If you've spent any time searching for a custom WordPress developer in Michigan, you already know the problem: most pages that rank for this term claim to build "custom" sites, then ship a $59 marketplace theme with your logo swapped in and call it a day. The DOM is cluttered, the plugin count is north of 40, and six months later you're watching Core Web Vitals warnings pile up in Search Console while your bounce rate climbs.
This is what we actually do at IGNITE Media Group — and more importantly, why the difference matters for your business over the next five years.
What Custom WordPress Development Means at IGNITE
Custom Themes Built From Scratch vs. Retrofitted Page-Builder Sites
"Custom" gets used loosely in this market. Here's the precise definition we work from: a custom WordPress theme is written from the ground up in PHP — template files, theme.json, and custom block types that map directly to your content model. No marketplace parent theme underneath. No page-builder framework locked to a vendor's licensing. The code that ships is the code your team will maintain.
The typical competing pitch in Michigan looks like this: open Astra or Divi, apply a starter template, change the colors and upload the logo, push to production. That's a customized template, not a custom build. The distinction matters in three concrete ways: the DOM is cleaner (faster LCP, lower CLS risk), the plugin surface area is smaller (fewer attack vectors, fewer update conflicts), and there is no vendor lock-in if the page-builder company changes pricing or gets acquired.
To be honest about tradeoffs: a page builder ships faster on day one and lets a non-developer reshape pages without touching code. That's a real benefit for some teams. But page-builder frameworks generate roughly three to four times more frontend code than a hand-coded equivalent for the same visual output — extra DOM nodes, unused CSS, and JavaScript that loads on every visitor, on every page. That cost compounds daily.
For deeper context on when each approach makes sense, see our breakdown of custom theme vs. Elementor and Divi tradeoffs.
Lean but Mighty — You Work Directly With the People Building It
We're a lean but mighty team — intentionally small so we can stay hands-on and agile. That's not a limitation; it's a structural decision. Big-agency experience with boutique-level attention means you're not routed through a project coordinator, a creative director, and a developer who's never read your brief. Personal by Design: you won't get passed from department to department.
Founded in 2013, headquartered at 1460 Walton Blvd. STE 220, Rochester Hills, MI 48309, with a secondary office in Phoenix, AZ — IGNITE holds both Semrush Certified Agency Partner and Google Partner certifications. Those certifications matter as a baseline hygiene signal; they don't substitute for the actual portfolio work below.
Full-Stack Expertise: Design, Frontend, PHP, Infrastructure, SEO Architecture
A custom WordPress build is not purely a design project or purely a development project. It spans brand and UX design, frontend markup (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), PHP application logic, MySQL database architecture, server configuration, Git-based version control, and the SEO architecture that determines how the site performs after launch. These disciplines have to speak to each other at build time — bolting SEO on as a checklist item at the end of a design engagement is how you end up with a beautiful site that Google doesn't know how to index.
We are not a PPC shop. We don't build template marketplaces or offer pre-packaged site-in-a-day products. The scope is custom WordPress, redesigns, scalable web platforms, and ongoing SEO and hosting support.
Where in Michigan We Build For
Detroit, Ann Arbor, Rochester Hills, Sterling Heights, Royal Oak, Troy
Our client and project geography is concentrated in the Metro Detroit corridor, with active work across the state.
- Detroit — the largest metro, with a dense mix of professional services, medical, non-profit, and industrial clients. If your business is in Detroit, Custom WordPress development in Detroit is the right starting point.
- Ann Arbor — university-adjacent professional services, med tech, law, and non-profit sector concentration. See WordPress web design in Ann Arbor for the city-specific breakdown.
- Rochester Hills — our HQ. Fastest path to in-person discovery; strong overlap with Oakland County manufacturing, medical, and professional services clients.
- Sterling Heights — Metro Detroit's manufacturing spine. Sterling Heights WordPress development covers the industrial-web angle specific to this corridor.
- Royal Oak — professional services, retail, and hospitality. Royal Oak WordPress website design covers the conversion-focused angle most relevant to this market.
