Custom WordPress Development & Rebuilds
WordPress built around your content and business workflows
Custom WordPress development starts with the content and business workflows your site needs to support. I build themes, ACF blocks, plugins and integrations with practical editor controls, staging reviews and acceptance checks before release.
Working remotely with established businesses across the U.S.
Selected contracts
The work behind the service
ARES Scientific
A full custom theme rebuild using SWAYZE, covering catalog and search, territory pricing, quote requests, integrations and editor workflows. The case study includes the delivered scientific-supply site.
AdventureSmith
Five years of Duffion development on an inherited site: Widgety integrations, custom frontend loaders, substantial refactors and new ACF blocks. The later rebuild completed as an AdventureSmith employee is a separate engagement.
GOETZ Legal
A delivered WordPress build with a structured publishing experience. Its case study shows the site and the implementation behind the content.
Dying Scene
A delivered publishing site that still uses Duffion’s build. A live example of custom WordPress work continuing beyond its initial launch.
Custom WordPress development for editors and business workflows
A full rebuild is not always the first move. An inherited theme may need targeted refactoring, an editor workflow may need better controls, or custom functionality may belong in a focused plugin. I review the current content model and code before recommending how much to replace.
The goal is a site your team can publish with and a codebase a developer can understand. Layout choices, required content and reusable components should be intentional, rather than relying on editors to reconstruct each page by hand.
Custom themes, ACF blocks and plugin development
Content and editing. Model the content your business actually publishes, then provide the fields, reusable blocks and validation that make those pages manageable. ACF and Gutenberg can support structured editing while preserving flexibility where editors need it.
Business functionality. Build scoped plugins and integrations for requirements that extend beyond presentation. Catalog behavior, quote requests, external data and publishing rules need clear responsibilities and testable behavior.
Performance refactoring. Measure representative pages, identify the work slowing them down and test the impact of a change. During the historical AdventureSmith Duffion engagement, hand-coded refactors improved owner-reported Lighthouse scores from 60 to 99 on desktop and 25 to 70 on mobile. Those historical measurements describe that site and test context; they are not a promise of the same result for another site.
Preserve the useful parts through the rebuild
We inventory content and important URLs, identify integrations and define the editor workflows that must survive the change. If URLs need to move, the launch plan includes a redirect map and checks for the affected pages.
Staging is where we review templates, forms, content imports, mobile layouts and representative publishing tasks. Deployment follows an agreed acceptance list and rollback plan. After launch, ongoing development can address the next priorities without forcing every improvement into the first release.
Before we start
Can you work with the theme and hosting we already have?
Yes, an existing setup can be the starting point. I assess its constraints before proposing changes. A theme replacement or hosting move should solve a demonstrated problem, and its scope should be agreed explicitly.
Will our editors be able to change the pages?
Editing is part of the build. We define which content and layout choices belong in the backend, then check those tasks with representative pages. Handover covers the controls your team will use.
Can we keep existing content and URLs?
We plan around the content and URLs that need to remain. Where a change is necessary, we identify the affected routes and test redirects and internal links as part of release preparation.
Do we need to rebuild everything at once?
Not necessarily. A scoped plugin, component refactor or set of new blocks can be a useful first phase. The decision follows the condition of the site, the business priorities and the cost of keeping the current structure.
Preparing a rebuild brief? Use the website rebuild planning guide to inventory content, URLs, integrations and editorial workflows before defining the scope.
Crew manifest
Technologies with project history
Explore the tools behind this work and the projects where they were used. The right stack for your project follows its requirements.