Most WordPress sites are not slow because WordPress is slow. They are slow because they were assembled from a page builder, a bought theme and twenty plugins, each loading code for features the site will never use. Search engines then have to work harder to read a site that should have been simple.
This service replaces that with a custom, lightweight WordPress build where technical SEO is part of the foundation rather than something added afterwards. You work directly with me, the person writing the code. Projects start at $2,000.
Who this is for
This is the right starting point if you are building or rebuilding, and you want search performance handled during the build instead of patched later.
- Small businesses whose current site loads slowly and is hard to update
- Publishers who need a content structure search engines can follow
- Founders launching something new who do not want to rebuild in a year
- Anyone moving off a page builder that has become impossible to maintain
Who should not buy this
If your site is already fast and well built, a rebuild is usually the wrong spend. In that case the problem is normally content, internal linking or a technical issue that can be found and fixed far more cheaply. Start with an SEO audit and 90-day roadmap instead, and only rebuild if the audit says the foundation is the real limit.
If you need a simple brochure site of three or four pages with no growth plan, this is more build than you need. I will tell you that on the call rather than sell you the larger project.
What you get
- A custom theme, not a page builder. Hand written code, only the CSS and JavaScript your site actually uses.
- Technical SEO built into the structure. Clean URL structure, one H1 per page, logical heading order, crawlable HTML links, correct canonical tags and an XML sitemap.
- Structured data that matches the visible page. Organization, breadcrumb and article markup, set up so it never contradicts what a visitor can see.
- Core Web Vitals handled during the build. Explicit image dimensions, a prioritized main image, no layout shift, transform based animation only.
- Responsive and accessible. Tested at real phone widths, with keyboard navigation, visible focus states and color contrast that meets WCAG AA.
- Analytics and Search Console connected before launch, so you can measure from day one.
- An editable site. Content areas you can change yourself without touching code or breaking the layout.
How the build works
1. Understand
Before any design happens I go through your business, your current site and the searches your buyers actually use. The goal is to know what the site has to achieve, not just what it should look like.
2. Prioritize
You get a plan for the page structure, the URL structure and what each page is meant to do, agreed before a single line of code is written. Changing structure on paper costs nothing. Changing it after launch costs redirects and lost rankings.
3. Execute
I build the theme, wire up the content areas and test as I go at phone, tablet and desktop widths in both light and dark mode. You see the site on a staging URL throughout, not at the end.
4. Measure
After launch I check indexing, Core Web Vitals and Search Console coverage, then hand you a short written summary of what to watch in the first ninety days.
Moving an existing site without losing what it earned
A site migration is where hard won rankings most often vanish, and it is nearly always avoidable. The traffic does not disappear because the new site is worse. It disappears because a few hundred old URLs quietly started returning 404, or every one of them was redirected to the homepage, which search engines read as the old page no longer existing.
I have run this on a live business. Prime Fruits became Imperial Fruits, a full brand and domain change, with roughly thirty minutes of downtime on the day. The plan is the reason that number is small.
What a migration includes
- A complete old to new URL map, agreed before anything is moved
- A permanent redirect for every URL that ever earned a link or a ranking, page by page rather than everything to the homepage
- Content, images, metadata and internal links moved with their structure intact
- Search Console change of address, a fresh sitemap and index monitoring through the weeks after the switch
- A rollback plan, so a bad launch day is reversible instead of permanent
A redesign is a migration too
Keeping your domain does not make you safe. If a redesign changes URLs, headings, internal links or the amount of text on a page, search engines are re-evaluating the whole site whether you planned for it or not. Redesigns that lose traffic usually lost it in exactly this way, and the drop shows up weeks later when the cause is hard to trace.
If a move or a redesign is already behind you and traffic fell afterwards, that is a diagnosis job rather than a build job. Start with the SEO audit and 90-day roadmap instead.
What it costs
WordPress development with technical SEO starts at $2,000. The final figure depends on how many page templates you need, whether content has to be migrated from an old site, and whether you need custom functionality such as a quote system or a filtered archive.
You get a fixed scope and a fixed price in writing before anything starts. These are founding client rates and they rise as I add more results. You can see how this sits alongside the other options on the pricing page.
What is not included
- Ongoing content writing and link building, which is a separate SEO and content pilot
- Paid advertising, social media management and email marketing
- Logo and full brand identity design, although I will work to a brand you already have
- Guaranteed rankings, which nobody can honestly promise
Proof this approach works
HairIsCurly was built on this method: a custom WordPress theme with an SEO first content structure rather than a page builder. It has since passed 1.1 million image search impressions in Google Search Console, across a library of more than 50 published articles. In the most recent period measured, web clicks rose 37.5 percent and impressions rose 26.2 percent. The full breakdown is in the HairIsCurly case study.
You own everything
The site, the code, the content, the hosting account, the analytics and the Search Console property all stay in your name. There is no proprietary platform to stay locked into and no monthly fee required to keep your own website working.
What happens after you get in touch
- You send your current site or your idea, plus what you want the site to achieve.
- I review it myself and come back with honest first thoughts, including whether a rebuild is actually the right spend.
- If it is a fit, we have a call and I send a fixed scope and price.
No pressure and no obligation. If SEO or a rebuild is not the best use of your budget, I will say so. Get in touch here.