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5 Best WordPress Backup Plugins to Keep Your Data Safe and Sound
Looking for an efficient and reliable backup plugin for your WordPress website? We have put together this short review to get your started.
A unique web presence is what sets apart any business aiming to rise above the competition in the highly aggressive online space of today.
WordPress is famously known for its rich collection of themes. Many brands try customizing those due to their affordability and speed, hoping to distinguish themselves from the other companies in their niche.
But here’s the sad truth. While WordPress theme customization brings the desired outcome in many cases, even the most flexible pre-built themes can fail to truly capture a brand’s essence or meet specific business needs.
This is where bespoke WordPress website development steps in. Although the custom approach requires bigger investments in terms of both time and resources, the benefits it brings to the table, in most situations, outweigh the costs by a wide margin.
Need more convincing? We’re up for the challenge. In this post, we’ll take a deep dive into the world of bespoke website development. In particular, we’ll explore these aspects:
- What is bespoke WordPress website development?
- Custom WordPress development vs. WordPress theme customization.
- Benefits of custom website development.
- Why choose WordPress for your custom website?
- WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com.
- What’s included in custom WordPress website development.
- Custom WordPress website development process.
- Custom WordPress development challenges.
- Cost of custom WordPress development.
- Why do you need a custom WordPress development company (partner)?
- How to choose a custom WordPress development company.
- How to work with a WordPress development company.
By the end, you’ll understand why the tailored approach stands head and shoulders above all the other options open to you. Ready? Let’s get started.
What is Bespoke WordPress Website Development?
Imagine having a website that not only looks amazing but is also crafted to satisfy your business’s unique needs and goals. Custom WordPress development refers to building your online presence from the ground up in exact compliance with your specifications.
Pre-made themes come with lots of design and functionality limitations. Those are often hard or even impossible to overcome. Going custom, in contrast, enables you to develop a website tailored to your brand’s one-of-a-kind personality.
Whatever your business requires, be it a custom booking system or a unique eCommerce solution, you’re in control of every facet, starting with the layout and ending with the features.
We like comparing bespoke WordPress website development to commissioning a tailor-made suit. You could pick a ready-made one fitting your size well enough. But there might be something that still doesn’t feel right: color, pattern, sleeve length, or something else.
A tailor-crafted suit is a completely different story. You’ve told the tailor about your expectations: what color and pattern you want, how many pockets you need, and so on. The tailor has taken your measurements down to a millimeter. As a result, when the suit is ready, you feel comfortable and self-confident wearing it.
The same thing happens when you order a bespoke WordPress website. It looks precisely the way you want and has all the features you need. It’s also fast, scalable, and user-friendly.
This allows you to clearly stand out from the other market players. You get more attention from your potential customers, just like you attract more attention by your uniquely designed, perfectly fitting suit.
That’s not all. Bespoke development allows you to integrate the most advanced tools and features into your website.
Want an interactive product showcase? Easy. A personalized user dashboard? No problem! This contributes to higher visitor engagement, longer times they spend on your website, and ultimately, improved conversion rates.
But you may still wonder how custom WordPress development differs from theme customization. Let’s clarify that, too.
Custom WordPress Development vs. WordPress Theme Customization
When you decide to build a WordPress website, you essentially have two routes to take: create a bespoke theme or customize a pre-existing one. How do they differ? Let’s take a look.
WordPress Theme Customization: Quick and Budget-Friendly
Consider a ready-made theme as a pre-designed home. You can make some changes to the interior while keeping the basic structure intact. For example, you might want to install specially designed flooring or replace the old doors with modern ones.
This allows you to basically create a new environment quickly and relatively cheaply. But you can’t rearrange the rooms or combine them.
We can say the same thing about pre-existing themes. You can change certain aspects like fonts or colors, converting a theme into something that looks different from the original.
But defining how the elements are placed in relation to one another can be extremely challenging. In addition, you can’t create all the features your business requires.
