Custom WordPress Development can give you the solutions that premade templates cannot. They can offer what you need for your business or brand. You should know “before making any business decision over 85% of B2B clients will look at your brandable website design. Custom WordPress sites are not only for custom and unique designs, they are also built with advanced SEO in mind so from the start you are boosting your website SEO by more than 50%.
On average a custom-developed WordPress site potentially saves up to 30-35% annually on maintenance costs. Also for the security management wordpress is the best choice against cyber threats. Do not get confused with “Custom WordPress theme development” and “Custom-made WordPress development”.
Taking a custom WordPress development service from Starlitdevs helps you develop a unique brand website.
Are you a co-founder, a startup founder, or an entrepreneur? Do you have a question about how to make a custom WordPress website?
If Yes, then we will discuss the following terms.
- What is custom WordPress development?
- 7 Benefits of using a custom WordPress site?
- How to develop a Custom WordPress Website?
- Who is your developer to design a custom WordPress site?
- What challenges do you face to develop a custom WordPress website?
- How much does it cost to develop a custom WordPress website?
- Where and How to find reliable WordPress developers?
What Is Custom WordPress Website Development?
Custom WordPress development means developing a website from scratch or heavily customized as per brand needs by keeping in mind unique design, UI, UX, functionality, security, and many more. This is not like building a website with full-stack coding.
This comes with Low-code concepts. So no more heavy server requests for extra plugins, and features. Although using page builders like Elementor, Divi, and other similar tools provides a user-friendly interface for nontech designers.
When designing a website for your company you might think about a pre-made template from WordPress library or any page builders. However, this is not a unique process for your creativity or showcasing your brand.
Giant companies like Techcrunch, BBC America, CNN, and Time magazine, we can see they are using CMS like WordPress but not from the free library or premade templates. They are custom WordPress-developed websites. They need a complex design for their company which is not achievable with general WordPress templates.
Difference Between Custom Development And Theme Customization
WordPress custom development can build a unique website from scratch as the brand needs full flexibility but WordPress theme customization can only modify existing templates. Where you can find theme customization as a reasonable solution for you. Keep in mind many cyber attacks occur from the premade theme files loophole.
Feature | WordPress Custom Development | WordPress Theme Customization |
| Foundation | Built from scratch | Pre-designed theme |
| Flexibility | Highly flexible; can be tailored to exact needs | Flexible within the constraints of the theme |
| Design Uniqueness | Unique design for the specific website | Based on a common theme, modified to look different |
| Development Time | Longer development time; building from zero | Quicker setup using existing frameworks |
| Scalability | Easily scalable with custom components | Scalable to an extent but limited by theme structure |
| Technical Skill Required | High; requires deep knowledge of coding and WordPress architecture (Hiring an expert recommended) | Moderate; primarily involves tweaking existing elements |
| Suitability | Best for complex sites with specific functional requirements | Good for blogs, small to medium businesses, or personal sites that can adapt to standard themes |
Difference Between A Coding Website And A Custom WordPress Website Development?
The main difference and use of a coding website and developing a custom WordPress website is building a brandable and unique design website from scratch.
A coding website needs more time investment and technical knowledge rather than a custom WordPress website. For an open-source framework, WordPress is really easy to maintain auto update custom plugins and backend support from viruses. Where a custom coding website does not have these types of benefits, changing anything every time needs expert support.
Table to show benefits, cost, maintenance, and support for a custom WordPress developing and raw coding website.
Aspect | Custom WordPress Website | Custom Coding Website |
Development Framework | The WordPress framework; is extended and customized via custom-made themes and plugins. | Developed from scratch with unique coding for all features. |
Backend Management | User-friendly admin area, easily manageable by non-developers. | Requires developers with knowledge of various coding languages. |
Time-to-Market | Faster deployment due to pre-built functionalities. | Longer development time as everything is built from scratch. |
Maintenance | Involves updating WordPress, themes, and plugins. Easier and less technical. | Requires ongoing technical oversight and updates by skilled teams. |
Cost Implications | Less expensive due to the use of existing resources. | Higher initial and maintenance costs due to custom development. |
Benefits | Quick setup, extensive plugin ecosystem, and large community support. | Complete customization, optimal performance, and unique features. |
Maintenance and Support | Easier and less costly; supported by a vast community and resources. | More complex and costly; and requires a dedicated team. |
Difference Between WordPress.com and WordPress.org?
The hosting system is the main difference between them. Where WordPress.com provides hosting solutions and WordPress.org is self-hosted and provides information, and resources to the community.
What Is WordPress.com?
A web hosting service created by Automattic was founded by Matt Mullenweg. One of the original developers of the WordPress open-source CMS. Offer a range of hosting plans as per user needs. Providing technical support like security, backups, updates, and anti-threat against viruses also gives SEO tools according to the plan. The Walt Disney Company is a great example built with WordPress.com
What Is WordPress.org?