- Troy — high density of corporate and professional-services firms. See WordPress development in Troy, MI.
On-Site Discovery in Metro Detroit; Remote-Friendly Across the State
Rochester Hills to Detroit or Ann Arbor is a 30–45 minute drive. For the broader Metro Detroit cluster — Sterling Heights, Royal Oak, Troy — we're typically within 20 minutes. For clients elsewhere in Michigan or in Arizona, discovery and design sprints work fully remote; nothing about the architecture or quality changes.
Local SEO Architecture Baked In for Service-Area Businesses
"Local SEO baked in" translates to specific build decisions: LocalBusiness schema with accurate NAP, service-area and city-segmented landing pages, internal-link signals that connect location pages to relevant service pages, and a structured-data implementation that gives Google clean entity signals. If your primary geo is one of the cluster cities listed above, the city-specific page will be more useful than retreading the Michigan-wide pitch from this page.
Industries We Build Custom WordPress Sites For
Manufacturers and Industrial
Manufacturing sites have a content model that generic themes don't anticipate: product families with spec sheets, materials data, tolerance ranges, engineering-facing downloads, and sometimes part-number databases. The right build uses Custom Post Types for products and specs, ACF field groups for structured product data, and a PDF/download management system that ties into WordPress media without a third-party plugin bloat layer.
IGNITE has built for clients including the Taylor Door Co. custom WordPress project, the Acro Corp WordPress build, the eLumigen project, and Ashcom Tech. If manufacturing or industrial is your vertical, see what to look for in a manufacturing website design agency and our custom WordPress for Michigan manufacturers cluster piece for vertical-specific context.
Law Firms and Professional Services
Legal sites need practice-area and attorney CPTs, structured attorney biography pages that support E-E-A-T signals, strict compliance language, and form handling that doesn't inadvertently collect privileged communications. WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility compliance isn't optional for professional-services firms with government or publicly funded clients.
Our law-firm work includes Strobl Sharp PLLC, McAlpine PC, and Secrest Wardle. For a deeper dive into the vertical, see our WordPress for law firms cluster piece.
Medical and Specialty Practices (Orthopedics, Dental, Plastic Surgery, OB/GYN)
Medical sites add layers of complexity: HIPAA-aware form handling, condition and procedure CPTs with appropriate medical disclaimers, provider biography pages structured for local search, and patient-trust design patterns. WCAG 2.2 AA is the accessibility baseline; given OCR enforcement trends, accessibility is a compliance question, not just a UX preference.
Medical projects include Michigan Gynecology Oncology, North Oakland Plastic Surgery, Vitality Precision Chiropractic, and Michigan Orthopedic Specialists. The custom WordPress for medical practices cluster piece covers the HIPAA-form architecture and schema implementation in detail.
Non-Profits
Non-profit sites typically need event management, campaign/donation flows, volunteer coordination pages, and board/staff CPTs — none of which default WordPress pages and posts handle well out of the box. Accessibility matters acutely here because the audience frequently includes people with disabilities, and many non-profits receive public funding that triggers accessibility compliance obligations.
Non-profit projects include Judson Center, Alternatives For Girls, and the Al Fracassa Legacy Foundation. For the vertical brief, see WordPress for non-profits.
Architecture Decisions That Determine the Next 5 Years
Custom Theme vs. Page-Builder Tradeoffs and Where Each Is the Right Call
The honest answer: page builders are the right call for some projects. If the client has a non-technical content team that needs to reshape page layouts frequently, the up-front cost of editor training on a custom block system may outweigh the performance advantage. If the budget is constrained and the content model is simple, a well-configured Astra or GeneratePress build with minimal plugins is a defensible choice.
Custom themes pay back over years in performance (cleaner markup = better Core Web Vitals), maintainability (no vendor dependency), and not being held hostage when a page-builder company raises prices or sunsets a plugin. The payback horizon is roughly 18–36 months on a typical mid-market build.
See the full technical breakdown in custom theme vs. Elementor and Divi tradeoffs.