If you continuously customize a premade theme, you may change it so extensively that the vendor can no longer provide support for it. This is almost like developing a theme from scratch.
Custom WordPress Development: Tailored and Comprehensive
Custom WordPress development is like building your home from the foundation all the way up to the roof. Here, you’re the master of your own design. It’s up to you to decide what layout your website will have, what features it will include, what external systems it can integrate with, and so on.
Not only can you replace “old doors with new ones.” You can move those doors to completely different places inside your home if you want to at some point in the future.
For more insights on why building a custom theme is a smarter choice than customizing a pre-existing one, explore our post “7 Reasons Why a Custom WordPress Theme Is Better for Your Business.”
Scalability: Growing with Your Business
Let’s continue with our home analogy. When you’ve built your home yourself, you may then decide to extend it. For example, add a veranda or an attic. There’s no one standing in your way to make that happen.
It’s the same with a bespoke WordPress theme. Whatever features or elements you want to add at a later date, you’re free to do that. This enables you to scale your website easily as your business gathers steam.
By contrast, customizing a pre-built theme to catch up with your increased traffic may take too much time, effort, and money. More often than not, it’s simply out of the question.
Security: Building a Fortified Online Presence
Many themes, particularly premium ones, are secure enough. But with various cyber threats lurking at every corner, pre-existing themes may require plugins or regular updates to thwart those vulnerabilities effectively. This can lead to additional security investments down the road.
By choosing bespoke WordPress website development, on the other hand, you can ensure that your site has the most advanced security mechanisms in place from the get-go.
Maintenance: Keeping Your Site Running Smoothly
Custom WordPress sites demand more attention from owners and administrators to make sure they’re at their peak form at all times. This may require additional resources, time, and budget. However, there’s a silver lining: you can update and optimize your website in a proactive manner for the best user experience.
A fair share of pre-built themes, like Divi, receive regular vendor updates and support, which is good. But keep in mind that most are subscription-based, potentially raising your investment to nearly the cost of custom development.
Less well-known themes often come without any support or stop receiving updates because they are often built by solo developers rather than teams. If the developer loses interest in maintaining the theme, you might be in for some unpleasant surprises.
Even if a team develops a theme, they may focus on selling multiple templates for various industries and simply lack the resources required to provide high-quality support for all of their projects.
Lastly, pre-made themes are too generic and, thus, prone to compatibility problems with plugins and core system updates. If you don’t monitor those regularly, your website may often crash or underperform, causing frustration among customers and visitors.
Now that you know about the main distinctions between the two methods, let’s talk about the advantages of bespoke WordPress development at greater length.
Benefits of Custom Website Development
Custom WorDpress development is a treasure trove of benefits for businesses of all types and sizes. Here are the key ones:
Unique Design and Branding
A bespoke WordPress website is like an empty canvas where you can paint anything to reflect your brand’s unique essence down to the finest detail. That means you can use tailor-made graphics, personalized visuals, and intuitive layouts so visitors hear your brand’s voice loud and clear.
For instance, a tech company can integrate 3D models to present their complex products. Or, a fashion retailer can showcase their most popular collections through engaging custom animations. All this creates an unforgettable, immersive experience that stays in the visitors’ memory for a long time.
Custom Functionality
Various businesses have different needs and, correspondingly, require specific features for their website. For example, an airline may require a custom booking system with built-in AI-powered chat functionality, while a furniture company could benefit from a highly customizable and personalized CRM that perfectly connects with their sales representatives.
Custom WordPress website development is what can help businesses meet all those specific needs precisely. Whether you want dynamic content filtering, an interactive product configurator, or a customizable user dashboard on your website, bespoke development provides the required tools to align with your workflow.
Scalability
Every business wants to grow. We’re certain yours does, too. But as your traffic increases, you need to ensure that your site can handle it without a hitch.
