Custom WordPress Development

Custom WordPress Development – A Guide for Business Websites

Websites can be broadly classified into two categories – those using CMS and those that choose other frameworks or web development platforms over CMS. When it comes to CMS-based sites, WordPress is the indisputable king. It occupies 64.3% market share of global CMS-based websites while still ruling the internet with 43% of all websites. Going further, there is a whopping number of over 35 million websites that use WordPress. Numbers suggest that 29.23% of the top 1 million websites use WordPress. In addition, 25% of eCommerce sites use it in the form of WooCommerce. Impressive! Isn’t it? Having said that, there has been a 10% increase (54.3% in 2012, to 64.3% in 2022) in the market share of WordPress in the last decade. Well, going by statistics, it is the most trusted, used, and preferred web development platform in 2024. 

WordPress offers 60,000+ plugins, 31,000+ themes, and support for 208 languages. With such a wide variety of customizable components, it makes web development easy for non-technical people as well. Owing to its flexibility, features, and hands-on custom elements, 661 WordPress new sites are being built daily. Being open-source it is free to use without huge licensing fees. With a global community of developers, it gets updated regularly. This way, it is easy to get support for solving ad-hoc issues during web development. With all these merits and credentials, WordPress proves to be the most popular CMS of all time.

Simply put, WordPress CMS envelops nearly two-thirds of the web development market, while it holds solid ground by capturing nearly half of the non-CMS websites arena. Even its closest competitor Shopify rests on a meagre 6.2% market share, followed by the rest of the favorite CMSs like Joomla, Drupal, etc. 

For those who make decisions based on numbers, the above data clears the air about whether to use WordPress or not, for web development. The platform is a smart choice for building highly functional, fully featured, brand-focused, tailor-made websites for a business, entity, individual, or company. It offers numerous plug-ins, templates, themes, and more components, to build websites with a strong identity. Custom WordPress development is the easiest way to create brands from sites. 

What is custom WordPress website development? 

It is about building a tailor-made, unique website by extensively customizing the WordPress platform. The idea is to choose the low-code method offered by WordPress to create a site with fresh design, relevant plugins, specific functionality, user experience elements, and more, to deliver a specific site. Such personalized sites are time-consuming but completely fulfill the business goals and display a solid brand image. They have proven to be highly successful in engaging and retaining customers. 

Custom WordPress website development is preferred by developers as well as non-coders to build business-centric sites by leveraging the WordPress ecosystem. Whether they want to create a never-seen-before user interface or an unusual functionality, it is possible through customization. Although it takes more time than using pre-built themes and ready-made extensions, and custom modules, it is the best web development process for companies with precise business requirements. 

Some of the companies that thrive on custom WordPress development are TechCrunch, BBC America, The Sun, Zillow, CNN, Time Magazine, etc. These stalwarts have put their bets on WordPress for the very many advantages that it offers. 

Difference between custom WordPress website and Pre-built WordPress theme

Startups and small businesses choose WordPress themes from a marketplace like ThemeForest. These are inexpensive themes bought by companies with simple business goals. Repetitive use with small, little tweaks here and there, makes these themes common. Companies aiming for atypical, fresh-cut UI choose a custom WordPress website over existing themes. Let us check out some of the differential parameters between the two.

Difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com

Both are WordPress-based web development tools offering different kinds of features. While WordPress.com offers a hosting service for small, medium large-scale websites, WordPress.org provides a self-hosted version of WordPress. This means that you need to find a hosting provider for your website. 

WordPress.com offers free and paid options, with functionality varying accordingly. The free version considers your site as its subdomain and will mandatory include wordpress.com as part of the domain name. For example, the abc site with a free version will be named abc.wordpress.com. When you upgrade to the paid version the term ‘WordPress’ gets removed from the domain name. On the other hand, you are free to choose a domain name with WordPress.org 

WordPress.com is expensive and offers complete maintenance of your site. It updates everything from themes, plugins, and modules. Contrary to that, WordPress.org based sites need to be maintained by a qualified developer. Everything from new updates to the addition of third-party security features needs to be taken care of by the site owner. 

WordPress.com offers absolute security and backup of sites while they need to be managed by the website owner, third-party associate, or web developer in the case of WordPress.org

WordPress.org is free open-source software that offers direct control of data and functionality of the site. You can conveniently integrate external themes and plugins with it. It is often used for small to medium-scale websites like Startups and low-traffic businesses. On the other hand, WordPress.com is ideal for large-scale websites. It is expensive due to the secure hosting service. It does not offer control over the whole site as well as limits third-party integration and usage of plugins/themes. Having said that, it also offers free plans with 3GB storage space.

With WordPress.org, you can run multiple small websites on a self-hosted basis, at a total cost of $100/year. Unlike that, WordPress.com business plans charge $300 annually for each site. Therefore, the latter one is an expensive bet.