ACF + Block-Based Architecture for Editor-Friendly Content Management
Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) is the standard WordPress plugin for adding structured custom fields and registering custom content models — it has over 2 million active installs and has been the practical standard for editor-friendly custom content modeling for over a decade.
ACF Blocks, available in ACF PRO, let developers build custom block types using PHP rather than React/JavaScript. This matters in practice: your development team can write custom blocks that behave like native WordPress blocks — alignment controls, anchors, reusable-block support — without introducing a React build pipeline into the theme. Editors work inside the native Gutenberg block editor; developers control the data model and rendering template.
This is the architecture we default to when the content model is complex but the budget doesn't justify a fully headless stack. The ACF block architecture pattern cluster article goes deep on the implementation.
Custom Post Types When the Content Model Is More Than Pages and Posts
WordPress ships with posts and pages. That's fine for a blog. It breaks down immediately for projects, providers, attorneys, products, locations, case studies, events, and anything else that has structured fields and needs its own template, archive, and URL pattern.
Custom Post Types solve this at the data-model level. A law firm with 12 attorneys and 8 practice areas needs attorney CPTs and practice-area CPTs with relational field connections — not 20 individually maintained page templates. A manufacturer with 300 products needs a product CPT with structured spec fields, not 300 posts. The custom post type patterns we use most covers the implementation and naming decisions in detail.
What "Clean, Compliant Code" Actually Means Under the Hood
The brand phrase "clean, compliant code that enhances website speed, security, and SEO performance" translates to specific engineering practices: semantic HTML with a defensible heading hierarchy, accessible markup that satisfies WCAG 2.2 at the template level, minimal-plugin architecture (each added plugin adds attack surface, update risk, and possible performance drag), PHP that's code-reviewed against WordPress coding standards, and Git-based version control so every change is traceable and reversible.
"Compliant" also means WCAG 2.2 AA where the client's vertical requires it — which, as noted above, is most medical, legal, and non-profit clients.
When Headless WordPress Is Warranted (and When It Isn't)
Real Use Cases for React/Next.js + WordPress as a CMS
Headless WordPress means WordPress handles content management and exposes data via its REST API or GraphQL (via WPGraphQL), while a separate frontend application — typically Next.js or Astro — consumes that data and renders the pages. The result can deliver outstanding performance because the frontend is statically generated or server-side rendered outside of WordPress's PHP execution path.
Genuine fits for this architecture: content libraries with tens of thousands of entries where PHP-rendered page generation creates latency; multi-channel publishing where the same CMS feeds a web app, a mobile app, and a kiosk display simultaneously; or in-house engineering teams already working in React who want WordPress for editorial workflows but don't want PHP in their frontend stack.
See the when headless WordPress is actually warranted cluster piece for the full architecture breakdown.
Cost, Complexity, and Editor-Experience Tradeoffs
Headless is not a free performance upgrade. The tradeoffs are real:
- Editor preview — live preview inside the WordPress admin is difficult to implement correctly in a headless setup; editors often lose the "what you see is what you get" workflow they expect.
- Plugin ecosystem — plugins that inject HTML into the frontend (contact forms, popups, analytics tag injectors, WooCommerce) break because there is no WordPress frontend to inject into. Each plugin dependency requires a custom integration.
- Hosting cost — you now run two applications: a WordPress backend and a Next.js frontend. That roughly doubles infrastructure complexity and cost.
- Two codebases — updates, security patches, and debugging span both.
Most Michigan Businesses Don't Need It — and That's the Honest Answer
Most mid-market Michigan businesses — manufacturers, medical practices, law firms, non-profits — are better served by a well-built classic WordPress theme optimized for Core Web Vitals than by a headless stack they can't maintain after the agency relationship ends.
This is where being senior matters. A studio that sells every project as a sophisticated technical build is optimizing for invoice size. A senior partner tells you when the traditional stack is the right tool and what the actual performance ceiling looks like when you build it correctly.
