AI Website Development: Building Top5Trades UK with Claude

Building Top5Trades UK with Claude, HTML and JavaScript

At EightySix Digital, we are always testing ideas, building digital assets and looking for practical ways to create websites that are faster, leaner and more focused than the typical “just install WordPress and add plugins” approach.

One of the latest projects we have been working on is Top5Trades UK, a local trade directory designed to help homeowners find trusted tradesmen in towns and cities across the UK.

The idea behind the site is simple: rather than listing hundreds of businesses and leaving people to work it out for themselves, Top5Trades focuses on short, researched, easy-to-use Top 5 lists for different trades and locations.

So instead of creating a bloated directory full of noise, the goal is to build something clean, fast and useful.

But the interesting part is not just the website idea itself. It is also the way we built it.

Rather than building Top5Trades UK in WordPress, we decided to test a more lightweight approach using HTML, CSS and JavaScript, with help from Claude AI during the development process.

This blog breaks down the thinking behind the project, how AI helped speed up the build, and the pros and cons of this approach compared to a more traditional WordPress website.

The Idea Behind Top5Trades UK

Top5Trades UK was created around a common problem in the trades space.

When someone searches for a plumber, electrician, roofer, builder or heating engineer, they are usually not looking for a long list of every company in the area. They want to know who is reputable, who appears trustworthy, and who is likely to do a good job.

Most directory websites focus on quantity. The more listings, the better.

Top5Trades takes the opposite approach.

The plan is to build researched local pages that highlight a small number of strong trade businesses in each area. This makes the site easier for homeowners to use and also gives good businesses a better chance of standing out.

The long-term plan is to grow the site across different UK locations and trade categories, including plumbers, electricians, roofers, builders, carpenters, bathroom fitters, kitchen fitters and more.

From an SEO point of view, this also creates a clear structure:

• Location pages
• Trade pages
• Trade + location pages
• Individual business opportunities
• Supporting advice content

That structure is simple, but powerful.

It gives the site room to grow without needing to become complicated too early.

This is also where the wider thinking around digital marketing strategies comes into it. The website itself is only one part of the project. The structure, content, SEO plan, business model and long-term visibility strategy all need to work together.

Why We Did Not Start With WordPress

At EightySix Digital, we build a lot of WordPress websites.

WordPress is still a great option for many businesses. It is flexible, familiar, easy to manage and has a huge plugin ecosystem. For service businesses, local companies and websites that need regular content updates, WordPress often makes a lot of sense.

But not every project needs WordPress.

For Top5Trades UK, we wanted to test whether a faster, lighter setup would be better for the early stage of the project.

The website needed to be:

• Fast loading
• Easy to scale with repeated page layouts
• Clean from a code point of view
• Low maintenance
• Simple to host
• Free from plugin bloat
• Easy to experiment with

A traditional WordPress build would have worked, but it would also have introduced extra moving parts from day one.

There would be a database, theme files, plugins, security updates, admin settings, caching setup, SEO plugin settings, custom post types, form plugins and possibly directory plugins.

That is not necessarily a problem, but for this project, it felt heavier than needed.

Instead, we wanted to see how far we could get with a lean static-style website using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

That does not mean WordPress is the wrong option. For many client websites, especially those that need easy editing and long-term content management, web design and development through WordPress is still the more practical choice.

Using Claude AI as a Development Assistant

Claude AI was used as part of the build process to help create and refine the website code.

This does not mean the website was created by typing one prompt and letting AI do everything perfectly. That is not how good AI-assisted development works.

The better way to think of Claude is as a development assistant.

It can help write HTML structures, create JavaScript functionality, suggest layout improvements, tidy code, debug issues and speed up repetitive tasks.

For Top5Trades, Claude was useful for things like:

• Creating reusable page layouts
• Structuring location and trade pages
• Building simple JavaScript functionality
• Helping with search and navigation ideas
• Producing clean HTML sections
• Speeding up layout changes
• Refining mobile responsiveness
• Creating repeatable components for similar pages

The big benefit is speed.