You might also expand your operations sometime in the future and want to add new features to your website. The bespoke development approach allows you to achieve that by leveraging modular design patterns, cloud hosting, and other scalable technologies.
For example, if your ambitions drive you to reach out to international audiences, you can effortlessly integrate localized content delivery networks or multilingual support into your website to cater to customers from the new markets.
Improved Performance
Pre-existing themes, open-source or premium ones, may look great on the outside. However, when you peek under the hood, you will see that their code is far from clean.
It could be overly complex, with the same structures repeated over and over again. This not only makes the code maintenance a nightmare, but may also have an adverse effect on the theme’s performance.
In contrast, a bespoke theme is built with enhanced performance in mind right from the start. Developers use techniques such as server-side rendering to speed up page loading, a content delivery network (CDN) for fast content distribution regardless of a user’s location, and image compression, to name but a few.
A well-performing website is not only pleasant to interact with for your current and potential customers. It’s also one of the crucial metrics that convince Google and other search engines that your site deserves to rank higher on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
Better Security
Security is paramount for every business website. Unfortunately, there have been numerous reports about WordPress sites being exploited by hackers. In most cases, though, the problem was either an obsolete pre-built theme or outdated plugins.
With custom development, exploits like these are almost impossible. That’s because developers implement rigorous security measures at every stage of the development process.
Those include SSL certificates to encrypt all data traveling between the website and the server, two-factor authentication to add another layer of protection, and implementing secure coding practices.
Development companies and agencies also provide support and maintenance services, with regular website security audits as their integral part. A secure website is a surefire way to foster customer trust and loyalty.
Why Choose WordPress for Your Custom Website?
While bespoke development offers so many advantages, why create a website with WordPress? After all, there are so many alternative solutions out there. Yes, that’s right. But WordPress trumps them all.
Let’s put this platform head to head with the most popular website builders and content management systems to drive this point home.
WordPress vs. Webflow
Webflow is a modern solution with a sleek, visual approach to designing and building websites. It also offers simplified hosting and security capabilities.
But while it has a lot of great features, Webflow still loses to WordPress with its unmatched flexibility and a wide array of plugins. WordPress allows you to have a fine-grained control over your website’s look & feel and features, which Webflow doesn’t.
For a more detailed overview, explore our post “Webflow vs WordPress: Which Platform to Choose for Your Website (a Practical Example Included).”
WordPress vs. Drupal
Drupal is a venerable open-source veteran famous for its robust features with a focus on developers. It’s often used to create big projects with sophisticated functionality. At the same time, Drupal is quite challenging to master, especially if you come from an unrelated background.
You can use WordPress to develop large websites, too. But in contrast to Drupal, WordPress has an intuitive interface that beginners can quickly get to grips with and seasoned developers leverage to the maximum.
For other notable distinctions between Drupal and WordPress, check out our blog post “Drupal Vs WordPress: 3 Key Differences to Know Before You Make the Final Choice.”
WordPress vs. HubSpot
As far as marketing capabilities go, HubSpot is a terrific all-in-one platform. It offers a seamless integration of content management, sales, and CRM. But those are built-in tools you can’t actually customize to fit your unique business requirements.
On the other hand, WordPress is a cost-effective alternative to HubSpot’s pricey plans, which also gives you full freedom to customize your website to cater to all your marketing needs through a sea of specialized plugins.
To learn more about HubSpot as an alternative to WordPress, read the article “WordPress vs HubSpot: Is HubSpot a Good WordPress Alternative?”
WordPress vs. Elementor
Elementor offers users an easy-to-use and robust drag-and-drop interface to enhance WordPress’s design capabilities. But it’s just that: a WordPress plugin. That means you can’t do without the CMS to manage your content.
For more details on Elementor, explore this post.
WordPress and WooCommerce for eCommerce
This last one is actually not to oppose one tool to another, but rather combine both for additional value.
