Editors come first
Every section is a block your team controls from the admin. You should never file a ticket to change a homepage banner or add a case study.
WordPress Development
WordPress builds you actually own — clean code, no page-builder bloat, and an admin your team can use without calling us.
WordPress Development
Most WordPress sites are slow because of what was bolted on
Page builders, twenty plugins doing the work of three, and a theme nobody has updated since launch. Almost every site we audit is carrying weight it does not need — which is why we look at what can come out before we talk about adding anything.
Editing breaks when the only person who can change a page is the agency that built it. Speed breaks quietly: a slider nobody uses, four font families, a plugin loading its scripts on every page. Trust breaks when core updates are postponed for a year because the last one took the site down.
We clear that first, then build on a lean custom theme with blocks your editors already understand. A page builder when the team genuinely needs one, custom when they do not — and we will tell you which, because a site nobody can safely update is worse than a simple one.
How we approach it
Three core principles
Speed is a feature, not a plugin
We hold the build to a performance budget, audit every plugin for what it adds to page weight, and remove the ones that cost more than they return.
Maintainable by someone else
Clean templates, documented blocks and a short plugin list, so the site can be handed to another developer without a rebuild.
- Site, theme and plugin audit with a prioritised fix list
- Custom WordPress theme built for your content, not a template
- Reusable blocks your editors control, with every state designed
- Post types, taxonomies and templates that match what you actually publish
- WooCommerce setup and checkout configuration where you sell online
- Plugin stack review — consolidate, replace or remove
- Migration from your current platform with URL and SEO preservation
- Security hardening, off-site backups and a safe update routine
Process
How it works
Seven steps, and the audit usually pays for the build.
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Step 01
Site audit
Plugins, theme, hosting, Core Web Vitals and a manual walkthrough on a real device. You get the findings whether or not you hire us for the build.
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Step 02
Content model and templates
Post types, taxonomies and templates restructured around what you actually publish, with names your team can extend.
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Step 03
Block design system
Hero, cards, tables, galleries, forms and calls to action — designed as reusable blocks with every state specified.
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Step 04
Theme build
A lean custom theme built against the performance budget, with everything editable exposed in the admin.
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Step 05
Migration
Posts, pages, media, users and comments moved with URL mapping and redirects so search equity is preserved.
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Step 06
Pre-launch testing
Forms, checkout where relevant, plugin conflicts, a backup restore test, and mobile testing on real handsets.
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Step 07
Launch and handover
Go live, watch closely for two weeks, then hand over with documentation and a short training session for your team.
Why us for this
We are also the people running your SEO
Which means the site gets built to rank: clean markup, fast templates, sane URLs and structured data all handled by one team that shares a channel.
Updates that do not break things
A staging environment, tested plugin updates and off-site backups set up during the build, so maintenance is routine rather than a gamble.
Honest platform advice
We build a custom theme when it earns its keep and recommend a good off-the-shelf one when it does not. Our recommendation is not tied to what we would rather bill for.
Audit before build
We start with the fix list. Sometimes the answer is a three-week cleanup rather than a full rebuild, and that is a better outcome for both of us.
FAQs
WordPress questions
Only where the team genuinely needs one and understands the trade-off. Builders speed up the first build and slow down every page load afterwards. Our default is a custom theme with native blocks — your editors work the same way, and the site stays fast.
Yes. Pages, posts, media and users come across, and we map every old URL to its new equivalent so rankings survive the move.
Handled properly, no. Redirect mapping, metadata preservation and structured data are part of the launch checklist, and we monitor Search Console daily for the first month. Speed improvements usually push organic performance up within a quarter.
Not in house. We will spec exactly what is needed — word counts, image sizes, crops and formats — and work alongside a writer or photographer you hire, or recommend one.
Often, yes. Sites accumulate plugins, and several usually overlap or duplicate something the theme could do natively. The plugin audit is part of every engagement, and the savings are frequently significant.
Yes, as a retainer: tested core and plugin updates on staging first, off-site backups, uptime monitoring and a monthly report. Updates are applied deliberately, not automatically.
Both supported. Translations and gated members areas change the content model and the templates significantly, so tell us early and we will scope them properly rather than bolt them on.