Instead of manually writing every section from scratch, we could explain what we wanted, review the output, test it, adjust it and keep moving.

This made the build process much quicker, especially for a project that uses repeated layouts and structured content.

Claude was also useful from an SEO point of view.

Because the site is lightweight and structured around repeated page types, we were able to give Claude very specific SEO prompts. This helped with tasks such as title tags, meta descriptions, headings, internal linking, location targeting and page structure.

For a site like Top5Trades UK, where the plan is to build multiple pages across different trades and locations, that makes a big difference.

Rather than manually optimising every page from scratch, AI helped speed up the process and make it easier to prepare more pages for indexing.

The Pros of Building This Way

The biggest advantage of this approach is that the website can be very lightweight.

There is no WordPress database to load, no unnecessary plugin files, no page builder bloat and no admin system sitting behind the site.

That can make a big difference for performance.

A clean HTML and JavaScript website can load quickly, especially if the code is kept tidy and the assets are well managed.

That speed is not just good for users. It also helps from a technical SEO point of view. Faster, cleaner pages are generally easier for search engines to crawl, process and index.

For Top5Trades UK, this was one of the biggest advantages. The combination of a fast website and AI-assisted SEO prompts meant we could optimise pages more quickly and prepare more location and trade pages for indexing without the same level of manual setup that would usually be needed in a traditional CMS.

This ties directly into technical SEO and on-page optimisation. A fast website is helpful, but speed alone is not enough. The page structure, headings, internal links, metadata and content all still need to be planned properly.

Another advantage is control.

With WordPress, you are often working within a theme, plugin or page builder system. That can be helpful, but it can also add limitations. With a custom HTML and JavaScript build, we have more direct control over the structure of the pages, the way content is displayed and how the site is organised.

For a project like Top5Trades, that matters.

The site needs a repeatable structure. A plumber page in Cheltenham, an electrician page in Northampton and a roofer page in Milton Keynes may all follow a similar format. A lightweight coded setup allows those templates to stay consistent without relying on a heavy directory plugin.

There is also less maintenance.

WordPress websites need ongoing updates. Themes, plugins and core files need to be maintained. That is manageable, but it is still work. A static-style HTML and JavaScript website has fewer moving parts, which can reduce the risk of plugin conflicts, update issues and security problems.

For a self-owned project where we control the updates, that is a strong advantage.

The Cons of Building This Way

There are downsides though, and they are important.

The first is that there is no easy WordPress-style admin area.

With WordPress, a client can log in, edit a page, add a blog post, upload images and manage content without touching code. With a custom HTML and JavaScript website, content updates usually require a more technical workflow.

That is fine for a project like Top5Trades because we are managing it ourselves.

But it would not be ideal for every client.

The second downside is that AI-generated code still needs to be checked properly.

Claude can be extremely helpful, but it can also make mistakes. It might create code that works in one context but breaks in another. It might overcomplicate something simple. It might miss accessibility details, SEO requirements or mobile edge cases.

You still need human oversight.

AI can speed up development, but it does not replace experience, testing or decision-making.

Another important downside is that, if you do not know how to code, you can become heavily reliant on AI to make changes for you.

With WordPress, most website owners can make basic updates themselves. They can log in, change text, add images, write a blog post or adjust a page without needing to understand HTML or JavaScript.

With a custom-coded website, that is not always the case.

AI tools like Claude can make this much easier, but you still need to understand enough to check whether the code is correct. If something breaks, or if the AI changes one part of the site and affects another, you need enough technical confidence to spot the issue and fix it.

That is one of the reasons this approach works well for a self-managed project like Top5Trades UK, but may not be the best fit for every small business website.

Another limitation is that WordPress has a huge ecosystem of ready-made tools.

If you need advanced forms, memberships, ecommerce, user accounts, bookings, client dashboards or complex content management, WordPress can be a much easier starting point.

For many businesses, especially those that want to update their own pages without touching code, Elementor Pro websites can offer a better balance between design control, flexibility and ease of editing.

With a custom build, those features either need to be coded manually or connected through other tools.

