THE WORDPRESS PRACTICE FSE READY

WordPress
web design and
development services.

The Turn Group is a Kansas City WordPress development agency offering full-stack WordPress web design and development services: custom WordPress themes, custom Gutenberg blocks, WordPress plugin development, hardened WordPress security, AI integration, and schema-rich WordPress SEO. We design WordPress sites, build WordPress sites, secure them, and support them, all under one roof.

  • 20+years on WordPress
  • 1500+WordPress sites shipped
  • Classic → FSEmigrations done right
CHAPTER 02

What twelve WordPress disciplines do we cover under one roof?

Engage one or stack the whole dozen. Every line below is staffed by senior engineers in Kansas City, not contractors we hand off to.

A

Custom Theme Design

Custom block themes drafted in Figma, coded in PHP and theme.json, and shipped without ThemeForest baggage. Your designers get freedom; your editors get guardrails; nobody gets locked into someone else's framework.

B

Theme Modifications

Targeted work on themes you already paid for. Broken breakpoints repaired, WCAG gaps closed, render-blocking assets unwound, and new template parts grafted in via a child theme so updates never overwrite us.

C

Custom Block Development

Real Gutenberg blocks shipped through @wordpress/scripts. Server-side render where dynamic data demands it, React-driven editor controls when interactivity does, ACF block bindings when speed matters more than ceremony.

D

Plugin Development

Bespoke plugins when the marketplace cannot be trusted with your business logic. PSR-4 namespaces, action and filter hooks named like adults, REST routes with capability checks, and uninstall.php that actually drops its tables.

E

Full Site Editing (FSE)

Full Site Editing executed properly. Design tokens defined once in theme.json, every header/footer split into template parts, locked patterns for the homepage, and zero shortcode soup left over from a Divi past life.

F

Security Hardening

WAF rules tuned to your traffic shape, two-factor on every editor login, abandoned plugins yanked out by their roots, XML-RPC silenced, the wp-admin slug renamed, and restore drills run quarterly so the first one is not in production.

G

AI Integration

Plugins that wire WordPress into the LLM ecosystem you already pay for. Vector search over your post archive, an in-page assistant that pulls from your services, alt-text on autopilot, and Gravity Forms entries parsed into ACF fields.

H

Database & Performance

Redis object cache in front of wp_options, page cache rules tuned per template, autoload bloat trimmed monthly, post-revisions kept on a leash, and the slow-query log read instead of ignored. The myth that WordPress is slow is mostly a configuration story.

I

SEO + Schema

Rank Math or Yoast configured beyond the install wizard, JSON-LD authored by hand per template, breadcrumbs that match the URL hierarchy, and AEO patterns shaped so Perplexity and ChatGPT cite your pages instead of summarizing them away.

J

WooCommerce Builds

Real WooCommerce work. Subscription billing, member-priced catalogs, configurators backed by ACF, gateways beyond Stripe Express, shipping zones that account for real warehouses, and tax setups that survive a Streamlined Sales Tax review.

K

Migrations & Replatforms

Lifting your site out of Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, Webflow, Drupal, Joomla, an aging static build, or a WordPress install someone else broke. Content imported, slugs preserved, redirects regression-tested, and a documented rollback ready if launch night gets weird.

L

Care & Support

The launch is the easy part. Monthly retainers cover patch cadence, log review, restore verification, copy and image edits, and a named engineer in your inbox instead of a ticket queue.

CHAPTER 03

Which twenty WordPress plugins actually earn their keep?

Vetted in production, swapped out the moment they go stale, and kept lean enough that wp-admin still loads in under a second. This is the working bench.

Security Build & Layout SEO Forms Commerce Content Performance Ops
01
AC
ACF Pro
Custom fields, repeaters, flexible content, and block bindings done right.
02
WF
Wordfence
Web application firewall, malware scanner, login hardening, country blocking.
03
UD
UpdraftPlus
Scheduled full-site backups with off-site storage to S3, Drive, or Dropbox.
04
SS
Solid Security Pro
File change detection, brute-force protection, MFA, and reCAPTCHA gates.
05
GF
Gravity Forms
Conditional logic, calculations, payments, multi-page forms, integrations.
06
F7
Contact Form 7 + Flam
Lightweight forms with Flamingo storage when Gravity is overkill.
07
RM
Rank Math Pro
Clean URLs, schema generator, redirect manager, and Search Console insights.
08
YO
Yoast SEO Premium
Content analysis, internal linking, language analysis, and breadcrumbs.
09
RY
Redirection
Bulk redirect manager with regex, 404 logging, and import/export.
10
CL
Classic Editor / TinyMCE
When your editorial team is not ready for blocks, we keep it tidy.
11
SL
Smart Slider 3
Slide-by-slide animation builder with responsive controls and SEO output.
12
EC
The Events Calendar
Calendar, RSVPs, recurring events, ticketing via Event Tickets / TEC PRO.
13
PB
Polylang Pro / WPML
Multilingual workflows with proper hreflang, translatable strings, and menus.
14
CP
CartFlows / WooFunnels
Conversion-focused checkouts and order bumps for WooCommerce stores.
15
WC
WooCommerce
Catalog, cart, taxes, shipping, subscriptions, memberships, B2B pricing.
16
ED
Easy Digital Downloads
For digital product sellers: software licensing, recurring, file delivery.
17
WR
WP Rocket
Page caching, JS deferring, lazy loading, asset combining tuned per site.
18
LS
LiteSpeed Cache
Server-level cache with image optimization when you are on LiteSpeed.
19
AS
Akismet + Antispam Bee
Comment spam control without paying premium when you do not need it.
20
QM
Query Monitor
Developer toolbar that surfaces slow queries, hooks, and 404s in real time.