SEO-Ready Architecture, Not Bolted-On SEO
Technical SEO Foundations: Crawlability, Schema, Internal Linking
Every IGNITE build ships with a set of SEO-architecture decisions made at the template level, not applied as a post-launch checklist:
- XML sitemap generated dynamically and submitted to Google Search Console
- Semantic heading hierarchy enforced at the template level (one H1, structured H2/H3 for content sections)
- Schema.org structured data — Organization, LocalBusiness, Service, and Article markup — implemented where it produces rich-result eligibility for service-area Michigan businesses
- Internal-link architecture designed at the content-model level, not added after the fact
- Canonical tags, hreflang where relevant, and crawl-direction metadata configured from day one
Core Web Vitals as a Build-Time Decision, Not a Post-Launch Retrofit
Core Web Vitals — LCP under 2.5 seconds, INP under 200ms, CLS under 0.1 — are part of Google's page-experience signals. Building for these targets at the theme and template level is fundamentally different from passing PageSpeed Insights after launch and applying band-aids. The decisions that determine Core Web Vitals performance are mostly made during development: image handling (explicit dimensions to eliminate CLS, modern formats like WebP/AVIF, lazy loading for offscreen media), font-loading strategy (preload critical fonts, avoid FOUT), JavaScript execution budget (minimal blocking scripts, defer where possible), and server response time (caching strategy, CDN, hosting tier).
A page-builder theme that ships with 400KB of unminified CSS and a carousel plugin that loads a 150KB JavaScript library on every page cannot be retrofitted to strong LCP scores without rebuilding the template. That's why Core Web Vitals are a build-time architectural decision. For the full WordPress-specific implementation, see Core Web Vitals on WordPress.
Migrations That Preserve Organic Visibility and Ranking Equity
Redesigns are where SEO equity most commonly gets destroyed — not by intent but by process gaps. If your current site ranks for terms that drive real business, a migration that drops those rankings is not an acceptable launch outcome. Period.
The three things that protect SEO equity through a migration: a documented 1:1 URL map with 301 redirects in place before DNS cutover (not after), no orphaned legacy content during the transition period, and a launch-week crawl plus Google Search Console reconciliation to catch redirect chains, soft 404s, and indexation gaps before they compound.
See migrating WordPress without losing SEO equity for the full migration process. If you're evaluating whether your current site needs a redesign at all, signs it's time to redesign your website is a useful starting point. If your current platform is a legacy HTML site or a non-WordPress CMS, see transferring legacy sites to WordPress.
The Hand-Off to Ongoing Organic Growth After Launch
Launch is not the finish line for SEO. A well-built site establishes the technical foundation — SEO-ready architecture, clean crawl path, structured data, proper internal linking — but organic growth after launch requires ongoing content strategy, link acquisition, and performance monitoring. IGNITE's SEO services are built to extend directly from the web-design engagement, not bolted on as a separate retainer sold by a different team. The schema markup for service businesses on WordPress article covers the structured-data layer in detail.
Conversion-Focused Design on WordPress
Landing-Page Systems for Paid + Organic Capture
A landing-page system is not a collection of one-off pages. It's a reusable block library — hero, social proof, FAQ, form, schema — with per-campaign ACF overrides, consistent UTM-aware tracking wired through GA4, and a deliberate decision about which form routes to which inbox (or CRM record). The system scales to dozens of campaigns without duplicating technical debt.
This matters equally for organic and paid capture. The same structural discipline that makes a PPC landing page convert well also makes a long-form service page readable, indexable, and persuasive to the organic visitor who found it through search.
Form Strategy, Analytics Wiring, and Attribution
Form strategy deserves more architecture thinking than it usually gets. Progressive disclosure (multi-step forms that qualify the lead before asking for contact information) performs better for cold traffic; single-step forms work for high-intent, known-audience pages. Anti-spam implementation must not break accessibility — visible challenges that rely solely on visual or audio perception fail WCAG 2.2. Server-side validation is the backstop. Notification routing must survive staff turnover — forms that email one person's personal inbox are a liability.