That is not a deal-breaker, but it does change the project and the costs involved.

WordPress vs AI-Assisted HTML and JavaScript

The best option depends on the type of website being built.

For many small businesses, WordPress is still the better choice. It gives them flexibility, easy editing, blog functionality, SEO tools, forms, integrations and a familiar backend.

For a typical plumber, electrician, builder, accountant, architect or local service business, WordPress often makes sense because the website needs to be easy to update and maintain over time.

But for Top5Trades UK, the priorities are slightly different.

This is not a standard website.

It is a structured directory-style project with repeated page types, SEO-focused location targeting and a need for speed and scalability.

That made the lightweight HTML and JavaScript route more appealing.

It allows the site to stay lean, fast and focused while we test the concept and build out the early structure.

It also gives us the ability to use AI in a more direct way. We can work with the actual code, use structured prompts to improve SEO elements, create new page layouts faster and keep the website free from unnecessary plugin bloat.

This is also relevant to Generative Engine Optimisation, because websites now need to be built with both traditional search engines and AI-driven search results in mind.

If the project grows to the point where it needs a full content management system, custom dashboard or more advanced publishing workflow, that can be reviewed later.

The important thing is choosing the right tool for the stage of the project.

AI Makes Development Faster, Not Effortless

One of the biggest misconceptions around AI website building is that it removes the need for skill.

It does not.

AI can help produce code, but it still needs direction.

You need to know what you are building, why you are building it, how the structure should work and what the end result needs to achieve.

For Top5Trades, the strategy came first.

Before worrying about the code, we needed to think through the business model, SEO structure, location targeting, trade categories, page templates and how featured businesses would fit into the wider site.

Claude helped with the build, but it did not create the strategy.

That is the key difference.

AI is useful when it is guided by a clear plan. Without that plan, it can just produce a pile of code that looks good on the surface but does not really support the business goal.

The same applies to SEO.

AI can help create title tags, meta descriptions, internal links and structured content ideas, but it still needs to be guided by someone who understands search intent, local SEO, page structure and how the site needs to grow.

That is also part of what Generative Engine Optimisation means. It is not just about adding AI-written content to a website. It is about making sure the website, content, structure and authority signals are clear enough for both search engines and AI systems to understand.

What This Means for Future Projects

Top5Trades UK is a good example of how website development is changing.

Not every project needs to be built the same way.

Some websites are best suited to WordPress. Others may be better as lightweight static websites. Some may need Shopify, Webflow, a custom app, or a hybrid approach.

The role of a good web designer or digital marketer is not just to pick the most familiar platform. It is to choose the right setup for the job.

For us, this project is also a useful test of how AI-assisted development can fit into real-world website builds.

The early signs are positive.

Claude AI helped speed up the development process, reduce repetitive coding tasks and make it easier to experiment with layouts, functionality and SEO improvements.

But the project still needed human strategy, SEO planning, manual checking, content decisions and practical digital marketing experience.

That is where the real value sits.

The same applies when working with trade businesses. Whether it is a custom-coded directory project or digital marketing for tradesmen, the strategy behind the work matters just as much as the tools being used.

Final Thoughts

Top5Trades UK is still developing, but the process behind it has already been valuable.

It has shown that AI-assisted development can be a practical option for certain types of websites, especially when speed, simplicity and performance are important.

It has also reinforced something we already believe at EightySix Digital:

The tool is only part of the job.

WordPress, Claude AI, HTML, JavaScript, page builders and plugins are all just tools. What matters most is the thinking behind the website.

What is the goal?
Who is it for?
How will people find it?
How will it make money?
How will it scale?
How will it stay useful?

For Top5Trades UK, the plan is to keep building out the site, expand into more locations and trades, and continue testing how a lean AI-assisted development process compares with more traditional website builds.

For example, one of the trade categories being built into the wider project is plumbers, which fits closely with our existing work around digital marketing for plumbers and local service-based SEO.

It is not about replacing WordPress.

It is about knowing when WordPress is the right tool, and when a lighter, faster, more custom approach might make more sense.