WooCommerce is an almost legendary plugin. It converts ordinary WordPress websites into powerful and scalable online stores with all the necessary eCommerce bells and whistles. You can also customize your store to your heart’s content through a sizable collection of WooCommerce extensions.
For an in-depth comparison of various eCommerce platforms, including WooCommerce, check out the post “WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Shopify, Adobe Commerce (Magento): Which Platform to Choose for Your Online Store.”
In conclusion, even this short review shows that WordPress is the number one choice for building custom sites. But you might have heard that there are two flavors of WordPress: WordPress.org and WordPress.com. Which one to choose?
Well, it depends. Let’s explore the main distinctions between these two versions to help you make an informed decision.
WordPress.org vs. WordPress.com: Making the Right Choice for Your Website
Both platforms have the same name before the extension, but each caters to specific needs and offers unique advantages. Here are the main differences between them:
Control and Ownership
WordPress.org is what we call a self-hosted platform. By building your website on .org, you gain complete control and ownership over the site’s content and assets. You’re completely free to change everything on your site, including the layout and features, without having to ask anyone’s permission.
On the flip side, WordPress.com is like a rented apartment. The landlord may allow you to hang your own curtains, for instance, but you have to follow certain domestic rules, such as no noise after 10 p.m.
The same thing is true for a website on WordPress.com, which we call a hosted platform. There are specific rules you should follow as far as the customization and monetization of your website are concerned.
Customization Capabilities
WordPress.org is a real customization paradise. You can personalize every aspect of your website either by using a vast range of pre-existing plugins and themes or by writing custom code to make your site truly unique and tailored to your brand’s needs.
When you opt for WordPress.com, you can customize your website, too. That’s particularly true for premium plans, where you can take advantage of additional themes and features. However, those are a far cry from the rich collection that WordPress.org offers.
Ease of Use
One conspicuous advantage of WordPress.com is its focus on ease of use. Everything, from hosting and backups to updates and security, is handled by the platform itself. This allows you to spend your valuable time creating engaging content and promoting your business instead of grappling with boring and complicated technicalities.
WordPress.org is more challenging upfront. You have to find a hosting provider, set up the system, update the core and plugins regularly, and ensure your website is secure. But once you’re comfortable with that essential stuff, you get a pleasant reward: complete control over your website, which WordPress.com can’t beat.
Pricing
When someone says that WordPress.org is absolutely free, it’s not quite true. Yes, indeed, downloading and installing WordPress on your computer costs you nothing.
But you need to factor in the fees for hosting your site and registering a domain name, money you spend on purchasing a theme and plugins, and some other expenses. On the bright side, prices vary greatly, so you have plenty of room for maneuvering.
There’s a free version of WordPress.com, too. But it comes with extremely limited functionality and annoys visitors with advertisements. If you want something more serious, you need to buy a premium plan.
The more expensive it is, the more features are open to you. Fair enough. Still, these features may not align with your business needs 100%.
The bottom line? If your goal is to build a fully custom site that you can modify in any way you want and that belongs to you from head to toe, WordPress.org is your go-to solution, hands down.
What’s Included in Custom WordPress Website Development?
Hopefully, we’ve convinced you that bespoke WordPress website development is the best way to stand out from the crowd, engage your audience, expand your business, and achieve more conversions. But what exactly is included in bespoke development? Let’s break it down.
Custom Design
Custom design is all about reflecting your unique corporate personality. It brings you a visually stunning, user-friendly, responsive, and functional interface, a delight to navigate and interact with.
Whether you’re a tech startup that wants a sleek modern theme with a minimalistic look, or an ambitious fashion brand that needs bold, larger-than-life visuals, custom design is your best bet.
Provide an unforgettable experience to your visitors with an extraordinary layout, impressive color scheme, and typography that speak volumes about your brand’s outstanding proposition.
Custom WordPress Plugin Development
As we’ve already discussed, businesses from different verticals have their unique requirements. One of the ways to create business-specific features on a website is to install specialized WordPress plugins, free or premium.
