WordPress redesign

Short answer

We audit the theme, plugins and content, move the site onto a maintained theme or block-based build, cut plugins to the ones you need, set up editing your team can manage and carry over content and addresses with tested redirects.

Common problems with older WordPress sites

WordPress itself is regularly updated. The trouble usually lies in what was built on top of it. Common patterns include a theme that stopped receiving updates years ago, or a page builder that wraps every paragraph in layers of code. Plugins pile up: two for forms, three for security, one for each slider. Editing a page becomes risky, because changing one block moves three others. Updates get skipped because something broke last time.

Those problems compound. Skipped updates create security risk. Heavy page builders slow pages down. A difficult editor means content goes out of date.

What the redesign involves

Audit

We list every page, post, custom post type, form and plugin. For each plugin we note what it does, whether it is still maintained and whether anything else on the site does the same job. We also check user accounts, because old sites often have administrator logins for people who left years ago.

Theme and build approach

We recommend an approach based on what your team needs to edit. For most small business sites, that is a maintained, lightweight theme using the WordPress block editor, with a small set of custom blocks or patterns for your page layouts. This keeps editing inside standard WordPress tools rather than a third-party builder. Where a site depends heavily on a particular builder and moving away would cost more than it saves, we say so.

Plugin clean-up

Every plugin should earn its place. We remove duplicates and unused plugins, replace abandoned ones with maintained alternatives and keep the total as low as practical. Fewer plugins means fewer updates to manage and fewer things to break.

Content migration

Pages and posts come across with their text, images and metadata. Where page addresses change, we add permanent redirects and test them on staging. Many WordPress sites have years of blog posts with their own search traffic; these are included in the audit and redirect map like any other page. See SEO-preserving migration for the full set of checks.

Editing set-up

We set up user roles so people have the access they need and no more. We create page patterns for your common layouts, so adding a new service page means filling in a template rather than building from scratch. At handover, we walk your team through editing and leave short written notes.

Security basics

We update WordPress core, the theme and all plugins, remove unused administrator accounts, confirm backups run and are stored away from the server, and check that login pages are protected against repeated guessing. We do not sell ongoing maintenance plans, so we make sure you know what needs doing after launch.

Speed and accessibility

A WordPress redesign is a good moment to fix speed problems at the root. A lighter theme and fewer plugins often make more difference than any optimisation plugin. We record Core Web Vitals before and after where data allows ^[1].

We check the pages we build against WCAG 2.2 at level AA. Block-based themes make it easier to keep headings, buttons and form labels consistent, which helps accessibility long after launch.

Should you leave WordPress?

Usually not. If your team knows WordPress and it suits what the site needs to do, a redesign within WordPress is the lower-risk path. We suggest a move only when there is a clear reason, such as needing an online store that a dedicated e-commerce platform handles better, and we explain the trade-offs in writing. The e-commerce redesign service covers that case.

What you receive

• A redesigned WordPress site on a maintained theme
• A plugin list with the reason each one is installed
• Page patterns for your common layouts
• Tested redirects for any changed addresses
• Editing notes and a short handover session

WordPress redesign questions

Can you keep our existing blog posts?

Yes. Posts are part of the content audit. We bring across the ones you want to keep, with their images and categories, and redirect any whose addresses change.

We use a page builder. Do we have to stop?

Not necessarily. We explain the cost of staying and of moving. For many sites, moving to the block editor makes pages lighter and editing simpler, but the decision is yours.

Do you provide hosting or maintenance?

No. We recommend what to look for in a host and hand over a short maintenance checklist, so you or a provider of your choice can keep the site updated.

Sources

Each source was opened and checked against the sentence it supports on 3 November 2026.

1. Web Vitals (published by web.dev (Google); Last updated 31 October 2024) Platform documentation