This post about transitioning to the WordPress Ollie block theme is part of a series where we share our learnings on managing a hobby website. It’s intended for WordPress hobby website administrators.
Key Takeaways
- The transition of a WordPress site built using a Page builder (in this case: Avada) to one built using native WordPress using the the block them Ollie Pro significantly improved the Waterland Event Hire & Site Services website’s PageSpeed Insights scores from 73 to 93+!
- There is NO magic button that will automatically convert a website built using a Page builder like Avada over to a native WordPress site. It requires each page and post to be rebuilt!
- Rebuilding each page with Ollie Pro takes time, and the complexity varies based on the number of pages / posts.
- Maintaining the same URLs during the conversion process was critical for SEO and ensured a smooth transition.
- The migration involved optimising images and carefully recreating design elements like the cover block using native WordPress blocks.
- Overall, Ollie Pro delivered a fast, efficient website, demonstrating its effectiveness as a block theme.
BajanThings is built using the Ollie Pro theme. We are huge fans of Mike McAlister and Patrick Posner the team behind Ollie.
Ollie Pro works out-of-the-box. It looks great. It has beautifully crafted patterns. What’s even more impressive is how fast sites built using Ollie Pro are right out-of-the-box.
My niece runs Waterland Event Hire & Site Services. Starting out in business in 2014, Waterland used a small, local web design agency to build their website. It was built using Avada. Over the last few years I’ve been helping my niece to optimise the Waterland Event Hire & Site Services website so that it ranks highly in their operating locale: East Yorkshire.
In our post: In praise of the WordPress block theme: Ollie Pro we highlighted a mock-up test we did to recreate the homepage of my niece’s website: Waterland Event Hire & Site Services using Ollie Pro.
Waterland Event Hire & Site Services
front page
built using Avada Page builder
Mock-up of
Waterland Event Hire & Site Services
front page
built using Ollie Pro
In the mock-up we didn’t line up the margins of the footer block properly – we subsequently fixed that on the production version of the Waterland Event Hire & Site Services website.
Based on the homepage mock-up we knew we could recreate the Avada built site using Ollie Pro – we knew it would be time consuming and would require a page by page, block by block rebuild!
We eventually hit a wall optimising the Avada based Waterland Event Hire & Site Services website. Our PageSpeed Insights scores were stuck at around 73 and we just could not budge them.
The original Waterland Event Hire & Site Services website was built using Avada Website Builder (formerly Fusion Builder).
Avada is a front-end visual page builder for WordPress. Page builders like Avada offer convenience and speed, but their hidden costs is bloated code and sluggish performance. An additional factor was some of the Yoast Pro SEO analysis tools would not work with Avada!
The sluggishness of the Avada built version of the Waterland Event Hire & Site Services website was a result of additional code and scripts that Page builder tools generate.
Page speed is a critical factor for search engines when ranking websites, as they prioritise fast-loading sites to provide a better user experience. Consequently, websites that rely heavily on Page builders may suffer in search engine rankings, leading to reduced visibility and lower organic traffic.
This was our experience with the Avada built version of Waterland Event Hire & Site Services.
Back in November 2025 we opted to bite-the-bullet and change the website from using Avada to using the native WordPress block theme Ollie Pro. Having done this our out-of-the-box PageSpeed Insights scores jumped from around 73 to around 93+!
It should be noted:
The conversion of an Avada based website or for that matter, any WordPress website built using a proprietary Page builder, to a native block theme, will be time consuming.
The amount of work will depend on the number of pages and posts. The Waterland Event Hire & Site Services website consisted of 33 webpages and no posts. It took me about a month to complete the page by page, block by block conversion.
Converting an Avada based website to a native block based website is not a simple port from say a classic theme like Twenty Seventeen or Astra to a block theme like Ollie.
Each page and post has to be rebuilt as Avada Builder, the Avada Page builder generates propriety code that is incompatible with the native WordPress Gutenberg page builder.
The conversion process required setting up a staging site where each page was systematically overwritten using the Gutenberg block editor, re-creating each page and section using native Gutenberg blocks, while closely matching the design and layout of the original Avada website (as we did with the Waterland Event Hire & Site Services front page mock-up).
While updating the site we took the opportunity to optimise all the images used and to make them .webp format.
Critical for SEO is the URLs remain the same. During the conversion process the Avada site remained the Master while each and every page/post on the staging site was converted to the native WordPress format.
When we completed the staging site – the staging site was pushed to being live.
Before pushing the staging site to live we took multiple back-up of the Staging site and the Avada site. This was so is if something went wrong the agency could easily do a roll-back… that’s more down to learning the hard way, some grey hair and wisdom!