But quite often, you may discover that even the most sophisticated high-end plugins fall short in meeting your business needs. That’s when you need professional custom WordPress plugin development expertise.
For instance, if you provide a service based on subscriptions, a WordPress developer can create a custom plugin for you to handle memberships and billing, restrict access for unauthorized users, and integrate the website with your internal systems.
Custom WordPress Widget Development
Custom WordPress widgets cater to specific business needs, contributing to better user engagement. For example, if you’re in the restaurant business, you may want a custom widget that displays your menu dynamically whenever it changes (daily, weekly, etc.).
Or, if you own a news site, a bespoke widget with real-time data feeds will instantly update visitors on recent events, enticing them to click and explore a particular piece of news. This keeps them longer on your website—an important SEO metric.
Custom API Integrations
A modern business website is much more than just an online card. It’s a digital hub that connects with various applications and external services for the best business impact. This is made possible with custom API integrations.
For example, an eCommerce website may use a specialized API to dynamically update stock levels by continuously analyzing several sales channels. You can also leverage an API to establish a secure connection with your CRM to keep your customer data in sync.
WordPress Website Performance Optimization
It’s a well-known fact that most users tend to leave a website that loads in three seconds or more. That puts performance optimization front and center.
Expert developers use multiple techniques to fine-tune the loading speed and responsiveness of WordPress websites. These include code minifying, image optimization, and implementation of various caching solutions.
For instance, if you own a media stock website, optimizing large video and images for the maximum loading speed is crucial to ensure the best experience for your visitors.
A bespoke development service can be your ticket to a rocket-speed website, helping you reduce bounce rates and boost conversions.
Custom WordPress Website Development Process
Let’s move from theory to practice. You’ve made up your mind to develop a custom website using WordPress to power it. Great! But what steps does it take to bring your vision to life? Let’s walk through them from our perspective.
1. Discovery Phase
This first phase is focused on identifying the scope and goals of your bespoke site, as well as on outlining the key technical requirements.
Here’s an example. You want to launch a custom eCommerce website with WooCommerce as the driving engine. In the discovery step, we identify the essential features of your future online store, such as a customer account system, payment gateways, and inventory management.
2. UI/UX Design Phase
Building upon the discovery phase, we visualize the user journey and make sure your unique brand personality is reflected in the WordPress website design down to a minute detail.
For this purpose, our designers draw wireframes and create prototypes. Consider these as your website’s blueprint, similar to a home plan.
There could be multiple iterations in this phase so that you can provide as much feedback as necessary. Based on your comments, the designers update the wireframes and prototypes until you find the look and functionality of the website fully compliant with your expectations.
3. Development Phase
Once the designs are ready, it’s time to convert them into a full-fledged website. Working inside WordPress, our development experts build your custom theme and bespoke plugins to meet your specific business needs if no available solutions fulfill them. The developers code and perform unit testing, adhering to the best industry practices and standards.
4. QA Tests
Your website is not ready for launch until our QA engineers have thoroughly tested it to ensure that every feature works as expected (functional testing), users can easily navigate your website (usability testing), and the site is protected from all kinds of cyber threats (security testing).
We may also run other types of tests, depending on the specifics of your solution. For instance, we can conduct stress testing to verify that an online store can successfully withstand a traffic spike, typical for seasonal sales.
5. Site Launch
Launching a website involves more than pressing that proverbial button. It’s a complex process. We set up your WordPress hosting, configure domain settings, and finally deploy your website to a live server.
This is the bespoke WordPress website development process in a nutshell.
Custom WordPress Development Challenges
We’ll be honest: bespoke development also comes with its fair share of challenges. From managing resources to dealing with various technical issues, developers must overcome many hurdles to ensure the ultimate success of a custom project. Here are the most common ones:
1. Time and Budget
One of the most cited challenges of bespoke WordPress development is striking the right balance between time and budget constraints.
