Case Study · Trade

A personal brand site for a rugby league legend turned mental health speaker.

Custom WordPress site for Danny Sculthorpe — former Wigan Warriors, Wakefield Wildcats, and Great Britain rugby league player, now a national mental health speaker. Video hero, premium typography, speaking topic pages, full booking flow.

Visit Live Site See the Build
Live · 5★ Google
assetroofinglimited.co.uk
Danny Sculthorpe website shown across desktop, tablet, and mobile devices
Client Danny Sculthorpe
Industry Mental Health Speaker
Location Wigan, Greater Manchester
Build Type Custom WordPress Personal Brand
Live Site dannysculthorpe.co.uk
Year 2026
The Brief

A mental health speaker that needed a website to match the work.

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.

Build Specifications

The build, decoded.

Every Mako Digital case study includes a complete build specification — the actual technical decisions that made the project what it is.

Build Type Custom WordPress personal brand
Pages 20+ pages incl. 6 speaking topics + 6 formats
Theme Bespoke — coded from scratch
Page Builder None — custom PHP throughout
Hero Treatment Full-screen looped video
Typography Bebas Neue + Montserrat + Source Sans 3
Brand Palette Black / Gold / Teal / Purple
Booking System Amelia (free trial / £0 services)
Iconography Font Awesome Pro
Schema Markup Person + Service ×6 + FAQPage + BreadcrumbList
SMTP Configured (website@dannysculthorpe.co.uk)
Build Time 4 weeks brief to live
Our Approach

Five build decisions that shaped the final site.

Every Mako Digital build follows a documented approach — consistent across every project, calibrated to each client’s industry, brand, and customer journey.

01

A brand that carries the weight of the story

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.

02

Video hero — the most important design decision

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.

03

Speaking topic pages structured for SEO and credibility

Six dedicated speaking topic pages cover the core themes Danny delivers on — mental health, resilience, performance under pressure, talking about it, suicide prevention, and the warning signs to watch for. Each page is built around the questions event organisers actually ask: format options, audience suitability, key takeaways, and a clear path to booking. Individual Service schema for every topic so each ranks separately.

04

Speaking formats made obvious, not buried

Six format options — keynote, half-day workshop, full-day workshop, listening walkaround, MHFA training, MHFA refresher — each with their own page, their own price positioning, and their own CTA. Event organisers know exactly what they're booking before they enquire. The booking form captures the right information (date, audience size, format, budget range) without creating friction.

05

A site Danny owns outright

Hosted on Hostinger, built on WordPress, no proprietary platform. Danny owns the site outright after handover. As his speaking work grows, the site grows with him — new topics, new testimonials, new media appearances all add through the WP admin without needing to come back to us. The relationship is collaborative by choice, not contractual.

By the Numbers

The build at a glance.

20+ Custom-coded
pages
15+ Schema entities
in graph
4 wks Brief to live
turnaround
6 Speaking topic
pages
0 Page builders
used
100% Mobile-first
responsive
If we wouldn’t put it on our own business, we wouldn’t put it on yours.
The Mako Digital Standard

Danny Sculthorpe Case Study: Mako Digital designed and built a custom WordPress website for Danny Sculthorpe, mental health and resilience speaker based in Wigan. The build delivered a bespoke theme coded from scratch, full schema markup, complete local SEO setup, and a Google Search Console-verified launch.

The Danny project sits within Mako Digital’s portfolio of bespoke WordPress builds — the same standards-led approach we apply to every client across Wigan borough and the wider North West. See our Web Design for Speakers Wigan page for the full service breakdown, or visit the case study archive for more examples.

FAQs

Common questions about the Danny build.

How much does a personal brand / speaker website cost?

Personal brand and speaker sites at Mako Digital sit in our higher-tier pricing — typically £999+ depending on scope. The Danny Sculthorpe build is a worked example of what that includes: 20+ custom pages, six speaking topic pages, six speaking format pages, a video hero, booking system integration, full schema, and complete SEO setup. Custom builds are scoped per-project — get in touch for a fixed quote.

How long did the Danny Sculthorpe build take?

Four weeks from brief to live. Personal brand sites typically take longer than standard 5-page builds because the content depth is greater — speaking topic pages, format pages, testimonials, media appearances, and a booking system all need to be properly built and integrated.

Why use WordPress for a personal brand or speaker site?

Self-hosted, fully owned, complete SEO control. As a speaker's career grows, the site grows with them — new topics, new testimonials, new media appearances. WordPress makes that easy. Pay-monthly platforms like Squarespace lock the speaker into perpetual subscription fees and limit how the site can evolve. WordPress is yours forever.

Do speakers really need a website that ranks on Google?

Yes. Event organisers, conference bookers, and corporate L&D teams research speakers online before they ring. A speaker who shows up on page one for "mental health speaker UK" or "resilience keynote speaker" wins enquiries that speakers stuck on page three never see. SEO is the booking pipeline.

What schema markup does Mako Digital include for speaker sites?

Person schema (declaring the speaker as the entity), Service entities for each speaking topic and format, FAQPage where relevant, BreadcrumbList for site hierarchy, and AggregateRating where review data is appropriate. The Danny Sculthorpe site uses 15+ schema entities in total to give Google a complete picture of who he is and what he offers.

Does Mako Digital build other personal brand websites?

Yes — speakers, coaches, consultants, authors, and individual experts. The Danny Sculthorpe site is the worked example of how we approach personal brand work. Get in touch to discuss specific requirements for your own brand.

Where else does Mako Digital build websites in Wigan?

Across Wigan borough and the wider North West. The cluster network covers 19 towns including Hindley, Atherton, Westhoughton, Bolton, Horwich, Leigh, St Helens, Manchester, and beyond — see the full coverage map at /web-design-near-me/. Other recent builds include Danny (Wigan), B-Energy Electrical (Wigan), and Brabazon Landscaping (Bristol).

Can I see the Danny Sculthorpe site live?

Yes — visit dannysculthorpe.co.uk to see the build in production. Danny actively delivers keynotes, workshops, and Mental Health First Aid training nationally and internationally, and the site handles all his enquiries.

More Like This

Other Mako Digital trade business case studies.

If the Danny build is the kind of work that fits your business, these are the closest peers in our portfolio — same custom-WordPress approach, different industries.

OV Group case study

OV Group

Hospitality · Wigan
The Links Training case study

The Links Training

Training · UK
OccuTeach case study

OccuTeach

eLearning · UK
Related Services & Pages
Web Design for Mental Health Speakers Wigan Web Design for Training Providers Wigan Web Design Wigan WordPress Web Design Wigan Custom CRM Development UK Website Cost in Wigan
Your Build, Next?

Building a personal brand or speaker site? Let’s talk.

Personal brand and speaker sites from £999+. Same approach as the Danny build — bold visual identity, custom WordPress, full SEO, no platform lock-in.

Start Your Project View More Case Studies