Custom WordPress Engineering for Marketing-Critical Sites
When your marketing site has to perform like a product โ content velocity, conversion infrastructure, AI-friendly architecture. WordPress engineered properly, not page-builder-padded.
WordPress, but engineered properly
WordPress powers ~40% of the web. Most of those installations are slow, hacked, or paying for plugin licenses doing what 30 lines of code could do better.
We don't sell WordPress as a "fast launch" alternative. We sell it as a content-velocity layer for marketing-critical sites โ when your team needs to publish daily, when SEO and AEO are the primary acquisition channel, when speed and discipline matter more than admin convenience. This sits within our broader web development practice.
Where we engineer advantage on WordPress.
Custom Theme Engineering
Coded by hand. No Themeforest, no Divi-bloat, no plugin theme dependencies.
Editorial Workflow Engineering
ACF Pro, custom post types, custom fields, editorial UX your team will use.
Headless WordPress
WordPress as a CMS, React/Next.js as the frontend. WPGraphQL or REST API.
WooCommerce Engineering
Custom stores, subscriptions, B2B โ coded properly, not plugin-stacked.
Site Modernization
Bloated Divi/Elementor sites โ custom themes. Performance + SEO recovered.
Performance Optimization
CWV Green commitments. Database optimization, object caching, CDN.
Stack we ship with.
| Layer | Default stack |
|---|---|
| CMS | WordPress 7.x or 6.x depending on client environment. Classic Editor for clients who edit content directly. Gutenberg only when the project specifically benefits from block editing. |
| Architecture | Custom theme with hand-coded PHP and Advanced Custom Fields Pro for structured content. No page builders. No bloated starter themes. |
| Theme Foundation | GeneratePress Premium as parent theme for marketing sites. Custom child themes built from scratch for design-led projects. |
| Performance | Native browser caching headers, image optimization via WebP, lazy loading, minimal plugins. Target: under 1.5s LCP on mobile. |
| Plugins | Minimum viable set. Rank Math Pro for SEO, WP Mail SMTP for delivery, ACF Pro for content. We audit every plugin before installing. |
| Security | Wordfence or iThemes Security, plus disabled file editing, two-factor admin, regular core/plugin updates, restricted XML-RPC. |
| Hosting | Client-controlled or our recommendation. We deploy to Hostinger, WP Engine, or InMotion depending on scale and budget. |
| Maintenance | Optional retainer for core updates, plugin updates, security patches, backups, uptime monitoring. Not bundled โ sold separately. |
AI features, when you need them.
WordPress 7.0 ships with a built-in AI Client. It's a provider-agnostic API that lets plugins send prompts to AI models (Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, or others) through one consistent interface. We use it to add AI features into client sites where the project benefits: content suggestions in the admin, automatic image alt-text, structured data generation, draft summaries, or custom workflows specific to your business.
For deeper integration we build with the Model Context Protocol (MCP). This connects WordPress to external tools, internal systems, or custom data sources beyond what the native AI Client handles. Clients pay their own provider API costs and stay in control of which models are used and when.
If AI doesn't fit your project, we don't add it. The site works without it.
How engagements run.
Discovery & Content Modeling
Content types, editorial workflow, taxonomy. Output: content schema.
Design Systems
Component library + block patterns in Figma.
Theme Engineering
Custom theme coded from scratch, ACF integration, block editor patterns.
Content Migration & QA
Content imports preserving SEO, redirect mapping, performance verification.
Launch & Editorial Training
Production deploy, editorial team training, documentation.
What we don't ship.
- We don't build sites on Divi, Elementor Pro, or any page-builder theme. They're conversion and performance killers.
- We don't stack 47 plugins to do what custom code does better.
- We don't ship sites with red Core Web Vitals scores. Performance is committed in writing.
- We don't use Themeforest themes as a base. Every theme is coded from scratch.
- We don't ship without proper schema markup, FAQ structure, and AI-friendly architecture.
- We're built for marketing teams that need a real publishing engine, not a one-and-done brochure.
Pricing
For project engagements, see our pricing approach โ.
Ready to build with WordPress?
Discovery call to scope content model and editorial workflow.