Case study · Media · Tech Publishing
A custom content platform spanning Technology, Cyber Security, Business, and Sports — with image-optimised cards, a contributor submission flow, and an employee portal.
OffTheWeb · 4 months · 2024
Visit live siteThe challenge
The founders had been blogging on a hand-rolled WordPress install that broke every time a plugin updated. They wanted a publication that could scale across four very different verticals — Technology, Cyber Security, Business, Sports — without becoming a maintenance burden every fortnight.
The brief had a few non-negotiables: image-heavy cards that load fast on Indian mobile networks, a contributor flow so guest authors could submit posts for review, an employee portal for the editorial team, and SEO from the ground up — not bolted on with a plugin after launch.
And they wanted it to look modern. Most Indian publications still look like 2014. Off-the-shelf themes weren’t going to cut it.
Our approach
We built OffTheWeb on Next.js with Cloudinary handling every image transform — responsive sizes, blur placeholders, format negotiation. Articles render as static pages on Vercel’s edge so mobile-first readers get sub-second loads regardless of the device.
Editorial workflow was the unsung half of the build. We designed a contributor-submission form gated by category, a moderation queue for the editorial team, and an employee portal that the in-house team uses daily to schedule and publish.
Categories aren’t just URL paths — they each have a designed identity (badge color, hero treatment, default share image template). That lets the same platform serve very different content verticals without feeling like a generic blog template.
The solution
Category routing with bespoke layouts for Technology, Cyber Security, Business, and Sports — each with its own metadata, structured data, and OG image template.
Cloudinary image pipeline: responsive sizes, AVIF/WebP negotiation, blur placeholders, and a low-bandwidth fallback for slower networks.
Contributor submission flow with markdown support, category routing, moderation queue, and editorial review status.
Employee portal for the editorial team: drafts, scheduled posts, contributor management, analytics view.
SEO foundations baked in — per-article meta, OpenGraph + Twitter cards, sitemap, JSON-LD Article schema, RSS feeds per category.
Algolia-powered search across articles and categories with typo tolerance and instant suggestions.
Social sharing integration (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram) wired through to the share-target metadata.
// Responsive Cloudinary URLs with AVIF/WebP negotiation and blur placeholders.
type ImageOpts = {
width: number;
height?: number;
blur?: boolean;
};
export function articleImage(publicId: string, opts: ImageOpts): string {
const transforms = [
`w_${opts.width}`,
opts.height ? `h_${opts.height},c_fill` : undefined,
"q_auto",
"f_auto",
opts.blur ? "e_blur:200" : undefined,
].filter(Boolean).join(",");
return `https://res.cloudinary.com/offtheweb/image/upload/${transforms}/${publicId}`;
}
export function blurPlaceholder(publicId: string): string {
return articleImage(publicId, { width: 24, blur: true });
}We came to TechNboost with four very different blog categories and one stubborn requirement: the site had to feel modern, not like another templated news site. They built it on Next.js with Cloudinary doing the heavy lifting, and our editorial team got a real CMS workflow we use every day — not just a publishing button.
Founder
Founder, OffTheWeb
Related case studies
Compliance SaaS · LegalTech
Continuous GDPR, UK GDPR & PECR monitoring across websites, code, and cloud — set up in 5 minutes and live before the next standup.
Read the case studyE-Commerce · Fashion & Leather Goods
A bespoke Next.js + Supabase D2C e-commerce platform with in-product video, multi-gateway checkout, and pan-India shipping.
Read the case studyWhere to next
A 30-minute discovery call with the partner who led this engagement. You'll have a written take from us, usually within one business day.