Custom Website Design

Perhaps you are thinking "Once I get my site live, I won't need to change the content. Just need theme and plugins updated".

We see that occasionally and it is disappointing. The business will suffer because of misguided cost-cutting.

Google's algorithms are designed to provide users with the best possible search results. They consider factors like:

• Freshness of content: Google wants to show users the most up-to-date information, so websites with recent updates are often favored.
• Technical SEO: This includes things like website speed, mobile-friendliness, and security, all of which are often improved through updates.
• User experience: Google tracks how users interact with your website. If people are quickly leaving your site (high bounce rate), it suggests they're not finding what they're looking for, which can negatively impact your rankings. By monitoring your website and making changes we can maximise the return on your website investment.

Finally, your site reflects your brand: An outdated website can make your business look unprofessional or out of touch. Regular updates help you maintain a modern and consistent brand image.

So UNLIMITED content updates are AMAZING value!

Yes we do. We have done ecommerce sites with just a product or two, e.g. selling a single book, in a custom PHP site to sites with hundreds of products using WordPress and WooCommerce.

Some of the WordPress sites are quite complicated. Apart from many tiers of discount pricing and 50+ shipping rules, we can have a distributor login with discounts varying by both quantity and class of membership.

We find that no two shops are the same.

Some common simple customisations we see are:

• some products have specification sheets and others have videos
• a temporary special flag is requested on selected products, for example, for the next 2 weeks
• some  products are POA (Price on application) which need an enquiry form in place of the cart button.
• some products have special shipping requirements e.g. oversize and need a particular courier
• multiple payment gateway options

Whatever your ecommerce application, we can build you a fit-for-purpose solution.

The cloud hosting we provide is at scale. We have hundreds of websites which we need to maintain and host securely. This means we can give your site the best hosting available for a price way cheaper than it would normally cost for a single site.

For example, hosting on a Google cloud located in Sydney would cost a single site owner around $A50 a month.

We can include such high quality hosting in our standard fee because of our large number of hosted sites.

We understand that budget is a key consideration, and we're committed to providing cost-effective solutions.

One way we achieve this is by leveraging our access to exclusive discount opportunities on premium themes and plugins.

Over time, we've secured lifetime and unlimited-site licenses for various valuable tools, allowing us to build robust websites without incurring the full retail cost for each client.

We're happy to pass these savings directly on to you, reducing your overall project expenses and ensuring you receive high-quality resources without the premium price tag.

Choosing popular, well-supported WordPress themes offers significant advantages for your website's success. Popular themes are well-documented and frequently updated, ensuring compatibility with the latest WordPress versions and security patches.

It is most disappointing to see a site with a theme that is no longer supported by the developer. It happens quite regularly and always involves extra costs for the client.

Unless a theme can cope with the latest WordPress core changes, plugins cannot be updated and security is compromised. Popular themes make economic sense for the developer to support them because they make sales! With a popular theme you join the virtuous circle!

Incidentally, we can create ANY site design using one of our favourite themes.

If the theme can't do an idea out of the box via the WordPress customiser, or the idea is out of the range of the pagebuilder and a plugin is overkill, we will look for a hook and add custom code to the functions file in the child theme. In other words, we will find a way to do what you want!

Nor is it necessary to buy an industry theme e.g. 'construction' theme for a building company, on a theme marketplace. Usually the images in a pre-made theme are not appropriate anyway.

Any sites you like, in your industry or not, can give us the idea we need to create a site you will like.

We hear this occasionally. The technical skills used in creating a website are applicable to a site for any industry. Over 25 years, we have created sites in a wide range of industries and don't see any real advantage in having done an earlier site in a particular industry.

Yes, there are industries with special software commonly used by participants but it usually independent of the website. We can connect your website to anything that has an API.

As  web designers, we will never expect to know a client's industry better than the client who is immersed in it every day. Rather, we bring widely applicable marketing skills to every project and work with a client to complete a site that meets their needs within their budget.

The main theme is the foundation of your website, providing the basic structure and design. A child theme acts as a safe and efficient way to modify an existing theme without risking the integrity of the parent theme's core files. This means future updates to the parent theme won't overwrite your changes.

Ultimately, a child theme allows designers to create a unique and personalized website while maintaining a clean and update-friendly codebase. This ensures the long-term stability and ease of maintenance of the website.

We strive to use as few plugins as possible. The more plugins on the site or unused themes, the more overhead to slow the site for visitors or to provide openings for hackers. However, the more complicated a website is, the more plugins will be used. There is no way around it.

What then becomes important is the quality of the plugins used. We try to use well-known plugin developers that have a family of plugins that are designed to work together. A plugin that is no longer supported can take a site offline when a new WordPress update comes through requiring theme and plugin changes.

Experience is a great teacher in this area. You enjoy the fruit of that experience when we build a site for you.

We must make a distinction here.

By 'custom theme' we mean creating the header.php, footer.php and any number of included files that provide the theme's functionality.

This is not the 'look' of the site. It is the framework behind the look.

We are not a fan of custom themes in the 'framework' sense.

Why?

Because it takes extra time for another developer to understand the code. When PHP is upgraded or a new version of WordPress is published, it takes time to fix any problem.

When a well-known developer group is maintaining your theme, it is one less problem area to fix.

So if your web developer says he is going to create his own theme just for you, think twice. It is not really a 'plus' for you.

It is not uncommon for a business to want form submissions to forward directly into some form of Customer Management System. Whether it is HubSpot, Pipedrive or another system, we can readily customise the necessary connections.

One service we have been offering for a long time is SiteCare. In this service, we offer to take over the maintenance and update of a WordPress site hosted elsewhere and not created by JD Stride.

At the start of the process we ask for login details so we can view various aspects of the site.

If you think about it, it is not surprising we find problems a-plenty. Why would they be asking for our help otherwise?

Some of the problems we see are:

• a theme that has not been updated for some time. Often we find the theme is no longer supported so updates are not available.
• a large number of plugins, sometimes approaching 50,  have been installed. Many may be of doubtful quality and many are not even activated.
• images have not been optimised and are causing slow download speed
• forms do not work
• no child theme
• custom code in the main theme
• a large number of admin users that presents a security problem

By engaging JD Stride to build and maintain your WordPress site, you avoid these problems and more.

You will have a technically sound, fast and secure website updated with the latest material you wish to publish.  In other words, the website will do its job!