It is a software by itself. Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little were co-founded in 2003 as a fork of b2/cafelog. You can build and maintain a website with it where you have to buy the Domain name independently. Pre-made template and architecture users can create web applications with its open-source free content management system. This core software can be installed on any web server which supports PHP MySQL or MariaDB.
WordPress.org is maintained and developed by a huge community of thousands of volunteers around the world.
Expert Suggestion:
For custom WordPress development WordPress.org is the ideal choice. It offers full control over the domain names, hosting options also for customizations. Users can have top-notch maintenance and security, control for complex custom projects. Where WordPress.com is suitable for simple projects.
What Are The Benefits Of Custom WordPress Website Development?
Before going to use it you need to know WordPress is the most popular and growing CMS with a 62.8% share of the global CMS market. In May 2024 (Update Report), almost 43.4% of global websites are powered with WordPress over 30000 themes are available in the library. Let’s break down the benefits;
- Benefit 1: Customized Security
With world-class level cybersecurity, researchers and lead developers are at the core of this system for custom WordPress sites. You can enhance more security by following such steps:
- Adding captchas to block bot attacks.
- Install security plugins to regularly scan for malware.
- Add Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) and limit login attempts.
- Use SSL to safeguard user data during connection to your site.
- Benefit 2: Extensive Customization
The main target of using custom WordPress development is to use custom features which allow users to develop custom functions and data as per business needs. Of course, this is technical and fits with the customer’s requirements.
- Benefit 3: Easy To Maintain
It’s using WordPress core that’s why most of the backend maintenance work. An in-house developer needs to download the updates regularly. This is also a budget-friendly solution for the business owners. Where an e-commerce website owner needs to spend a minimum 3750-4000$ per month on maintenance and coding for the design. While a custom WordPress development costs nearly about 1200-1500$ per month. The price is not definite it varies with needs and support.
- Benefit 4: SEO Comfort & Compatibility
Custom WordPress Websites are built with streamlined code. Because it doesn’t have extra unnecessary codes to load on the server, that’s why fast load speed, and easier to index on search engines also improve the site’s performance. In short,
- Good navigation.
- Well-structured sitemap.
- Schema for a better understanding of the website.
- Best page load speed.
As I early said earlier, custom WordPress design starts with advanced SEO integration. Like optimal use of meta tags, website headers, also alt attributes are perfectly aligned with the target keywords & proper content strategy.
- Benefit 5: Fast Building Time
A fundamental coding website needs a minimum of 350-450 development hours to build from scratch. But if you need to do any updates it requires complex work and also increases the work hours as well. Whereas a suitable framework like WordPress which doesn’t have a backend to edit, with custom requirements, only needs 100 or fewer hours to build.
- Benefit 6: Flexibility
For your business, you need to customize anything anytime but for a coding website is not a cup of water to play with, for a custom WordPress website development is so easy to work anytime with only less work.
Step By Step To Develop A Non-Custom To A Custom WordPress Website
Before developing the custom WordPress website what if you already have a WordPress website for your company or agency? Yes, it is possible to custom design and add some features to it. You can hire Starlit Devs Custom WordPress Service For this too.
The process of developing a standard WordPress site to a custom website.
- We will review your site and identify the areas where you want to do the customization.
- Outline what functionality, and design you want.
- Add a child theme to make safe modifications without affecting the ability to update your main theme.
- We will create or modify plugins to add specific functionalities to your needs.
- We will use the advanced custom fields (ACF) to design unique content layouts and also data structures.
- Our in-house developer team can handle complex customizations.
- We will test your website across different devices & browsers to ensure mobile-friendly responsiveness.
- Our work won’t affect site performance and search engine rankings as your website is already ranked for such keywords.
- We will keep your website up to date with the latest versions of WordPress, plugins and security measures.
These are the safe processes we use to develop your standard site into a custom WordPress website.
Step By Step To Develop A Custom WordPress Website
Developing a custom WordPress website involves some intricate steps with technical and strategic planning. Here are the processes we follow:
- Initial Research & Planning.
- Designing with UI/UX.
- Coding and Development.
- Quality Assurance & A/B Testing.
- Deployment and Lunch.
Initial Research & Planning:
This stage is the core of the development. Where all the objectives depend on the startup Founder, such as technical requirements, website UI visions, target features, business goals with a roadmap, etc.
In this phase, the technical team engages by gathering requirements from the startup founder to clarify the project’s scope. Perform a feasibility study with a detailed project plan to determine the technical stack. This plan also outlines the UI with the desired features and a project execution roadmap because it ensures that the technical infrastructure planned will support the proposed features and business objectives efficiently.
