How to Build a Custom WordPress Website: The Only Guide You’ll Ever Need In 2024

So you want to create a custom WordPress website and you’re in need of a guide to help with the process?

This article has all there’s to know about custom WordPress website development, amidst other information.

Consider this, “85% of B2B customers will first look at your website before making any business decision.” Thus, there’s no doubt that custom WordPress website development unlocks a whole new level of opportunity for all enterprises.

There’s no doubt that owning a website unlocks a whole new level of opportunity for all enterprises.

A custom-made WordPress platform helps you create a unique, brand-centric web platform by leveraging the ease of the open-source framework to guarantee quick time-to-market.

If you prefer a visual text experience, you can head straight to the bonus infographic.

Let’s discuss the points made above.

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What Is Custom WordPress Web Development?

Custom WordPress development refers to the process of creating bespoke websites using WordPress for unique business needs.

In a manner that appropriately adheres to business needs without the constraints of traditional WordPress templates.

When using a WordPress web builder, you may opt for a WordPress theme or template and use it as-is.

However, this development method may make your website slow, unfriendly, or not unique.

To avoid these limitations, you can customize the WordPress website as desired with the aid of an experienced WordPress developer.

Here’s a list of platforms to take a cue from:

These websites are all made using WordPress, yet distinct from most platforms on the internet.

What is the Difference Between WordPress Website and a Coding Website?

The main difference between the two is that a custom website is created from scratch, while a custom WP site uses the WordPress open-source framework to create a unique website.

Here’s a table showing the cost differences between custom WP sites and others:

What is the Difference Between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?

WordPress.com and wordpress.org are domain names for two separate, but similar operations. Below is a table depicting how both wordpress.com, and wordpress.org differ.

What is WordPress.com?

WordPress.com is a platform that lets account owners self-publish blogs for free. The platform is formed by Automattic Inc.

A common example of a website built by wordpress.com is The Walt Disney Company.

What is WordPress.org?

WordPress.org is an open-source and free content management system with a template system and architecture that lets users create web applications to taste.

The platform is formed by using hypertext processor languages and pairing them with MariaDB or MySQL databases. Features can be added to the platform by downloading plugins, which are features coded in supporting languages.

A common example of a website built with wordpress.org is TechCrunch.

Verdict–which is ideal for Custom WordPress Development

For custom WordPress website development, you’ll have to opt for a WordPress.org platform. It offers top-notch flexibility and more robust options for development.

What are the Benefits of Custom WordPress Website Development?

To make an informed decision on whether creating a custom WordPress platform is a good choice for you, we’ll educate you on some of its pros:

Let’s discuss the intricacy of each benefit:

Benefit 1: It’s Popular

According to W3Techs in 2022, about 43.2% of websites on the internet currently use WordPress. This number has increased from 39.5% in 2021.

With this statistic, it’s safe to conclude that WordPress is the most popular website framework out there.

Another benefit of customizing a WordPress website is quick time-to-market:

Benefit 2: Quick Time to Market

Unlike traditional websites where every feature and functionality has to be independently coded; WordPress sites only require that you choose a suitable framework as it doesn’t have a backend.

For example, the average time to build a website using WordPress is about 200-300 hours. While a website coded from scratch requires around 350 developmental hours at least. So yes, WordPress can save you a significant amount of time.

Benefit 3: Easy to Maintain

WordPress updates take care of most backend maintenance processes. The WordPress developer only needs to regularly download updates.

Also, maintenance cost is lower as the price for maintaining an e-commerce site coded from scratch is about $4,000/month, while you can maintain a custom WordPress e-commerce platform for $1,500/month.

These prices are not finite and are subject to change based on certain intricacies.

Benefit 4: SEO Compatibility

Custom WordPress sites are easy to optimize for search engines per expert guidelines on technical and on-site SEO. Features making it optimizable are:

• Good site navigation
• Sitemaps
• Page speed
• URL structure
• Schema.

WordPress is written in high-quality code with semantic markup. As such, with the right strategy, your site can rank in the topmost position.