For example, you might need a custom site with lots of cutting-edge features and an elaborate design. However, you might be surprised to learn that the deadline you’ve set is too tight for developing a site like that. Or, you may discover that your budget is not sufficient to cover the cost of building all the necessary components.
Under these scenarios, you need to adjust your priorities and timeline. For instance, you’re a startup and need to launch a website to promote your product in the market as quickly as possible. Then you may only have the most essential, must-have features for a start (e.g., login and authentication, user data collection, monetization features, etc.), forgoing optional, nice-to-have functionality for the time being (e.g., AI-powered product configurator).
2. Technical Challenges/Complexity
Custom WordPress development is the “territory” of professionals with comprehensive expertise and vast experience. Integrating third-party APIs, developing bespoke plugins, and optimizing website performance—all these tasks are clearly not something that non-experts can handle successfully.
For instance, connecting a WordPress website with a CRM doesn’t only call for technical skills but also requires a deep knowledge of business processes. Otherwise, you may not be able to achieve the seamless integration between the platforms, which is super important from a business perspective.
These highly professional services naturally require more financial investments on your part. But the benefits you reap in the long run outweigh any initial costs you might incur at the start.
3. Maintenance
Developing and launching a custom WordPress site is only the beginning. You also need to look after it on a regular basis: update the core and plugins, monitor security and performance, fix any technical issues that pop up, and more.
Ignoring these crucial maintenance activities may lead to deplorable consequences. For instance, your custom theme may suddenly come into conflict with a pre-existing plugin after it’s been updated. As a result, your site may crash, with users going to your competitors.
To prevent those troubles, you need to hire the same developers who built your website or another team for a separate fee. That being said, trustworthy service providers always prepare detailed guidelines so that clients can keep their site in shape without professional assistance.
Cost of Custom WordPress Development
But here comes the million-dollar question: How much does it cost to develop a custom WordPress website? Well, there’s no straightforward answer.
Bespoke projects differ widely in many aspects. Let’s take a look at the key factors that impact the sum of the bill and the strategies you can employ to reduce it.
Factors Influencing Costs
To begin with, you need to factor in the cost of registering your domain name, or your website’s digital address. Typically, the prices vary between $10 and $20 on a yearly basis.
Then, you need to cover the hosting services, which involves paying for the server space where your website “lives.” The price can be as low as $3.95 per month for shared hosting and as high as $100 per month for a dedicated hosting option.
The next big budget item is the cost of your theme and plugins. If you decide to use a pre-existing solution, you may end up spending from $25 to $250 for a theme and $15-$200 for plugins.
With the fully custom approach, providing a specific price range is quite challenging, because of unique designs and features your website needs, which call for highly professional expertise.
One thing is certain, though. A custom website is normally more expensive than any customization services.
Strategies to Manage and Reduce Costs
You can use several methods to reduce the cost of building your custom WordPress website. One is to create a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). This is a strategic move.
When you launch an MVP, which is a “barebone” version of your site with only must-have functionality, you can monitor user engagement and collect feedback from your target audience. This allows you to cut down on the starting costs and avoid risks.
Then, when you see that the project is moving forward, you can enhance your website with specific features one by one, efficiently maintaining the balance between investments and your business growth.
Additionally, you can outsource the development of your custom WordPress website to a company in an offshore region, such as Eastern Europe or Asia. Prices there tend to be much lower than those onshore and nearshore development agencies charge.
At the same time, their products are comparable in quality to those American or West European companies develop. Here’s a table containing median prices charged by offshore service providers for an average WordPress project:
| Region | Timeline (b/d) | Hours | Median Price | Actual Hourly Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eastern Europe | 18.5 | 112.5 | $2,922 | $36 |
| Asia | 15 | 110 | $2,400 | $20 |
We’ve just scratched the surface regarding the cost of bespoke WordPress website development in this section. For a more detailed review, numbers, and valuable insights, explore our comprehensive guide “How Much Does It Cost to Build a WordPress Website in 2024? Data-Driven Truth.”