Technical Requirements:
The technical stack needed such as which platform to choose between, WordPress.org vs WordPress.com, proper hosting requirements as per target audience and also scalability options.
35% of startups fail because they don’t understand their audience.
- UI/UX Visions:
Designers brainstorm the UI and UX, planning the layout, colour schema, typography and navigation structures which ensure a smooth user journey.
- Target Features:
The brand will decide on the specific custom features which are unique to the brand. Such as post types, API integrations or advanced security features.
- Business Goals With Roadmap:
In this phase of the project, a strategic roadmap is the main key milestone with business objectives to guide the development process, it will reduce the development cost by half almost.
UI/UX Design Phase For A Custom WordPress Website
Focusing on UI/UX design enhances user satisfaction and engagement which is contributing to your business success.
- Wireframing:
To better understand about client’s vision first need to start with simple sketches to map out the layout of each page. Move to digital mockups using tools like Sketch, Figma or Adobe XD for a more detailed layout.
- Prototype:
To simulate the user experience need to create an interactive prototype. Some tools like InVision or Figma can help to build clickable prototypes. Conducting user testing sessions with those prototypes helps gather feedback on the usability.
Contact Us for more information about UI/UX.
- Visual Design:
Our team will guide you to choose a consistent colour schema, typography and imagery that reflect your brand identity. Without your permission, we won’t finalise any style, font usage, or spacing.
- User Testing:
We conduct usability tests with some real users to identify any pain points or areas of confusion. We will observe how users will interact with the site and forward the issues they point out after the clients confirm that we have the necessary adjustments to improve user experience.
Coding and Development Phase
By partnering with Starlit Devs, you can trust your custom WordPress website will be developed precisely to your unique requirements and maintain optimal performance and security.
- Setup Development Environment:
Starlit Devs leverages tools like XAMPP, MAMP or Local by Flywheel to create a local development setup. This allows for thorough testing & development without affecting the live site.
Utilizing Git, we ensure all code changes are tracked, it will enable seamless collaboration so if needed easy to roll back to previous versions. Of course, we will follow the timeframe and milestones.
- Theme Development:
Our team crafts custom WordPress themes from scratch or modifies existing ones to align with your brand identity. We use PHP for backend functionality, HTML for structure, CSS for styling, and JavaScript for dynamic elements.
- Plugin Development:
To develop plugins for the custom features and requirements getting from the client. Must be ensured that new codes and API integrations won’t conflict with the existing themes or plugins.
- Core Development:
For SEO management and stable ranking organize the content, sometimes need to create custom post types and taxonomies. This is so important because it provides a structured and logical way to manage different content types, site navigation and usability.
Here at Starlit Devs, we optimize SQL queries to ensure fast data retrieval and efficient database interactions. This supports the site’s functionality and performance needs.
Quality Assurance & A/B Testing
Through using the WordPress platform, we adhere to the code standards to ensure that clean code, is readable and maintainable. This prevents errors and ensures compatibility. Our team also code reviews Regular to maintain high-quality code. These are the best practices to follow.
We use frameworks like PHPUnit and test individual components to check whether the code functions correctly or not. Then it’s time to integrate and identify the issues to resolve them.
Simulate real user interactions by using tools like Selenium to ensure that the site performs to clients’ expectations under various scenarios.
| QA Test Process | Description |
| Compatibility Testing | Validates cross-browser, cross-device, and cross-platform compatibility for consistent user experience. |
| Performance Testing | Measures load times, responsiveness, and stability under various conditions and user loads. |
| Security Testing | Identifies and mitigates vulnerabilities to safeguard against potential threats and breaches. |
| Functional Testing | Ensures all features, workflows, and integrations perform as expected, adhering to specified requirements. |
| Usability Testing | Assesses user interface and experience for intuitiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. |
Deployment and Lunch
Before going live fully We create a staging environment by mirroring the live server. This allows us to test the whole website thoroughly without impacting the live site. We ensure a full backup of the site, so this safeguards against any potential issues during the deployment process.
Sometimes a rollback plan allows us to revert to the previous version to minimize the issues that arise during deployment. Which minimizes the downtime of the website and ensures a smooth transition.
- Post-Deployment Testing & Monitoring:
It is so important to perform a final round of testing to confirm that everything is functioning as expected. At Starlit Devs we check all the links, integrations and functionalities to ensure a seamless user experience.
Our team is on standby to provide instant support and quickly address any issue that may arise.
For your custom WordPress website, you need real feedback from real users. This is a kind of review from website visitors, to improve your site. We consider a 25% budget to maintain the custom WordPress website. For example, if your website development costs 90,000$ then the maintenance budget will be 22500$.
How Much Does It Cost To Develop A Custom WordPress Website?