Process of custom WordPress website development

The process of custom WordPress development includes following the same steps that we do in website creation. Starting from competitor research, goal definition, technical requirements gathering, design & development, quality check, and launch. The only difference is that you need to stick to the WordPress platform and modify its features for customized site development.

Maintenance tips for custom WordPress websites 

Like any other site, WordPress websites demand regular maintenance and support services. Below are the six major site maintenance tasks to keep your website up and running without any hiccups. 

WordPress core updates

To keep your website up-to-date, you need to make sure that it is completely aligned with the version of WordPress you are using. Any WordPress software update, small or big, can bring major changes to the foundation software. It would impact the working of the base software. So, you must update the core software with every latest change offered by WordPress. For this, it is advisable to take a full backup of the existing site. Or, you can create a local copy of the site and apply the update on it. 

You can wait for a day or two before applying the update. This will help you gauge the loopholes in the update to fix them easily. You can also test the update beforehand to check if the site will perform the same as before or not. It will also help to figure out new useful features offered by the update. In case you don’t have an in-house maintenance team, then you can choose third-party backup services as a reliable option. 

For WordPress.com users, the updates, testing, and everything is done by them. You don’t have to do anything. So, relax! 

Plugin updates

Plugin updates are important with changes happening in the plugins used in your site. If not updated, they can pose serious issues affecting the security of the site. Again, a backup of the site before an update is essential. You can choose to wait for a day or two to let WordPress developers fix any bug faced immediately after releasing the update.

Theme updates

You need to update an existing site with every new update of the underlying theme. This will help you add new features but may hamper the design. So, it is recommended to install the update on a test site, before doing it for the actual site. 

WordPress website backups

Whether you have a single or multiple sites, it is always required to maintain a backup schedule. Apart from the automatic backup, you must have a team that keeps a keen eye on regular real-time backups. You can even choose a specific backup solution or plugin that fulfills the requirements of your site. This proactive measure will help you restore any missing data or save the site from security threats. 

Monitor uptime and site performance

You must save your site from downtime as it results in losing sales and customers. It also gives a bad reputation to the brand. To prevent this, set up alerts that signal any possibility of downtime. Once you get notified, contact your support team to fix the issue at the earliest. Services like UptimeRobot check the site every five minutes. The best part is that it is free. 

Website security and malware scans

Saving your site from hackers is of utmost importance. For this, regularly updating themes and plugins is a must. Check for any unusual behavior or suspicious activity. Regular malware scanning is inevitable. There are many free plugins for malware scanning, install and configure them to save your site from security risks. 

Essential plugins, plugins API framework, and technical considerations

The most useful plugins for WordPress websites are listed below. They make your site feature-rich and technically sound. 

• Yoast SEO: Touted as the best plugin for managing SEO, it has an array of features that work immaculately in optimizing a WordPress website. 
• Jetpack: A versatile plugin that addresses security, design, performance, and even the marketing aspect of the site, all in one go. A must-have! 
• Akismet anti-spam: This tool will help you minimize the occurrence of spam on your site. 
• WooCommerce: If you are into an online product-selling business, this eCommerce tool from WordPress is a must-have for your site. With all the features required for an online selling website, the tool is a unanimous choice in the eCommerce domain. 
• Wordfence Security: Wordfence adds an endpoint firewall and seamless malware scanner to your site. It offers real-time security by keeping a keen eye on brute force attacks, cyber crimes, and more. 
• Caching plugin: These plugins minimize the load time of a website to offer higher performance. It delivers quick content from the cache by integrating effective Content Delivery Networks (CDN). 

You can choose from a variety of plugins offered by WordPress and make your site more functional, technically advanced, and top-notch in performance. 

WordPress plugin API (Application Programming Interface) is another technical consideration that you must think of. It offers a solid software structure to create as well as integrate various plugins into the site. It offers a set of hooks that govern the interactive ability plus behavioral exchange between plugins for the best functioning of the site. Plugins have PHP functions that are integrated by hooks at particular points within the WordPress site. 