Analytics wiring on day one means GA4 configured with conversion events tied to real business value (form submission, phone click, qualified-lead webhook to CRM), Google Search Console verified, and Microsoft Clarity installed for session-replay and scroll-depth data. Heatmaps and form-field abandonment data are the evidence base for layout decisions — not aesthetic preference. We won't ship a layout we can't defend with behavioral data.
Why Senior Teams Make Layout Decisions Evidence-Based, Not Aesthetic-First
This is the part that separates a design-led studio from a studio that gets results. The hero section placement, the location of the primary CTA, the form length, the headline test — these are empirical questions with measurable answers. We use scroll-depth, click-density, and form-abandonment data to make them. The aesthetic serves the conversion function; when they conflict, conversion wins.
Security, Maintenance, and What a Senior Partner Actually Does
Beyond Plugin Updates: Backups, Staging, Environment Parity, Version Control
Maintenance is not the same as plugin updates. Baseline maintenance at IGNITE includes weekly core, theme, and plugin updates run first against a staging environment (not directly in production), automated daily backups stored offsite with a verified restore process, uptime monitoring with alerting, and quarterly security audits against OWASP's WordPress-relevant recommendations.
Environment parity — local development → staging → production, with Git-tracked deployments — means every update is reversible. When a plugin update breaks a critical page in staging, you catch it before visitors do. See the WordPress security and maintenance baseline article for what the full operational checklist looks like.
Incident Response and Uptime Monitoring
When something breaks in production, the response time is measured in minutes, not SLA tickets. IGNITE's documented restore procedures mean triage starts with the team that built the site, not a tier-1 support gateway. The phone number that reaches a person: 248-726-0668. The support email: support@chooseignite.com. These are the same contacts for a scope call and for an incident — that continuity is intentional.
We Don't Just Launch Websites — We Build Relationships
The engagement model is designed for the long arc, not the launch date. After the build ships, IGNITE typically transitions into ongoing maintenance, SEO services, and conversion optimization work — all running through the same team that built the site, with full context on the architecture. We don't just launch websites — we build relationships. That's not a marketing line; it's the operational model.
Selected Michigan WordPress Projects
The SERP for "custom WordPress development Michigan" is full of pages with stock photography and "industries we serve" tiles. This section is the proof layer those pages can't replicate.
Manufacturing and Industrial
Taylor Door Co. — Michigan's largest custom door manufacturer needed a site architecture that could surface product families (residential, commercial, garage) with spec and installation content, serve dealer partners, and generate qualified residential leads. The build used custom product CPTs with ACF field groups for spec data, a dealer-locator integration, and a clear routing architecture separating consumer and trade audiences.
Acro Corp — engineered plastic components manufacturer with a complex product catalog and an OEM-facing audience. The architecture prioritized downloadable spec documentation, structured product taxonomy, and a contact routing system that segmented OEM from distribution inquiries.
eLumigen and Ashcom Tech — both industrial-technology companies requiring product-catalog architecture, clean SEO structure for technical keyword targets, and professional-services credibility design.
For the manufacturing-specific architecture discussion, see custom WordPress for Michigan manufacturers.
Medical and Specialty Practices
Michigan Gynecology Oncology — a specialty oncology practice requiring condition/procedure CPTs structured for organic search, HIPAA-aware form handling for appointment requests, provider biography pages with professional credential markup, and a design that communicates clinical authority without being clinical-cold.
North Oakland Plastic Surgery — procedure-focused architecture with before/after gallery management, financing-option content integration, and a patient-journey funnel designed around high-intent procedure queries.
Vitality Precision Chiropractic — local-SEO-first architecture with service-area schema, condition CPTs aligned to patient-search language, and a booking-conversion funnel that captures new-patient intent at the first visit.
Michigan Orthopedic Specialists — multi-provider orthopedic practice with provider CPTs, condition/procedure content architecture, and a referral-routing contact system.
For the full vertical brief, see custom WordPress for medical practices.