Developing cost for a custom WordPress site mainly depends on the demand and then your location, team composition and time durations. These are the main factors.
1. Location-Based Costs:
- USA: $85,000 – $90,000
- Canada: $80,000
- United Kingdom: $80,000
- Australia: $70,000 – $75,000
- Western Europe: $60,000 – $70,000
- Eastern Europe: $35,000
- Asia (including India): $20,000
2. Complexity and Customization:
- Basic Sites: For a startup or to show a personal portfolio with custom features, these sites start from $10,000.
- Complex Sites: The budget for an E-commerce site with so many features, development, integrations and customizations can be nearly $75,000.
3. Key Cost Factors:
- Domain Name: A standard .com domain for $10 – $15 per year. Find here the best domain name.
- Hosting: Shared hosting ranges from $3 – $30 per month for small startups or portfolios will be okay for less server load. VPS and dedicated hosting options are more expensive but suitable and recommended for E-commerce.
- Website Design & Development: This part grabs the lion’s share of the whole budget. Depending on demand complexity it ranges from $10,000 upwards.
4. Team Composition and Expertise:
| Aspect | Freelancers | Agencies |
| Cost | Lower initial costs and budget-friendly. | Higher costs due to experience enough and proof services. |
| Services | Focus on specific tasks (e.g., design or development). (Not suitable for big projects). | Offer full-service packages including design, development, and support. (Suitable and recommended for Custom WordPress Development). |
| Project Management | Often self-managed, may lack a structured process. | Professional project management with dedicated & experienced teams. |
| Post-Launch Support | Limited ongoing support, usually project-based. | 24/7 Continuous support and maintenance services from Starlit devs. |
| Availability | May have varied availability, juggling multiple projects. | Dedicated resources with committed timelines. |
| Expertise | Varies widely; expertise may be limited to specific areas. | Teams with diverse expertise, ensure all aspects of the project are covered. |
| Communication | Direct communication with the individual | Structured communication through project managers |
| Scalability | Less scalable, ideal for smaller projects | Highly scalable, suitable for larger and more complex projects |
| Seniority of Developers | Rates vary based on experience, from juniors to seniors | Typically include experienced senior developers, ensuring high-quality work |
Additional Information:
- Flexibility: Freelancers have more flexibility in terms of working hours and quick adjustments. But sometimes it doesn’t fit with you for the timezone.
- Quality Assurance: Agencies like Starlit devs have dedicated QA teams ensuring a higher standard of work.
- Network and Resources: Agencies have access to more tools and resources, it will enhance the development process.
- Legal and Financial Stability: Agencies provide legal assurance and financial stability, reducing project risks. Where freelancers don’t provide such kind of facility.
Cost of Custom WordPress Website Development in USA In Different States
Here’s a table showing the average cost to build a custom WordPress website in various states across the USA. Prices can vary based on the complexity of the site and the developer’s experience.
| State | Average Cost ($) |
|---|
| California | 5,000 – 20,000 |
| New York | 6,000 – 25,000 |
| Texas | 4,000 – 18,000 |
| Florida | 3,500 – 17,000 |
| Illinois | 4,500 – 19,000 |
| Pennsylvania | 4,000 – 18,000 |
| Ohio | 3,000 – 15,000 |
| Georgia | 3,500 – 16,000 |
| North Carolina | 3,500 – 16,000 |
| Michigan | 3,500 – 16,000 |
| Washington | 4,500 – 19,000 |
| Arizona | 3,500 – 16,000 |
| Massachusetts | 4,500 – 20,000 |
| Tennessee | 3,500 – 15,000 |
| Indiana | 3,000 – 14,000 |
| Missouri | 3,000 – 14,000 |
| Maryland | 4,000 – 18,000 |
| Wisconsin | 3,500 – 16,000 |
| Colorado | 4,000 – 18,000 |
| Minnesota | 3,500 – 16,000 |
Sign Necessary Documents:
A partner with Starlit Devs for your custom WordPress development project, we are so strict with the essential and formalised agreement. This involves signing two key documents:
- Contract: This legally binding document outlines the scope of work, payment schedules, deliverables, and other crucial details between you and Starlit Devs.
- Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA): This NDA document ensures that Starlit Devs will not disclose any sensitive information about your project, protecting your proprietary information and ideas.
By signing these documents, you secure a clear, professional, and confidential partnership with Starlit Devs.
Founding Starlit Devs has allowed us to extend our expertise globally, serving over 500 clients, including Fortune 1000 companies, with custom web development services. Our commitment to delivering exceptional design and development is coupled with a deep understanding of SEO, which has been pivotal in empowering businesses to achieve maximum online engagement and brand growth. At Starlit Devs, we take pride in our mission to provide websites that stand out in a competitive digital landscape and drive tangible results for our clients.