Benefit 5: Secure

Custom WordPress websites have a central core that’s maintained by a team of world-class cybersecurity experts and programmers. This core is the center software architecture that forms the basis upon which other platforms are built.

WordPress’s backend security team has over 50 experts that include top-of-the class programmers, and security researchers.

Your WP platform will remain secure provided that you take your website’s security seriously. The top ways to keep WordPress secure are:

• Hosting your custom WP website with a secure hosting provider
• Enable SSL to protect user-sensitive information
• Install plugin to scan your platform for malware
• Protect your WP login details with strong passwords. Use features like multi-factor authentication, captchas, and plugins to track login attempts.

Steps to Creating a Custom WordPress Website

You’ll need to understand the basics of the processes involved to build a custom WordPress site.

Hire a web development agency, create concise goals, identify suitable milestones, and adhere to the following checklist:

• Step 1: Carry our pre-development research
• Step 2: Create UI/X design
• Step 3: Undertake the coding process
• Step 4: Carry out requisite QA tests
• Step 5: Launch your WordPress website.

Let’s elucidate on the points in the checklist:

Step 1: Discovery Phase

The discovery phase, also called the scoping phase or the research phase, is a step whereby the development team undertakes requisite research on the idea’s viability, objectives of the startup founder, requisite technical requirements, etc.

The outcome from this phase should be a development blueprint that serves as a guide for the development team.

This phase has a range of aspects that entail:

• Research on the founder’s idea viability
• Identify technical requirements
• Identify business goals
• Identify your target audience
• Create a development roadmap
• Estimate milestones and budget.

Let’s break down each point for better understanding:

Benefits of the discovery phase in custom WordPress website development are:

• It reduces the cost of development
• Founders have an early understanding of risks
• It helps to validate an idea’s scalability, and profitability
• It eases the process of identifying talents.

Once you’ve drafted a project blueprint for the discovery phase, the next step is the custom wordpress website design phase. Let’s discuss this:

Step 2: UI/UX Design Phase

The UI/UX design phase is a step where the product designer creates wireframes, mockups, and prototypes for the custom WordPress site.

These design steps help to provide a pictorial view of the custom WP site idea, thereby improving the team’s knowledge of the product.

We won’t discuss the idea of a well-designed platform as this is a subjective per business idea, niche, and type.

At the end of this stage, you should have either an interactive prototype, wireframe, or both.

Note: This phase is a fluid one, as deliverables are often subject to corrections from all team members.

Learn more: Click here for more information on UI/UX website design.

Step 3: Development Phase

Now that there’s an interactive prototype to guide the design phase, the next step is implementation.

The crux of this step entails turning the prototype into a custom live WordPress website. The developer will use requisite WordPress tools to create a website that’s a pitch-perfect resemblance to the prototype or wireframe.

For timely development, it’s best to set a reasonable timeframe and milestone to attain a strict deadline. For example, you may set a timeline for the completion of the homepage and its icons.
Once this phase ends, you should have a fully functional WP platform.

And at completion, QA tests will also be done on the website:

Step 4: QA Tests for WordPress Website Development

Even though you have an actionable website, you can’t launch it yet as you need to verify its resilience, security, and scalability.

You’ll also need to check for bugs, and loopholes in the newly built WordPress platform.

Here are the QA test processes involved:

Let’s break down the purpose of each test procedure:

Once the QA tester ascertains the quality of the custom WordPress site, the next step is to launch.

Step 5: WordPress Site Launch

Your overall development process is meaningless without launching. Once your product is live, you should then need to gather feedback, and regularly improve on existing products.

But before digging into feedback, let’s break down the product launch process:

• Purchase Domain Name

To launch your WordPress solution, you’ll need to purchase domain names.

The domain name of a website is the address that a prospective page viewer types into a browser’s URL field to access a web platform. An example is www.intelivita.com.

The domain name is unique, and cannot be the same as another website. Common places to purchase a domain name includes:

• Bluehost
• Domain.com
• Namecheap.

Once a domain name is purchased, another thing to purchase before launch is hosting. Let’s discuss this:

• Purchase WordPress Hosting

You’ll need to purchase WordPress hosting to provide resources and servers tailored specifically for custom WP websites. WordPress hosting ensures that data for the platform is on a server.