Law Firms
Strobl Sharp PLLC — Oakland County litigation firm requiring attorney CPTs, practice-area architecture for both human-readable and search-optimized navigation, and a contact system that routes inquiries by practice area without collecting privileged information in the intake form.
McAlpine PC — estate planning and business law firm with an attorney biography architecture designed to surface E-E-A-T signals (bar admissions, published work, speaking engagements) and a content-hub structure around estate planning for Michigan families.
Secrest Wardle — larger Michigan law firm with a multi-practice, multi-attorney CPT architecture and a sophisticated internal-link structure connecting practice areas to attorney profiles and relevant case-study content.
For the vertical brief, see WordPress for law firms.
Non-Profits and Other
Judson Center — human-services non-profit with program CPTs, event management, donation-flow integration, and an accessibility build that met WCAG 2.2 AA requirements across the site.
Alternatives For Girls — Detroit-based non-profit with a campaign-driven design, volunteer and donation conversion flows, event management, and a content architecture built for recurring annual fundraising cycles.
Blue Chip Talent — B2B professional-services firm demonstrating the same custom-build approach applied outside the non-profit and medical verticals: CPT-driven job-category architecture, conversion-focused candidate and employer inquiry routing, and a design that positions the brand above the commodity staffing market.
How to Start a Custom WordPress Project With Us
Discovery: Scope, Timeline, and What We Need From Your Team
A custom WordPress engagement starts with discovery: a stakeholder interview, a technical audit of your current site (Google Search Console data, Core Web Vitals baseline, tech-stack inventory, plugin audit), a competitive teardown of the three to five sites you're actually competing with, a content-model sketch, and a rough timeline and budget-band estimate.
Discovery deliverables are scoped to your situation. A manufacturer with a complex product catalog and an active organic channel has different discovery requirements than a specialty practice building a new site from scratch.
What we need from your team: brand assets — or an honest conversation about whether a branding refresh during a redesign makes sense — access to current hosting, DNS, and analytics accounts, and a primary point of contact with decision-making authority. Redesigns stall when approvals require consensus from seven stakeholders; we'll structure the engagement to avoid that.
Typical timelines: a 10–20 page custom WordPress build runs 8–14 weeks from signed scope to launch. A complex multi-CPT build for a medical or legal client with content migration runs 12–20 weeks. These are honest bands, not sales minimums — the actual timeline depends on content readiness and revision cycles.
Budget ranges: a focused custom WordPress build starts around $8,000–$15,000; a complex multi-CPT build with custom blocks, migration, and SEO architecture runs $15,000–$40,000+. These numbers reflect real scope, not a teaser rate that balloons after the contract is signed.
What the Engagement Looks Like — Direct Contact, No Department-to-Department Handoffs
Big-agency experience with boutique-level attention: the person you talk to in the scope call is part of the team building your site. You're not handed off after the proposal is signed, and you're not escalating through a support tier when you have a question. The engagement is direct, and it stays direct from kickoff to post-launch maintenance.
For WordPress development in Rochester Hills, we can meet on-site for discovery within a day or two of scheduling. For clients in Detroit or Ann Arbor, we're a short drive. For clients across Michigan and beyond, remote discovery works without compromising the process.
Talk to a Person at IGNITE
Call 248-726-0668 or email support@chooseignite.com to schedule a 30-minute scope call. No commitment, no spec-work pitch deck. We'll tell you honestly what the right architecture is, what the realistic timeline and budget look like, and — if your situation is a fit for a city or vertical page in this cluster — point you there instead of retreading the Michigan-wide pitch.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does "custom WordPress development" actually mean — and how is it different from a customized template?
A custom WordPress build is written from the ground up in PHP: original theme files, theme.json, and block types designed for your specific content model. A customized template starts with a pre-built marketplace or page-builder theme and applies surface-level styling changes. The architectural difference is real: custom builds carry less code weight, fewer dependencies, and no vendor lock-in.
How much does a custom WordPress site in Michigan cost, and what drives the range?
