The Leaf Nest: A Blog Redesign That Grew to 2,300 Email Subscribers

The Leaf Nest is a home and indoor plant blog owned by a client in the United States. It shares plant care guides, small-space gardening ideas and home organization tips.

When the client came to me in November 2025, the website was almost empty. It had a default look and a few sample blog posts, and nothing else. There was no real home page, no clear categories and no way to collect readers’ email addresses. For a blog that wants to earn from its audience, every visitor who left was gone for good.

• No custom design, only a default layout with a few posts
• No home page that showed what the blog was about
• No email signup, so readers could not become subscribers
• No contact page for readers, brands or partners

I redesigned the whole website in one month, with two goals: make it look like a trusted home and garden magazine, and turn readers into email subscribers.

A custom home page, header and footer

I coded the home page, the header and the footer in HTML and CSS inside Elementor Pro’s HTML widget. This gave me full control over the design, while the client can still manage posts in the normal WordPress dashboard. The site runs on the lightweight GeneratePress theme, so pages stay fast.

A calm, nature-inspired design

I chose soft sage greens, plenty of white space and a classic serif headline to match the topic. The home page opens with a clear message, “Create a Home That Breathes”, then shows the latest articles, the main categories and a short founder introduction.

Clear categories and easy search

I organized the posts into clear categories, such as Home Decor, Indoor Plants, Yard Garden and Home Cleaning & DIY Hacks, and added a search bar to the header. Blog and category pages have a sidebar with all categories and the latest articles, so readers always find their next post.

Three ways to subscribe

I connected the site to MailerLite and added three signup points: a bold “Get More Tips” banner on the home page, a “Stay Updated” form in the footer of every page, and a timed popup that offers weekly gardening tips. Every new subscriber goes straight into the client’s MailerLite list.

A proper contact page

I built a contact page with a WPForms form, protected against spam with reCAPTCHA, so readers, brands and partners can get in touch.

SEO and trust pages

I set up Rank Math Pro for titles, descriptions, sitemaps and schema markup, and added the About, Privacy Policy, Terms and Affiliate Disclosure pages that a monetized blog needs.

Hosting and ongoing care

After launch, I took over the client’s hosting and domain, and I still manage both today.