Intro
Anna Twinney is one of the most celebrated natural horsemanship trainers and animal communicators in the field. For her Reach Out to Horses platform, I collaborated with marketing specialist and copywriter Betsy Roddy to completely redesign an outdated website that needed to serve multiple business functions: course registration, product sales, and session bookings for animal communication services.
Working in WordPress with Beaver Builder, I executed a full redesign that maintained only her existing logo while transforming the entire user experience. I implemented WooCommerce to handle her diverse product offerings and streamlined the course registration process to make it easy for students to sign up for her traveling workshops and animal communication training programs. The technical implementation balanced functionality with the site’s deeper purpose—creating a digital space that feels as transformative as Anna’s work itself.
The design challenge was to honor the professionalism expected of a natural horsemanship website while infusing it with the spiritual, uplifting energy that defines Anna’s approach. Through carefully selected photography of horses and nature, I created a visual experience that feels soothing, peaceful, and magical—inviting visitors into a space where “fear, force and dominance give way to wisdom, understanding and trust.” The result is a site that not only converts visitors into students and clients, but truly reflects the essence of Anna’s philosophy and the transformative experience she offers.
The Process
Anna came to this project with several strong advantages. She has a long-established business, a clear sense of her own style, and an extensive library of photography documenting her work, her clients, and the many horses she has trained and communicated with over the years. That foundation made for a rich creative starting point.
She arrived with reference websites that reflected the aesthetic she had in mind, and initially envisioned a blue color palette with a country feel befitting her equestrian world. My goal, however, was to push that further — to create something inspirational and spiritual in feeling, using her beautiful photography of horses, nature, her students, and the community she has built through her natural horsemanship instructors and trainers to craft a truly immersive experience.
The need for a new website was urgent. Her previous site was over twenty years old, and her business had grown far beyond what it could support. Anna’s operation is remarkably multifaceted — she offers a wide range of programs, in-person and online seminars, Reiki and animal communication sessions, cabin rentals on her property, venue rentals for events, and a full online shop with many different products. Given that complexity, careful content architecture was essential to ensure visitors could navigate everything clearly and take action easily.
I chose Beaver Builder for this project deliberately, knowing that Anna’s team would need to make updates independently. Its more intuitive interface makes ongoing maintenance far more manageable than some alternatives, which was an important practical consideration for a business of this size.
The process began with mood boards exploring country-inspired color palettes — blues, taupes, creams, and the warm tones of leather, wood, and nature. Having already worked with Anna on her nonprofit, Way of the Equine Warrior — a separate project — I came in with a strong sense of her style and aesthetic. I had previously created a set of leather-style icons for that brand and expanded that icon set here to represent her various programs, giving the new site a cohesive, handcrafted character that carried her identity forward. After Anna selected a color palette, I developed variations of the home page and program pages for her review.
One element I’m particularly proud of is the custom artwork I created from photographs of some of her most beloved horses. Using Photoshop — experimenting with actions and doing my own manual editing — I developed a series of images that gave the site a truly unique and personal touch.
For the web copy, I worked closely with Betsy Roddy throughout the process. We had many conversations about how to approach each page, and I helped translate longer copy into digestible chunks and structured lists, ensuring the most important information led each section and that calls to action were clear and easy to find.
Partway through the project, Anna decided she preferred green over blue — her original website had been green and the connection felt right. I created a new mockup in the green palette, she approved it, and I rebuilt everything to match. From there, we moved into a rolling review process: I would complete a few pages, Anna and her husband would review them, and I would incorporate their feedback before moving on.
On the technical side, I installed The Events Calendar and WooCommerce, configured to work in conjunction with one another. I also guided Betsy through setting up the online store, covering everything from image dimensions and SKU numbers to the practical day-to-day use of WooCommerce — setting the team up to manage it confidently on their own. The site is live and actively serving Anna’s growing community.