A focused custom build starts around $8,000–$15,000. Complex builds with custom post types, ACF block architecture, content migration, and SEO architecture run $15,000–$40,000 or more. The main cost drivers are content-model complexity, page count, custom functionality (portals, integrations, eCommerce), and how much existing content needs to be migrated and restructured.
How long does a custom WordPress build typically take from kickoff to launch?
A 10–20 page build runs 8–14 weeks. A complex build with CPTs, content migration, and a medical or legal client's content review cycle runs 12–20 weeks. The biggest variable is content readiness — projects stall when copy and imagery aren't available at the right stage of development.
Should I use a page builder like Elementor or Divi, or invest in a custom theme?
It depends on your timeline, budget, and how long you expect to own the outcome. Page builders ship faster on day one and give non-developers editing flexibility. Custom themes front-load cost and pay back in performance, maintainability, and no vendor dependency. If you're building for a 5-year horizon with a mid-market budget, custom is usually the better investment. See our custom theme vs. Elementor and Divi tradeoffs piece for the detailed comparison.
When is headless WordPress worth the cost and complexity — and when is it overkill?
Headless makes sense when you have a very large content library with extreme performance demands, need to publish across multiple channels from a single CMS, or have an in-house engineering team already working in React. For most Michigan mid-market businesses, a well-built classic WordPress theme with strong Core Web Vitals performance is the better call. See when headless WordPress is actually warranted.
How do you migrate a WordPress site without losing SEO rankings?
Three things protect ranking equity: a documented 1:1 URL map with 301 redirects in place before cutover, no orphaned legacy content during the transition, and a launch-week crawl + Google Search Console reconciliation to catch soft 404s and redirect chains early. See migrating WordPress without losing SEO equity.
What's the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org for a business site?
WordPress.org is the self-hosted, open-source platform — you control your server, your codebase, your plugins, and your data. WordPress.com is a hosted SaaS product with significant restrictions on plugins, theme customization, and data ownership at lower tiers. Any serious business site should be on WordPress.org (self-hosted).
Do I need ongoing maintenance after launch, and what does that include?
Yes. Baseline maintenance includes weekly core, theme, and plugin updates run through staging first, automated daily backups stored offsite, uptime monitoring, and quarterly security reviews. Without ongoing maintenance, WordPress sites accumulate update debt and vulnerability exposure. See the WordPress security and maintenance baseline for the full operational checklist.
Can a custom WordPress site rank locally in Michigan (Detroit, Ann Arbor, etc.)?
Yes — and local ranking is an architectural decision, not an afterthought. LocalBusiness schema, NAP consistency, city-segmented service pages with appropriate internal-link structure, and a content strategy aligned to local search intent are all build-time and content-strategy decisions. IGNITE has built with this architecture for clients across Metro Detroit and beyond.
How does ACF make custom WordPress sites easier for editors to manage?
Advanced Custom Fields lets developers define structured field groups — text, image, relationship, repeater — that appear as clean editing interfaces inside the WordPress admin. Instead of editors digging through shortcodes or fighting a page-builder panel, they fill out clearly labeled fields. ACF Blocks extend this to the Gutenberg block editor so custom content sections work inside the native editor, not a parallel interface.
What does "SEO-ready architecture" mean in a WordPress build?
It means the SEO decisions are made at the template level during development: semantic heading structure, Schema.org structured data, XML sitemap, canonical configuration, optimized image handling, and internal-link architecture — not applied as a plugin layer after the site is built. SEO-ready architecture means search engines can crawl, understand, and index the site correctly from the moment it launches.
How do Core Web Vitals affect WordPress search rankings?
Core Web Vitals — LCP under 2.5 seconds, INP under 200ms, CLS under 0.1 — are part of Google's page-experience signals. Google has confirmed these signals contribute to ranking decisions. More practically, a slow-loading site loses visitors before they convert: a one-second delay in LCP measurably increases bounce rate. Building for Core Web Vitals targets at the theme level is the right approach; retrofitting a page-builder site after launch to meet the thresholds is usually a rebuild in disguise.