Note: Cheap WordPress Hosting plans can slow down your platform if it has low bandwidth.

Namecheap is one of the common place to purchase a managed WordPress hosting.

Once the domain name and hosting are purchased, your WordPress site can go live.

Once launched, the next step is to monitor visitors’ feedback.

• Monitor Feedbacks

Feedbacks are like reviews from website visitors, providing relevant suggestions on what to improve, and top-performing features.

For a high-traffic platform, you may require a fully functional tech support team to handle structural feedback on your website.

For optimum performance and regular uptime, it’s best to opt for a WP site that’s at least 25% of the overall custom WordPress web development budget. That is, If the cost of developing a custom WP site is $80,000, then your maintenance budget should be $20,000 at minimum.

But first, it’s important that you get users before feedback. Why? The more your users, the more relevant your feedback is, this, in turn, helps you identify loopholes.

Irrespective of your website niche, the bulk of your maintenance spending will be expended on:

• WordPress upgrades
• Enhancement
• Analytics
• Feedback monitoring
• The addition of new features
• And more!

Now that you know the steps involved in development.

Let’s educate you on the cost of developing a custom website:

How Much Does it Cost to Develop a Custom WordPress Website?

The cost of creating a custom WordPress site ranges from $10,000 to $75,000 depending on your development region.

Some other factors that affect custom WordPress prices are complexity, team composition, and seniority of the development team, amongst other factors.

For a more precise WordPress cost estimate, you should reach out to our sales team. We’ll provide you with a free one-on-one cost estimate.

Below is a spreadsheet detailing the cost of WordPress website development per region:

For more information on how location affects cost, it’s best to read this article titled: “How Much Does it Cost to Make a Website.”

Let’s educate you on the steps to hiring a custom WordPress developer to get started:

Steps to Finding Custom WordPress Web Development Partners

Finding a developer is relatively easy!

Finding a top talent with in-depth expertise in WordPress website development is difficult.

To choose right, you’ll need to understand the right metrics to watch out for.

This section will educate you about hiring the ideal web developer for your business:

Step 1: Know What you Need

To identify the type of talent you need for custom WordPress development, consider specific goals and tasks you aim to achieve with your WordPress platform.

Here are some important things to think through:

Once you’ve identified what you need, the next step is to search online:

Step 2: Search Online and Offline

There are several places to find WordPress developers, some of which are:

1. Freelance Platforms

Freelance platforms like Fiverr, Freelancer.com, Upwork, etc. have thousands of developers spread across the world.

What’s more? They allow you to view reviews and ratings before hiring a talent.

2. WP-specific Job Boards

Check out job boards like WordPress Talent, WP Jobs, and other platforms that list openings for WordPress developers and other experts in the open-source framework.

3. Online Communities and Meetups

Visit WP online communities like WordPress.org forums and online meetups for recommendations and to find developers with noteworthy achievements.

4. Business Listing Platforms

Business listing platforms are websites with information about firms with services in a specific niche.

An example of a business listing platform is Clutch, which allows you to find IT firms online. Business listing sites are a digital alternative to Yellow Pages.

Business listing platforms help you to quickly identify software development agencies with expertise in custom WP development.

Step 3: Vet Their Skills

Before you hire a developer or partner with an agency for your custom WordPress web development, you should ascertain the following skills:

• Ability to create custom WordPress plugins and themes from scratch
• Ability to use WordPress functions and hooks
• PHP programming expertise, including the ability to use loops, functions, and variables
• Strong understanding of HTML, JavaScript, and CSS
• Knowledge of MySQL database
• Strong understanding of responsive design principles, especially media queries
• Experience with version control systems like Git.

Step 4: Sign Necessary Documents

Once you’ve found a suitable custom WP web development partner, the next step is to formalize your partnership.

There are two important documents to getting that done; these are:

It’s important to review, and understand all documents before signing them.

Bonus Infographic

Check out our summary of our detailed guide to learn some key points about building a custom WordPress website, cost of creating a custom WordPress site, benefits, and more.