WordPress Agency Manchester

A WordPress agency is a creative studio that designs and builds websites using the WordPress content management system (CMS). There are a lot of ways to work with WordPress – some agencies and developers may use pre-built themes and plugins to deliver a simple site quickly, while others will use WordPress as a platform on which they design and code bespoke solutions.

One of the biggest reasons for WordPress’s popularity is how easy it is to use, meaning you can absolutely set up a WordPress website yourself with very little development knowledge. There are a lot of off-the-shelf themes and plugins you can use to make a perfectly good web solution. There are drawbacks to this approach, though – more complicated features will be off limits without some developer skills, and adding a lot of plugins to your site will create issues for performance and security. Essentially, a WordPress site is only as good as the developer who built it – you will absolutely get what you pay for.

There are plenty of other content management systems out there on the market – Umbraco, Drupal, Craft, Wix, Concrete, Joomla, and many more. While they all have pros and cons, WordPress included, there’s a reason why WordPress is the most widely used. It’s adaptable, easy to use, widely understood and supported, and with a massive comunity of developers working on ways to improve the system. While it might not be right for every single organisation, it’s usually a strong contender that’s worth a look.

We think so! Over a million WordPress sites are launched every year. It continues to receive updates and support, maintaining a large, active developer community. Each new WordPress version is straightforward to install on an existing site, making it easier to maintain long-term than many other solutions. It’s here to stay.

Yes you do. WordPress is essentially a collection of files in a database – that database needs to be hosted somewhere in order for users to be able to access it through a web browser. Fortunately, many WordPress developers – including Splitpixel – also act as WordPress hosting providers for the sites they build!

The biggest driver for choosing a WordPress website agency tends to be cost – whether the quotes fit your budget. But outside of this, you should look at an agency’s specific experience, whether that’s directly in your sector, or in delivering similar solutions for other industries. Do you like the way their portfolio looks? Is the work they do relevant to you? Beyond this, relationships are key. A good Manchester WordPress agency will be easy to communicate with – collaborative, supportive, and seeking solutions, rather than placing barriers in your way.

We believe that we’re unique in Manchester – and indeed in the North of England – in being a truly full service WordPress agency with the broadest experience, while still being a small, approachable studio. We don’t outsource any aspect of what we do, and are recognised as specialists in both digital marketing and web development. Our WordPress design services for Manchester are underpinned by expert digital marketing knowledge, and our websites are underpinned by expert digital marketing knowledge and our marketing campaigns are supported by excellent on-site support.

Our approach to WordPress development is fully bespoke – nothing is out-of-the-box. Everything is tailored to your exact requirements and is powered by a visual, flexible pagebuilder developed my our team. It’s easy to use, efficiently coded, and always accessible, responsive, and on brand.

We’ve worked with everyone from small local start-ups to UK cultural institutions, and international Blue Chips, across both B2B and B2C markets. All of this while remaining a team of less than 20, many of whom have been with us for years – we’re a team you can really get to know and work closely with. Or, at least, we like to think so!

We take security incredibly seriously! If there’s one thing we hear frequently as a potential drawback of WordPress web design, it’s security. As the most widely used CMS on the internet, with loads of plugins that can be added by just about anyone, there are widely reported security vulnerabilities.

However, a WordPress site is only as good as its developers – and ours are specialists! We reduce our reliance on potentially vulnerable plugins by building features bespoke from scratch. We monitor our sites daily, and have a rigorous update schedule.

We also apply multiple levels of security – at the domain level through SSL certificates and a CDN, at server level through bot protection and firewalls, and at application level through WordFence security, virtual plugin patching and password policies. With over 100 WordPress websites on our servers, ensuring the highest security standards and uptime monitoring is absolutely essential for us.

With over 100 WordPress websites on our servers, ensuring the highest security standards is absolutely essential for us. We apply multiple levels of security – at the domain level through SSL certificates and a CDN, at server level through bot protection and firewalls, and at application level through WordFence security, virtual patching of plugins and password policies. We also reduce our reliance on potentially vulnerable WordPress plugins by building features bespoke from scratch. We monitor our websites daily, and have a rigorous update schedule.

Yes! SEO is an essential element of every WordPress web design project – or, at least, it should be. Technical SEO plays a major part in a site’s performance on search, so the way the site is designed and built in order to be understood by search engines is very important. Our web designers also work closely with our content and marketing teams to consider every aspect of the website’s user journey and how it can assist conversions.

Yes! It’s your site, you’ve paid for it, so you own it. All of the primary software (WordPress) we use to build our websites is open source, so you won’t have to pay us any licensing fees.

There is always the potential for a website to take a hit to its SEO performance in a redesign or rebuild project – that’s why it needs careful management from a team that understand the impact of any changes on SEO. We always conduct SEO audits of the WordPress sites we build to ensure pages with vital rankings and backlinks are not lost, and implement full 301 redirect strategies on launch. Our goal is to reduce risk as much as possible – even if you are switching to an all new domain name.

Absolutely! We specialise in developing accessible branding concepts that feed directly into the full range of digital requirements a brand will have to fulfil in a new site. You can explore some of our branding projects in our portfolio if you’d like to see what our team are capable of!

We don’t design to templates! And we don’t use out-of-the-box WordPress themes, either. Everything we create is completely bespoke to you, so you get the website that you need. Even within your WordPress site, we don’t restrict you to just a couple of page layouts – you’ll have amazing flexibility to build pages exactly to your liking.

At Splitpixel, we always work to high accessibility standards to ensure your website is usable for everyone, including people with disabilities. This includes us following WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) to a level AA+ standard, regardless of project size and budget. This involves things such as optimising navigation, using clear headings, and ensuring content works with screen readers. For more information about the guidelines we follow, take a look at this article on web accessibility.

Yes of course, we can integrate third-party tools like CRMs, email marketing platforms (Mailchimp), booking systems, ticketing and property systems, or payment gateways (Stripe and PayPal) seamlessly into your WordPress site. This can be done through a mixture of API connections and widgets, it all depends on the platform you are using as to what’s possible. Our web development team ensure all integrations work smoothly without impacting your website’s performance. You can find out more about our WordPress integrations here.

How soon do you want to get started? We can usually kick off a web project within a couple weeks of an enquiry if we need to – if not less! The first steps are to jump on a call with us to discuss your requirements – this will help us refine our quote to give you the best solution at the right cost. If you choose to go ahead with us, we’ll dive right into a discovery phase, working with you to set a creative, technical and content brief for the site.