Why You Need a Custom WordPress Development Company (Partner)
While customization is something that many companies and individuals can handle themselves, especially if they come from a technical background, custom WordPress website development requires a deep knowledge of the platform and web development technologies.
And although it does come at a higher cost, the benefits you enjoy by teaming up with a professional WordPress development company are multifold. Let’s talk about the key ones.
Comprehensive Expertise and Collective Experience
A WordPress development company is a concentration of diversely skilled professionals in one convenient location, including every specialization, from web design and development to security and quality assurance.
You don’t have to search high and low for freelancers versed in a particular area, like back-end development or UX/UI design. This is time-consuming and can have an adverse impact on your pocket.
Instead, a company can instantly put together a team with all the skills you need to work on your project, guaranteeing smooth communication, fast turnaround time, and superior quality.
Tried-and-True Workflows
An experienced WordPress development company works by following well-adjusted processes that have been tested on multiple projects. You’ll have a dedicated Project Manager (PM) to draw up a detailed development plan and oversee its implementation from the first till the last moment.
You can monitor your project progress by reaching out to your PM during the business day via any communication channel or by using specialized project management software, such as Jira or Trello, 24/7. This way, you can be absolutely confident that the development of your site is moving forward in line with your expectations.
Instant Start
With so much multiskilled talent on board, a WordPress development company can get your project started without delay. This allows you to stick to your plans and goals, establishing your online presence to align with your business objectives and schedule.
Partnership Approach
A live site is like a car. So many things can happen to it on the road. It also needs regular servicing for smooth operation if you don’t want it to be permanently anchored in your garage.
Partnering with a development company is like hiring an empathic, friendly auto mechanic who cares about your site’s health and well-being. By providing ongoing support and maintenance, the company keeps your website secure and updated at all times so that it can efficiently handle any challenges and grow effortlessly.
Access to the Latest Technologies
A reliable WordPress development company is always at the forefront of digital advancements, constantly adopting new tools and technologies. Your gain? A “well-oiled” website that’s lightning fast, secure, and perfectly visible to search engines—essential prerequisites for superb user experience and business success.
Scalability
Unlike cookie-cutter templates whose main purpose is to “seize the moment” and basically play the role of a large banner ad that never changes, a custom website’s mission is to evolve along with your business.
A trustworthy WordPress development company builds your website keeping this future growth in mind. They create functionality that can easily handle any traffic spikes and steady increase in users.
Want to learn about other benefits that partnering with a professional WordPress company brings to your business? Read our insightful post “From DIY to Pro: Why Use the Services of a WordPress Website Development Company.”
How to Choose a Custom WordPress Development Company
You need a custom WordPress website development company to get the best results for your business. We’ve established that.
But if you run a search on Google, it returns thousands of companies, claiming they’re the pick of the crop. How do you find one that’s really worth your money? Start with these basic steps:
1. Define Your Needs
First, think about your website’s goals. What type of site do you want? A portfolio? An online store? What do you want to achieve with your site? Drive sales? Generate leads? Increase brand awareness?
Clearly outlining your goals and expectations to your potential development partners will help them build a website that brings your vision to life exactly.
2. Research Companies
Next, start searching for providers of custom development services. Visit their websites to explore portfolios and read case studies to learn if a company has handled projects similar to yours.
Also, look for client reviews and ratings on platforms like Clutch. In the end, you should come up with a shortlist of software development companies to contact for more information.
3. Evaluate Their Approach and Team
Reach out to the companies on your shortlist for an interview. Ask them about their approach to web development.
- How do they structure their development process?
- Do they use Agile methodologies, such as Scrum and Kanban?
- How do they communicate with clients?
All those aspects are important to ensure efficient and quick execution of your project.
