Overview
A national nonprofit needed to expand beyond a simple one-page Webflow site into a searchable library for community resources.
After evaluating Webflow’s CMS limitations, I recommended migrating the project to WordPress. I developed a dual-engine system using SearchWP, FacetWP, and ACF — one search index for compliance-approved resources and another for community-submitted materials. Each collection features instant filtering by Topic, Audience, Tag, Author, and Resource Type (video, document, or PDF), along with PDF content search that shows highlighted keyword snippets. The result is a scalable, compliant, and easy-to-manage resource platform.
Challenge
The organization’s existing Webflow site was a single static page that only listed a handful of links. They wanted to evolve it into a true resource library where visitors could search and filter hundreds of materials by category, format, and audience, with grouped, multi-part resources and webinars, with a minimal, clean interface that lead users to the resulting resource without wading through distracting images and non relevant results.
They also needed to separate compliance-approved content from community-submitted resources, ensuring no crossover between the two collections.
Webflow’s CMS lacked the ability to manage complex filtering, hierarchical categories, or separate search engines, making it unsuitable for their long-term goals.
Solution
After assessing their requirements, I proposed a WordPress rebuild with a custom architecture designed for scalability and control.
Key steps and features:
Defined structured content types using Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) and Custom Post Type UI.
Built two distinct SearchWP engines — one for the main, compliance-approved library and another isolated engine for community-submitted materials.
Configured FacetWP for real-time, AJAX-based filtering by Topic, Audience, Tag, Author, and Resource Type.
Extended SearchWP’s indexing to include text from PDFs linked in ACF fields, using a custom PHP hook.
Added highlighted PDF snippet previews to show keywords in context within search results.
- Built logic for grouped resource display, ensuring related items (such as multi-part webinars or companion materials) appear together in search results. This helps users immediately recognize when a resource is part of a larger series.
Implemented conditional logic for dynamic action buttons (“Watch Video,” “Download,” or “View Course”) that appear only when applicable.
Styled the interface with custom CSS and JavaScript for clarity, usability and full compatibility with Elementor.
Results
The finished platform transformed a simple one-pager into a fully functional knowledge hub that staff can update independently.
Users can now filter and search resources across multiple criteria — including text inside PDFs — in seconds.
The dual-engine configuration maintains full compliance separation, while the flexible filters and dynamic UI make the experience intuitive and fast across devices.
Tech Stack
WordPress · Elementor Pro · ACF · CPT UI · SearchWP (dual engines) · FacetWP · PHP · JavaScript · CSS
