4:59

WordPress development

Custom WordPress development your team can run

WordPress development at 4:59 is the design and build of custom, modular WordPress themes for marketing sites, plus migrations onto WordPress, integrations, maintenance and training. It is for marketing teams that want a fast, accessible, search-ready site they can edit themselves, built by a team that has migrated thousands of pages onto the platform.

300%increase in organic search trafficActionIQ
3,000+pages migrated from Magento to WordPressAperture
800+pages migrated into a modular WordPress themeActionIQ

What’s included

Everything you need, from one team.

  • Custom modular theme

    A theme built around a library of components designed for your brand and content, such as heroes, feature grids, testimonials, case study cards and forms. It includes only what your content needs, with no bloated multipurpose framework.

  • Page building for editors

    Custom blocks in the native block editor or a tailored page builder, depending on how much freedom your team wants. Each component has clear fields, sensible defaults and limits that stop layouts from breaking.

  • Migration to WordPress

    A crawl and performance review of the old site, content types that fit your content, scripted moves of content, media and metadata with human spot-checks, and redirects for every URL, including Magento to WordPress.

  • SEO-ready build

    Clean heading hierarchy, editable titles and descriptions, structured data generated from content fields, XML sitemaps, sensible URLs and internal linking components, with archive and tag pages controlled so they don't create thin or duplicate content.

  • Accessibility and performance

    Semantic markup, labeled controls and keyboard support built into every block, so new pages inherit them. Lean templates and a short plugin list keep pages fast, and automated scans plus manual testing run before launch.

  • CRM and form integrations

    Forms connected to Salesforce, Pardot or your CRM, with hidden campaign and source fields, consent capture, analytics events on form starts and submissions, alerts when a submission fails, and end-to-end routing tests.

  • Custom functionality

    Search, faceted filtering, calculators and other features built into the theme when plugins fall short, as with the custom ingredient search engine for Click 'n Cook. Custom code is documented and versioned with the site.

  • Maintenance and support

    Core, theme and plugin updates tested on staging before they go live, backups, security and uptime monitoring, and a set number of development hours for fixes and new components.

  • Training and documentation

    Hands-on sessions and a written guide covering how to build pages from components, write alt text, structure headings and keep pages fast, so your team can publish with confidence and without a developer.

How it works

A fixed date and a named owner, from day one.

  1. 01

    Audit and content model

    We review your current site, content types, plugins and integrations, then define the content model and templates.

  2. 02

    Component design

    We design the modular component library and key page templates with real content.

  3. 03

    Theme development

    We build the theme, editor experience and integrations in a staging environment you can review.

  4. 04

    Migrate and test

    We migrate content, set up redirects and run QA for accessibility, speed, forms and search.

  5. 05

    Launch, train and support

    We launch, train your editors and stay on for maintenance and improvements if you want us to.

Technology at every step

Where AI speeds this up, and where people check it.

  • Scripted migrations with spot-checks

    Scripts export, transform and import content, media and metadata in bulk. People review samples from every template and fix what the scripts miss.

  • AI-assisted content inventory

    AI helps classify large page sets and flag thin, duplicate or outdated content. Strategists decide what to keep, merge or retire.

  • Automated accessibility and link checks

    Automated scans run against staging on every build. A developer confirms each issue and tests key flows with keyboard and screen reader.

  • Update and uptime monitoring

    Automated monitoring watches for plugin updates, security notices and downtime. A developer tests updates on staging before they reach your live site.

The work

WordPress development, in practice.

FAQ

Questions we hear a lot.

Is WordPress the right platform for our website, or should we go headless?

WordPress is a strong choice when your site is content-rich, drives leads and is edited by marketers every week. It gives you one familiar admin, a large plugin ecosystem and many developers who know it. Consider a headless CMS when content must feed apps, screens or partner sites, or when you want tight control over structured data and speed. If the site mainly sells products, a commerce platform may suit you better. We build both and recommend after discovery.

Can our marketing team edit the site without a developer?

Yes. That is the point of a modular theme. Editors build new pages from approved components, update content and publish without code, and we train them before handoff. ActionIQ's team was trained on their new theme, and the Index Industry Association's internal and PR teams self-manage their redesigned WordPress site, with us available when they need more.

Do you use page builders or custom themes?

We build custom modular themes and give editors a page building experience on top, using the native block editor or a tailored builder depending on how much freedom your team wants. Editors stack components designed for your brand, such as heroes, feature grids, testimonials and forms, each with clear fields and limits that stop layouts from breaking. That avoids the weight and editor confusion of multipurpose themes that ship hundreds of options you never use.

Can you migrate our site from Magento or another platform to WordPress?

Yes. We crawl the old site and pull performance data, define WordPress content types that fit your content, then move content, media and metadata with scripts while people check samples from every template. Every URL is mapped and redirected before launch, and we watch indexing and rankings afterward. For Aperture, we migrated more than 3,000 pages from Magento to WordPress. For ActionIQ, we migrated more than 800 pages into a new modular theme.

How do you build WordPress sites for SEO?

We build search into the theme: clean heading hierarchy, editable titles and descriptions, structured data generated from content fields, XML sitemaps, sensible URLs, internal linking components and fast templates. We avoid messy theme markup, plugins that duplicate metadata and script-heavy pages, and control archive and tag pages so they don't create thin content. ActionIQ's modular WordPress rebuild saw a 300% increase in organic search traffic. Partners Capital pairs its WordPress rebuild with a monthly content and SEO program.

Can WordPress forms send leads to Salesforce and Pardot?

Yes. We connect WordPress forms to Salesforce, Pardot or your CRM with field mapping, hidden campaign and source fields, consent capture, analytics events on form starts and submissions, and alerts when a submission fails. Then we test the routing end to end. For AbelConn, we set up Salesforce and Pardot lead capture as part of their website redesign and SEO audit, so leads arrive complete and reach the right person.

Do you offer WordPress maintenance and support?

Yes. Maintenance covers core, theme and plugin updates tested on staging, backups, security and uptime monitoring, and a set number of development hours for fixes and new components. That matters because most WordPress problems arrive after launch, when an update breaks a layout or a new page adds an oversized image. Some clients keep us on as a support partnership for ongoing design and development. Solomon Partners has worked with us as their digital partner for more than a decade.

Can you build custom features that plugins can't handle?

Yes. When plugins fall short, we build features into the theme, documented and versioned with the rest of the site. We built a custom ingredient search engine in WordPress for Click 'n Cook and custom faceted search for Questroyal Fine Art, so collectors can filter the catalog and search engines can index it cleanly. Mindstrong Health's flexible WordPress architecture enabled rapid testing and CRO as the company repositioned from B2B to B2C.

How do you keep a WordPress site accessible as it grows?

Accessibility lives in the components. Each block is built with semantic markup, labeled controls and keyboard support, so new pages inherit those standards. Automated scans run against staging on every build, and a developer confirms each issue and tests key flows with keyboard and screen reader. Training covers the rest: we show editors how to write alt text, structure headings and keep pages fast, since skipped heading levels and oversized images are common ways sites slip.

Related services

Often paired with

Tell us the deadline. We'll beat it by a minute.

Share the brief for your wordpress development project and we'll come back with a plan, a team and a timeline.

Start a project