4. Compare Proposals
The final step is to request proposals from the companies you’ve interviewed. Do they provide a detailed work breakdown structure (WBS) listing all the tasks that need to be completed and their respective costs? What is the estimated timeline?
Take enough time to compare the proposals. We recommend not being guided by price alone.
Quite often, a low price means that the company simply wants to attract more clients, and it doesn’t always guarantee the quality you expect. Evaluate all the aspects in their entirety and choose a provider that offers an optimal combination of expertise, quality, and cost.
These are just some essential steps you need to take when selecting and hiring a custom WordPress development company. Check out two useful articles on our blog for more advice and insights regarding these crucial processes:
- “How to Choose the Right WordPress Website Development Company for Your Needs.”
- “The Process of Hiring a WordPress Development Company.”
How to Work with a WordPress Development Company
So, you’ve found your perfect partner. Congratulations! But now you need to make the most of this partnership to ensure they create a unique website exactly as you see it in your mind’s eye. How? Let’s explore the main points.
Communication is Key
Smooth and transparent communication is extremely important for the ultimate success of your project. You need to be in constant touch with the development team to ensure you’re on the same page regarding the timelines, goals, and results.
So what exactly can you do to achieve that? Here’re some key steps you can take:
- Use project management software like Jira to track your project progress whenever you want.
- Hold check-ins with the project manager and the development team for updates or issue resolutions every week or two.
- Define the optimal response time for the team in order to avoid hold-ups or bottlenecks.
Define Project Scope
The project scope is like a roadmap for your website, defining the features it needs and the resources required to create them. So, one of the first steps you should take is clearly outline the scope, providing specific details, such as the design elements, third-party integrations, and SEO enhancements.
Trust the Experts
Be flexible in your requirements and preferences. The custom WordPress development team you’ve chosen probably has years of experience to their credit.
They’re following the latest technological advancements and implementing the industry best practices to ensure the top-notch quality and functionality of your website. Trust their recommendations if they suggest alternatives that add more value than your original plan.
Feedback and Iteration
Establish a clear feedback loop with your team. Otherwise, how do they know they’re moving forward in the right direction, aligning with your vision precisely?
Be objective. When you see that they’ve done something against your expectations, speak out openly about it. But also praise them when you like their work.
For more tips and insights, visit our post “From Concept to Launch: A Step-by-Step Guide to Working With a WordPress Website Development Company.”
Final Words
To sum up, custom WordPress development is the best way to create a truly outstanding web presence for your business. In contrast to theme customization with its creative limitations, bespoke development brings you all the flexibility you want to distinguish your brand in today’s highly competitive online arena.
And even though it involves more investments upfront, the long-term benefits of bespoke WordPress development outweigh the expenses significantly.
Here’s the best part. You don’t need to spend days searching for a reliable company. GetDevDone offers a wide range of bespoke WordPress development services to create visually stunning, feature-packed, well-optimized, and secure websites of all types and sizes. Here are some of our services:
- Bespoke Theme Development
Get a personalized website to reflect your brand’s identity with pinpoint accuracy and rise high above the competition with our decades-long experience in custom WordPress theme development.
- Custom Plugin Development
Turn your WordPress website into a business machine tailored to your unique needs with our unmatched expertise in crafting custom plugins to extend the standard functionality WordPress offers.
- WordPress API Integrations
Integrate your WordPress website with the most advanced tools and third-party services for the maximum business impact. From email marketing to eCommerce and everything in between, we ensure that your site communicates seamlessly with your preferred platforms.
- Ongoing Support and Optimization
Focus on promoting your business and building strong customer relationships with our expert website support and maintenance services. We regularly update your website (both the plugins and the core), perform security audits, troubleshoot various issues, and optimize performance and search engine visibility, so that your site runs smoothly, never disrupting your operations.
Ready to take your online presence to new heights with our unrivaled custom WordPress development expertise? Get in touch with us today. Your success is our number one priority, and we’re here to help you grow and thrive!
