WordPress
WordPress web design, built to be maintained
WordPress runs a large share of the small business web and there is nothing wrong with that. What causes the trouble is how it usually gets built: a bought theme, twenty-five plugins, and nobody responsible for updating any of it. We build on it deliberately, keep the plugin count low, and maintain it afterwards.
- Low plugin count by design
- Editable by your team
- Maintained afterwards
Why WordPress sites go wrong, and it is rarely WordPress
The typical small business WordPress site is a purchased theme with a page builder on top and somewhere between fifteen and thirty plugins underneath. Each plugin solved a real problem on the day it was installed. Together they are a maintenance burden, a security surface and the reason the site takes four seconds to load on a phone.
None of that is a WordPress fault. It is what happens when a site is assembled rather than built, by somebody paid to launch it rather than to live with it. The same site built with a handful of well-chosen plugins and a theme written for the job will be faster, safer and considerably cheaper to own.
So our approach is unglamorous: fewer moving parts, chosen deliberately, each one justified. If a plugin exists to add one field to a form, we write the field.
What we hold to on every build, whatever it is made of, is on our page about web design in Nottinghamshire.
How we build on WordPress
- A theme built for your site rather than a marketplace theme with the demo content swapped out
- Plugins kept to the minimum that does the job, each one chosen for being actively maintained
- Editing set up around what you will actually change, so the admin makes sense to somebody who is not a developer
- Images handled properly at upload, because oversized photographs are the most common speed problem on any WordPress site
- Caching and a sensible hosting stack, tuned rather than installed and left at defaults
- Security hardening as standard: sensible logins, limited admin accounts, updates on a schedule
- Structured data, sitemaps and clean titles without a heavyweight SEO plugin doing seventeen other things
- Training so your team can make changes without ringing us, and a care plan if you would rather not
When WordPress is the wrong choice
WordPress is a content management system. It is very good at content, and it is a reasonable shop with the right extension. It starts to strain when the site is really an application: complex user roles, data that has genuine relationships, calculations, or a workflow that has to be enforced rather than described.
At that point people usually reach for another plugin, and the result is a system that is expensive to change, hard to secure and impossible to hand over. It is the most common way a small business ends up trapped in something.
We build applications on a proper framework instead, and we will tell you at the quoting stage which of the two you are actually asking for. Being able to build both is what makes that an honest answer rather than a sales one.
Where a site is really an application, that work sits under Laravel development.
Inherited a WordPress site nobody understands?
That is one of the more common jobs we pick up. We audit what it is built on, how far behind the updates are, what the plugins are actually doing and whether the backups work.
You get the findings in writing whatever you decide. Sometimes the answer is a tidy-up and a care plan rather than a rebuild, and that is a much smaller invoice.
Get in touch
Talk to us about wordpress web design
A few lines is enough. We will tell you straight whether we can help, what it would cost and how quickly we can be there. No hard sell, and no follow-up sequence if you decide against it.
- We reply within one working day
- A straight answer, including when it is no
- Free process review available, before any money changes hands
Would rather just ring? 01623 354250, Mon–Fri, 9am–5:30pm.
Frequently asked questions
If the answer is not here, ask us. You will get a straight one, from someone who does the work.
Mon–Fri, 9am–5:30pm
Do you only build on WordPress?
No. We build on WordPress where a content-managed site is the right answer, and on a proper application framework where the site is really software. Deciding that honestly at the quoting stage is more useful to you than a preference either way.
Can I edit a WordPress site you build myself?
Yes, and it is set up around the things you will actually change rather than exposing every setting. Training is included, and if you would rather send changes to us than open an editor, a care plan covers that.
Why do you use so few plugins?
Every plugin is code someone else maintains, running on your site, with access to your data. Fewer of them means a faster site, a smaller security surface and a far cheaper site to keep working. Where a plugin is genuinely the best answer we use one.
Is WordPress secure?
A maintained WordPress site is fine. An unmaintained one is a liability, and the great majority of compromises we are called to involve a known vulnerability in an out-of-date plugin that had a fix available for months. The platform is rarely the problem; the maintenance is.
Can you move our site to WordPress, or off it?
Both are normal jobs. The important part in either direction is mapping the old URLs to the new ones so the rankings survive the move, and that gets planned before anything is built.