The next stage of the process having converted the site to Ollie Pro we moved the Waterland Event Hire & Site Services website from hosting handled by the local web design agency to Waterland managing their own hosting. We used the same hosting company Krystal Hosting which made the transition process easier.
Via an aggregation of marginal gains we achieved from moving from PHP 8.1.34 to PHP 8.3 and adding REDIS Object cache, we made further marginal page speed boost from 93 to 96! That’s pretty phenomenal. In all we jumped from a page speed score of 73 to 96!
The hardest part of the conversion was re-creating image on the home page with a curved top and bottom which uses a built-in Avada feature – called an Avada Section Separator. We re-created this using a standard cover block with a SVG top and bottom mask which was inserted via Nick Diego’s Icon Block. The icon block allows you to insert Custom SVG code.
Here is the Custom SVG code that created the top and bottom masks:
Top SVG mask
SVG - Top -> created using https://svgeditoronline.com/editor/ with the output then edited
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" version="1.1" width="1024" height="80" viewBox="0 0 1024 80">
<g transform="matrix(13.29 0 0 -2.46 512 36.06)" >
<path style="fill: #ffffff; fill-rule: opacity: 1;" transform="translate(-48, -48)" d="M 9.113 65.022 C 11.683 45.575 28.302 30.978 48 30.978 c 19.696 0 36.316 14.598 38.887 34.045 H 9.113 z" />
</g>
</svg>Bottom SVG mask
SVG - Bottom -> created using https://svgeditoronline.com/editor/ with the output then edited
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" version="1.1" width="1024" height="80" viewBox="0 0 1024 80">
<g transform="matrix(13.29 0 0 2.46 512 44.06)" >
<path style="fill: #ffffff; fill-rule: opacity: 1;" transform="translate(-48, -48)" d="M 9.113 65.022 C 11.683 45.575 28.302 30.978 48 30.978 c 19.696 0 36.316 14.598 38.887 34.045 H 9.113 z" />
</g>
</svg>
Here is the cover block with the masks in action.
Septic Tank Emptying
Is your septic tank due an empty? We remove liquid waste from septic tanks, cesspits, sewage treatment plants, effluent tanks, and elsan points. As part of our septic tank emptying service, we also provide an above surface waste tank emptying service to commercial sites and marine sewage and sludge disposal services for commercial shipping in the Humber Estuary.
Please get in touch with us and we will happily get you booked in! Or if you are unsure if your empty is due, or looking for advice on how often you should have an empty, please get in touch and we will help advise you!
Grease Trap Emptying
Does your premises have a grease trap? We can empty your outdoor grease trap; taking away the fats, oils and grease for recycling, preventing the transfer into the main sewerage system.
Event Hire
Planning a wedding, party or event of any size is not easy, but with our help we can make the hiring of your facilities simple and straightforward. Whether that be for portable toilets, a luxury loo trailer, a refrigerated or freezer trailer, we are here to help! With our comprehensive knowledge and experience, we can help advise you on what you may need, then guide you through our simple booking process.
Long-term Hire
If you are looking to hire any of our products on a longer-term basis, we also offer this service! Whether you need a portable loo for a building site, a luxury toilet trailer for an office refurbishment, or a refrigerated trailer for your restaurant or business premises; then please contact us and we can advise on our long-term hire rates.
Drain Jetting
Perhaps your drains are blocked? Our drain jetting equipment can remove any blockages and clear your drains quickly and efficiently. Contact us for a Drain Jetting quote today!
We look forward to hearing from you!
Update: In WordPress 7.0 the native icon block was introduced. In WordPress 7.1 an updated version of the native icon block was introduced that now allows you to add customised SVG. Unfortunately, it is missing some key features notably:
- Align: Full width
- Change items justification: Justify items centre.
The native Icon block currently only supports left, centre, and right alignment. It doesn’t (yet) support wide or full width alignment.
While you can set the native icon block width to 100%, that doesn’t allow the block to break out of the site’s content width in the same way the full width option in Nick’s The Icon Block does!
Short-term to replicate Avada Section Separator where we used a top and bottom curved SVG mask we will need to keep using Nick Diego’s The Icon Block.
The new Waterland Event Hire & Site Services website is now built using native WordPress blocks.
All in all, we think we nailed the migration of the Waterland Event Hire & Site Services website from the Avada Page Builder to the native WordPress Ollie Pro block theme. And now the site is super fast!
A Big thank you to Mike McAlister and Patrick Posner the team behind Ollie Pro. Ollie Pro is BajanThings go-to block theme.
