Marty Helmick
Selected work
Case study 03 / 03

Adapting AIOSEO’s theme for SEOBoost’s block editor

Marty Helmick · Theme developer · Awesome Motive

I built and launched AIOSEO’s original WordPress theme, then used it as the starting point for SEOBoost. I launched SEOBoost as a block theme so the content team could assemble pages from reusable layouts.

Keep the useful parts of the original theme

I’d built the AIOSEO marketing site as a classic WordPress theme. When we started SEOBoost, a lot of the styles we needed already existed. I forked the theme and changed how the pages fit together.

AIOSEO homepage with its navigation and opening content.
AIOSEO · September 22, 2026. A later view of the site whose theme I originally built and launched.

Give editors a layout to start with

I put the site-wide settings in theme.json and built templates for the site and blog. A pattern gave the editor a group of blocks laid out together. They could start with that arrangement, edit the copy, and compose a page in WordPress. The template supplied the surrounding structure.

SEOBoost homepage showing the header and opening page section.
SEOBoost · September 22, 2026. Read the layout in two parts: the shared site header above and the opening page content below. This capture shows the public site after launch.

Leave a fallback for checkout

Checkout was the part I wanted room to adjust. I built a hybrid-theme fallback in case the block approach hit a blocker there. I also pushed the work to staging so the team could follow the site as it took shape. SEOBoost launched in the second quarter of 2024.

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