16+ Years of Experience
Orlando Web Development Solutions
- Custom WordPress Development
- Custom Web Design
- Limitless Functionality
- Powerful Content Management
- Easy-to-use and accessible
- SEO Friendly and Optimization-Ready
- Performance Optimization
- WordPress Best Practices
- WordPress Security Hardening
- Secure, Reliable, and High-Performance Hosting
We plan ahead for website maintenance
Often times a design agency will create a website without a plan for maintaining the site for their client. They hire designers that don’t understand web development, and they hire freelance web developers that are not invested in the project. At the end of the project, they give the client a WordPress website full of plugins that cannot be updated due to missing or unpaid license keys.
We plan ahead to reduce how many plugin licenses you have to deal with. Our maintenance plans include common plugins and themes so you don’t have to worry about tracking additional bills, license keys and renewals.
WordPress Development Best Practices
We use best practices to build great digital experiences
Custom and Stable
Your unique brand and content informs a custom website design. We build custom WordPress websites and do not use off-the-shelf themes that inevitably break down. We also do not convolute your site by white-labeling plugins, themes, or your WordPress Dashboard experience. One of our core values is transparency and that extends throughout our work.
Quality Plugins
Not all plugins work as intended, we cut through the noise and only use plugins that are built by trusted third-parties and have been cleared through our WordPress plugin screening process. We look for plugins that are trustworthy, secure and easy to use and avoid the plugins with poorly designed marketing sites, mascots and gimmicky sales tactics.
Simple and powerful site management
Our solutions provide a customized and intuitive interface. Easy to understand content editing, rather than the standard confusing block editors. The management capabilities we build give you exactly what you need.
Performance and Speed
Fast loading websites perform well in search engines and lead to better user experiences. Our custom WordPress themes are optimized for speed. Don’t settle for a slow website using a theme that is loaded with errors and unused code.
WordPress Optimized Hosting
We recommend the best WordPress hosting plans. We select your hosting based on your needs and priorities such as storage, security, traffic, resources, and stability. We avoid the shared hosting companies no matter how good their reputation is and prefer to work with the best of the best managed WordPress hosts such as Kinsta, Flywheel, WP Engine, Cloudways, and SpinupWP.
WordPress Website Security
We take security seriously and understand how it can impact your business if your website goes down or is infected with malware. That’s why we take extra steps to keep your site secure. We use defensive coding practices, use SSL, configure HTTP response headers, install website firewalls, two-factor authentication, and more.
Custom WordPress Development Options
Option 1: Custom design and custom WordPress theme
We design your site, and build a custom WordPress theme from scratch.
This option gives you complete control over the look and feel of your website, the functionality and capabilities. If you prefer more control, no limits, a more consistent look, and extended functionality then this option is best for you. This option does not use third-party page builders and keeps content and code separate. Separating content (the database) from code (the theme) allows you to redesign your site anytime without having to move all of your data.
We take additional time to learn and understand your company, goals, audience, and branding. Having control over the complete development of your website allows us to maximize performance, accessibility, on page SEO, and user experience. Choosing this option will evolve your brand because your new design assets can be applied to your online presence. We create a website that is scalable, and sustainable with proper maintenance. Most custom WordPress websites we build last between 5 and 8 years with site audits every 2 years and at least one homepage refresh.
Option 2: Custom design plus a WordPress Block Theme
We design your site, and build it within WordPress.
Get powerful page building features and a custom design, without compromising. Our WordPress Block Theme uses the WordPress Block Editor (formerly known as Gutenberg) to provide predesigned #nocode site layouts for you to control. We provide design mockups created for your unique needs before building your site. We create a custom design using the WordPress Block Editor and powerful block editing features from the best WordPress theme frameworks. And unlike most off-the-shelf themes still using clunky and out-dated page builders, block themes are ultra-fast and does not cause performance issues. If you’re building a brochure style site this option is perfect.
“They listen to the needs of their customer and place a huge emphasis on taking care of them. The improvements Afteractive made have streamlined our processes for maintaining the website, freeing up time for us.”
Custom page building in WordPress
We create a separation between your data and the display. Your content is not tangled in code. We have direct and quick access to creating new layout types for your site, allowing you to control your content. We don’t pin the responsibility of content layout on you, the content manager. Instead, you can select from as many layout blocks as we create for your site. Each of these layout blocks have configuration options so that you can add variety to your layouts and visuals. The options are controlled so that any combination will look great. You have the freedom of choice, without having to be a layout designer yourself. We love it too because we can use the tools in place to create stunning layouts for you that match your brand. In addition to our configuration options solution allows you to duplicate, clone, add, remove, reorder, collapse and hide.
Why our clients ask us to develop custom WordPress themes and WordPress Block themes instead of the classic WordPress off-the-shelf solutions
Reason #1: Lack of Optimization
Optimization is difficult with marketplace WordPress themes
Using a classic WordPress theme may sound like a great way to save money on WordPress development costs. And it can be for those that need a website and are just starting out. But if you rely on internet traffic for your leads, and need to be competitive, you need to optimize your site.
Because theme developers don’t always pay attention to performance, SEO, and Accessibility, marketplace WordPress themes block site owners from being able to optimize their site. Overrides to the core programing of the theme are not easy to maintain. Most of the time, if you are using a marketplace theme, your provider is not an experienced developer with those capabilities. These are often designers, marketers, or SEO professionals that are wrangling themes and plugins together to build a site. We provide experienced WordPress development that won’t leave you stuck.
Reason #2: WordPress page builders can be a disaster
WordPress themes from marketplaces come with proprietary page builders that lead to inaccessible and disappearing content
Page builders have been known to have security vulnerabilities. Blocks created by page builders often stop working after updates. Often these blocks will no longer accept edits, forcing you to create it all over again. These layouts often look terrible on mobile devices because they only guess at the spacing. Page builders need to be maintained and the complexity of testing these features becomes impossible for this software to not have ongoing bugs and issues.
Reason #3: Page building is now a standard part of WordPress
Classic WordPress themes and templates are not taking advantage of the best page builder: the WordPress Block Editor
If page builders from marketplace themes don’t meet your needs, you may consider the WordPress Block Editor (known in the WordPress community as the Gutenberg editor ). You can visit the new Gutenberg editing experience for WordPress and learn about it while interacting with the editor at the same time. Most people need to be a pro at it in order to build with it, but editing is a breeze. If you’re like most website owners, you would rather have an easier experience updating and adding your content. You may also want the flexibility it provides for quickly building out new pages, designs and layouts.
For most of our small businesses in Orlando, we find that the WordPress Block Editor works great for small sites and blog articles. It allows for content variety in your posts. However, you may want a completely custom WordPress theme to guarantee consistency if you have a large number of pages, more dynamic content, and multiple editors.