WebFantasia

WebFantasia

Erna Braat is the face behind WebFantasia and has been self-employed since 1988. After studying at the School of the Arts in Utrecht, she started as a photographer for companies such as IBM and the Bankgirocentrale, which at the time functioned as a central processing hub for Dutch banking transactions. Yes, already back then, it was something like a hosting provider for national banks.

Although she enjoyed the creative freedom of abstract photography assignments, she wanted to work closer to home. She combined her sharp eye as a photographer with her role in the interior construction company FurniFunction, which she ran together with her husband. Later, she found a new balance in building websites, where her sense of composition met the structural logic of the web.

WebFantasia grew out of Erna’s earlier business, FotoFantasia. When WordPress matured, she transitioned from Dreamweaver to the CMS and evolved alongside the platform. This allowed her to further professionalize her skills and combine her creative ideas with dynamic content for her clients’ online presence.

Erna enjoys translating her clients’ stories into design and functionality. She focuses on customization and personal service and some of her clients have been growing alongside her for over 15 years. While she builds templates and query loops using the Bricks Builder theme, her clients can easily edit their content in the familiar WordPress editor.

Standing still is not an option! She regularly visits clients and continuously develops her skills by attending WordPress meetups in Amsterdam and Utrecht, WordCamps in Porto and Turin and webinars such as those by Weblish, including topics like “Accessibility and SEO for AI.” And when she gets stuck, Erna makes use of the expertise of Inesta, Low Code First! She is also an active member of The Non-Coder Collective by Dave Foy, ‘Bricks Accelerator’.

Custom work for charities
Since 2012, she has been working with great enthusiasm for charitable organizations such as Ballet Folklórico Cutumba in Santiago de Cuba, for which she regularly travels to Cuba. Of course, it’s also a great excuse to dance Son and “Casino” with her Cuban friends at Casa de la Trova or enjoy a spontaneous rumba in the warm street life, often in flip-flops.

The Cutumba dance group represents the cultural heritage of Afro-Cuban traditions and deserves much more recognition, especially outside Cuba. The dancers have few opportunities to perform in Europe, even though their rhythms are becoming increasingly popular here.

Erna has also been managing the websites for Stichting Isai Maiyam for many years. At the beginning of 2026, she made a colorful trip to Pondicherry and Auroville in Southeast India. The Dutch-Indian team, along with the children and their families, welcomed her warmly with infectious dance, music and delicious meals. The foundation provides safe daytime care for children and young adults from underprivileged backgrounds and offers classes in dance, music, English and computer skills through its Art School. There is strong involvement from the Netherlands, with journalists and photographers regularly documenting the foundation’s work on the website and even in a beautifully illustrated book.

Together with Brigitte Vink (board member and on-site manager in India), Erna works on two websites for the foundation, supported by Ramon Fincken from Klarned.

Challenges

Because Erna’s clients first were hosted with different web hosting providers, everything worked differently each time. In addition, Erna noticed that personal contact was disappearing, she was always getting a different support agent on the phone, or sometimes phone support wasn’t available at all. This made it harder to switch quickly and comfortably when something needed to be adjusted at the hosting level.

Although some hosting providers have made their customer support reachable by phone again, assistance often stops when it comes to WordPress-related questions. Erna notices that individual support staff are often willing to think along, but are limited by the strict policies of their large organizations. Since WordPress and web hosting are closely connected, she looked for a partner who is just as dedicated as she is.

Hosting by Klarned

During a WordCamp, she found the match she had been looking for. After a trial period with several websites on Klarned’s high-speed servers, it became clear to Erna that Klarned would become her new standard. Over 80% of her managed sites were then migrated. Some remained with their previous provider due to a specific preference for an all-in-one package including email.

After 10 years, Erna still experiences the service as personal and reliable: “Klarned works proactively behind the scenes and is not afraid to give advice. They don’t hold your hand, but they do provide clear and targeted guidance. My motto is: first think and research for yourself before asking a question. I believe that has strengthened our mutual appreciation over the years.”

Collaboration, hosting and maintenance
Erna can rely on the security and loading speed of her websites being well taken care of on Klarned’s stable servers. This hosting service aligns seamlessly with her WordPress technical maintenance subscription, through which she handles updates and licenses for themes and plugins, checks for broken links, performs database optimization, implements spam protection and optimizes images for website performance.

Every website must run optimally on the servers and every client should be satisfied. Whether it is a large business website with high turnover or a small art gallery in the countryside, they all receive the same genuine attention from Ramon and his team. That is what makes the real difference for Erna.

The collaboration with Klarned gives her peace of mind and the space to focus on what she enjoys most, building and improving websites (around 50 on average) for clients with diverse businesses.

Free Demo

For Erna, it is all about that three-way partnership: client, developer and hosting provider strengthening each other. Curious what this personal approach could mean for you?