person schema markup for Google Knowledge Panel visibility, FAQPage and BreadcrumbList schema, Google Search Console verification and indexing on launch day, GA4 conversion tracking for booking enquiries, and LiteSpeed performance optimisation throughout. Every Mako Digital project includes our 10-point delivery checklist covering design, lead handling, domain setup, email, security, SEO, performance, analytics, and ongoing support.
Whether you're a speaker, coach, consultant or creator — we'll build a personal brand site you're proud to send people to.