Two types of hooks are: 

• Actions: These hooks manage the execution of certain actions during certain events. Action API are used by plugins to trigger certain PHP functions for delivering specific behavior. 
• Filters: These hooks manage the altering of text before submitting it to the database or transferring it to the browser. Plugins can execute a relevant PHP function through the Filter API to alter particular types of texts. 
• Moving on, there are many technical considerations to be taken into account while building and managing WordPress plugins. Some of them are as follows: 
• Compatibility: Check for the compatibility of the plugin with the version of WordPress you are using. Also, it should be compatible with other extensions and themes to prevent any issues in the future. 
• Updates & Maintenance: You need to check if the plugin you are planning to integrate with your site, has been actively updated or not. If yes, then there are fewer chances of any security threats to the site. An actively developed as well as updated plugin should be preferred over a dormant one. 
• Security: Plugins can also pose security threats if they are not made with the best web development practices. So, always choose them from a reliable source, reputed for maintaining high web standards for product development. 
• Performance: Poorly developed plugins can hamper the performance of a site, slowing it down as well. So, do research about the plugin before integrating it into your website. Read the plugin reviews, and feedback before integration. 
• Support: Choose only those plugins that are supported by the WordPress developer community on forums & community. Make sure you choose a plugin with appropriate documentation to avoid any confusion in the future. 
• Clean Uninstallation: A neat plugin should leave your site without any traces of leftover data & settings on uninstallation. This reduces further risk to the site. So, have a clear thought about installing only the best plugins. 

All these technical considerations will help you build a hassle-free WordPress site. Hiring professional WordPress developers will ascertain that all these criteria are taken care of without any loopholes. 

Top custom WordPress website examples

Listed here are some of the renowned WordPress sites in different categories: 

• Business websites: Airstream, Sony Music, Tonal, TeamViewer, aThemes, OceanWP, Neve, TechCrunch. 
• eCommerce websites: Wakami, Shop Catalog, Nalgene, Asheville Bee Charmer, Art & Hue, Root Science, French Today, Disruptive Youth. 
• Blog websites: Nomadic Matt, The Minimalists, WPBeginner, Kinsta Blog, Astra Blog, WPZOOM blog, Elegant themes. 

How much does it cost to build a custom WordPress site?

The budget of any website depends on the platform, the scope of the project, the complexity of the site, technical resources, scalability parameters, types of add-ons, location of business; and more. The same criteria holds for WordPress as well. You need to consider various factors before deciding the budget for custom WordPress website development. Listing a few of them to help you gauge the overall cost of development. 

Some of the common expenses are: 

• Domain name: You need to spend anywhere between $10 to $15 per year on domain name. 
• Web hosting service: It can range anywhere between $3 and $30 per month if you choose shared hosting. Choosing WordPress.com as a hosting service can be truly expensive but suits large-scale websites with heavy traffic in-flow. 
• Website design & development: This depends on the kind of resources you have hired for the job. While freelancers are easy on the pocket, they may lack the expertise required for the job. Dedicated resources push the development cost to thousands of dollars. 
• Location: A vast price difference is observed by hiring developers from different parts of the globe. While Asian WordPress development companies charge up to $20,000; Australians charge $75,000 for the same task. IT solutions providers in the USA can take it to a higher notch to $90,000. European companies are estimated to fit in a budget of $35,000 while the UK team can cost $80,000. So, the location of the WordPress development company plays a big role in deciding the budget. 
• Level of customization: If you choose free themes and plugins, you can wind up things on a relatively smaller budget. However, you may like to choose expensive yet accurate plugins over ready-made ones. Plugins range between $15 and $200. Custom ones cost even more. Similarly, custom themes can make a bigger hole in your pocket. This highlights the fact that you pay for the level of customization required for the site. 
• Maintenance & Updates: You need to hire a support team that checks the site frequently for any kind of maintenance services including updates, security risks, malware scans, performance issues, etc. So, decide on the maintenance budget in advance to ensure that your site is up and running. 

How do you find a custom WordPress development company?

Finding the best WordPress development agency for your project is again a huge task at hand. You need to be practical, astute, and precise about it. You can follow a few simple steps to narrow down your search. 

Chart down your exact development needs:

A clear understanding of the scope of the project – be it a regular blog, an eCommerce site, or an enterprise application; will help to choose the right technical team. 

Choose your team

You can either hire freelance WordPress developers by checking on WordPress communities, online forums, and the like. However, it is always better to select a renowned WordPress development agency with a classy portfolio of work. Business listing platforms are also a good source to find companies with expert WordPress developers. 

Check their skills before signing a contract

You can interview the developers, check their qualifications, and match their resumes with your requirements. WordPress development agencies are happy to share details about their resources. Weigh them against your project requirements, deadlines, budget, etc. Assess their project management, communication, and reporting skills against your site specifications. 

Go through reviews, testimonials

If you like a certain web development company, it is mandatory to check the reviews, feedback, and testimonials from previous clients. They give insight into the company’s reputation from its previous clients. Also, check their portfolio for work that resonates with your kind of project. 

Pricing considerations

Analyse if their pricing quote matches your budget or not. Don’t be fooled by cheaper rates as they might cost you the whole project. The idea is to get value for money from the technological partner. 

Seal the deal

Next, you need to sign a contract with the agency as a formal agreement to work together. Make sure you sign an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement) to prevent the company from sharing your project concept with anyone else.