A WordPress site that is fast, secure and easy to run.

WordPress is an open-source content management system used to build and run websites of every size. It combines a block-based editor with themes that control design and plugins that add functionality, from forms and SEO to ecommerce and memberships. It suits businesses that publish a lot of content, need specific functionality or want complete ownership of their site. Because it is so flexible, the quality of the theme, plugins, hosting and ongoing care makes a big difference to how well it performs.

A WordPress agency helps you design, build, maintain and grow a WordPress website. At Vertical that covers audits, design, development, plugin selection, hosting and performance, security, SEO, content and migration. Because we also run paid media, email and lead generation, we connect the site to the marketing that brings visitors to it. You get one senior team that understands both the technical platform and the commercial goals behind it, rather than separate suppliers for the build and the growth.

Self-hosted WordPress uses the open-source software from WordPress.org, installed on hosting you choose, which gives you complete control over themes, plugins, code and data. WordPress.com is a hosted service built on the same software, where hosting and maintenance are managed for you and flexibility depends on your plan. Most businesses that need custom design, specific integrations or ecommerce choose self-hosted WordPress on quality managed hosting. We help you decide which suits your needs, budget and team.

They suit different needs. Webflow is a hosted visual builder with clean code, built-in hosting and a strong design workflow, which suits marketing sites where design control matters most. WordPress offers a vast plugin ecosystem, complete ownership and almost unlimited functionality, which suits content-heavy sites, complex features and ecommerce through WooCommerce. The trade-off is more responsibility for maintenance and security. We work with both and recommend the one that fits your team, your content and your plans.

Slow sites usually come down to a few causes: underpowered hosting, too many or poorly built plugins, heavy themes or page builders, unoptimised images and a database that has grown without maintenance. We profile the site to find what is really causing the delay, then address it in order of impact. That might mean better hosting, caching, a leaner plugin set, image optimisation or theme changes. Faster pages improve engagement, search visibility and conversion, so speed work tends to pay for itself.

We keep WordPress core, themes and plugins updated on a regular schedule, testing every update on a staging copy before it reaches the live site. We add security hardening, monitoring, regular off-site backups and sensible user permissions, and we remove plugins that are no longer maintained. If something does go wrong, we can restore quickly. Most security problems come from outdated software or weak access, so steady maintenance prevents far more trouble than any single security tool.

Yes. We migrate sites to WordPress from other platforms, move WordPress sites between hosts and rebuild older WordPress sites on a cleaner setup. We map content, URLs and metadata carefully, set up a complete set of redirects and test everything before launch, so search engines and returning visitors find the right pages. We monitor rankings and traffic closely afterwards. A migration is also a good moment to improve structure, design and conversion rather than copying the old site across.

Yes. WooCommerce, the ecommerce plugin for WordPress, turns a WordPress site into a full store with products, checkout, payments and order management. It suits brands that publish a lot of content alongside their products or need flexibility a hosted platform may not offer. For some businesses a hosted platform such as Shopify is simpler to run, so we look at your catalogue, team and plans before recommending an approach. Either way, we connect the store to your marketing and tracking.

Start with a conversation about your website, your audience and what you need it to achieve. If you already run WordPress, we usually begin with an audit of speed, security, plugins, SEO and editing, then share a prioritised plan. If you are planning a new site or a redesign, we scope the project and agree a realistic timeline. Either way, we will tell you plainly what we think will make the biggest difference to your results and how we would approach it together.