Past those twenty there's a deeper bench we pull from when scope calls for it: WP Migrate Pro, Better Search Replace, Duplicator, AffiliateWP, MemberPress, LearnDash, BuddyBoss, Toolset, Meta Box, FacetWP, Search & Filter Pro, Code Snippets, and a dozen more. We install what the brief actually needs and nothing else; every plugin has a runtime cost, and we count them.

SPOTLIGHT

How do we set up Gutenberg and FSE as an editorial system, not a toy box?

Activating the block editor takes one click. Making it productive for a marketing team takes a week of considered work. We do that week so your editors can ship pages on a Tuesday afternoon without breaking the homepage.

  • Block library trimmed to the dozen that match your design system; the rest are hidden so authors stop reaching for them.
  • Pattern lock at the section level, with role caps so contributors cannot drag the navigation off the page.
  • Per-template weight budget enforced via a small admin notice when an author drops in a 5 MB image they probably did not mean to.
  • theme.json palettes wired from your brand guidelines so colors, font sizes, and spacing tokens stay consistent across every post type.
  • Block patterns in code, registered through PHP, tracked in git, and synced via deploys instead of database imports.
  • Cache-friendly markup that plays well with WP Rocket, Cloudflare APO, and LiteSpeed without breaking when assets are combined.
CHAPTER 04

Three engagement lanes,
same level of rigor.

Whether you need a full launch, a rebuild, or surgical theme work, the deliverables are itemized in writing and the timeline is the one we mean to hit.

PATH 1

Brand-new
WordPress site

For businesses launching, rebranding, or replacing a non-WordPress CMS.

  1. Kickoff workshop — Stakeholders in one room, business goals on the wall, KPIs we will be measured on after launch.
  2. Information architecture — Custom post types, taxonomies, ACF field groups, role matrices, permalink rules drafted in code.
  3. Visual direction — Two distinct concept routes in Figma, narrowed to one, expanded into a token-level design system.
  4. Block theme engineering — theme.json built from those tokens, template parts written from scratch, semantic HTML throughout.
  5. Plugin layer — Stack chosen against the brief, custom blocks coded where the marketplace falls short.
  6. Editorial migration — Posts, pages, ACF fields, media, and redirect maps imported and validated row by row.
  7. Speed pass — WP Rocket dialed in, Cloudflare in front, images converted to WebP/AVIF, Core Web Vitals tuned per template.
  8. Lockdown — WAF rules, MFA enrollment, hardened wp-config, modified .htaccess, abandoned plugins removed.
  9. Findability — Per-template JSON-LD, Open Graph defaults, XML sitemaps submitted to Search Console, GA4 wired up.
  10. Launch rehearsal — Cross-browser smoke test, axe-core accessibility scan, full redirect verification, scheduled DNS swap.
  11. Editor handoff — Live walk-throughs for the marketing team, screen-recorded reference clips, written editor runbook stored in the docs folder.
  12. Care kickoff — First month of patches, log reviews, and performance reports rolled into your retainer.

Typical timeline: 8 to 14 weeks

PATH 2

Rebuild &
migration

For tired WordPress sites, page-builder spaghetti, or replatforms from another CMS into modern WordPress.

  1. Forensics — We pop the hood on your install: PHP version, MySQL footprint, plugin sprawl, theme history, mu-plugins, and traffic shape.
  2. Asset ledger — Every post type, ACF group, user role, menu, widget, and custom shortcode catalogued before we touch anything.
  3. Plugin reconciliation — Each existing plugin marked keep, replace, or retire; replacements chosen from our trusted bench.
  4. Snapshot — WP Migrate Pro or Duplicator copy of production cloned into an isolated staging URL.
  5. Clean rebuild — New block theme written fresh; content moved over without dragging twelve years of inline styles with it.
  6. Template port — Custom templates rebuilt against current WP standards, blocks rewritten where shortcodes used to live.
  7. Slug preservation — Permalinks held intact wherever possible, 301 maps drafted for whatever has to change.
  8. Reconciliation pass — Side-by-side comparison of old vs new for every post, field, and media attachment.
  9. Hardening — Current security baseline applied; orphaned plugins, must-use plugins, and dead options removed.
  10. Speed reset — Cache rules rebuilt, images regenerated to WebP, font subsetting redone, Core Web Vitals retested.
  11. Pre-flight — Staging and production opened side by side; client signs off on every flagged delta.
  12. Switch — Final delta synced, DNS flipped during low-traffic window, 48-hour war-room watch with rollback ready.

Typical timeline: 4 to 10 weeks

PATH 3

Theme
modifications

For sites with a WordPress theme that mostly works but needs surgery.

  1. Walkthrough — A senior WordPress engineer opens your theme files and tells you the truth about what is wrong.
  2. Estimate — Each fix priced to the hour with a risk rating, so you can pick what gets done in this round.
  3. Stage copy — The work happens on a clone behind HTTP auth; production never sees a half-merged change.
  4. Breakpoint repair — Mobile and tablet ruptures patched, tap targets resized to 44px, focus rings restored.
  5. Layout grafts — Missing header treatments, footer columns, or pattern variants added without touching the parent theme.
  6. Child-theme overrides — Surgical CSS and PHP overrides written so the next parent update does not nuke our work.
  7. Speed surgery — Critical CSS inlined, JS deferred, hero images preloaded, fonts subset to actual character ranges used.
  8. Accessibility lift — Color contrast bumped to AA, ARIA cleaned up, keyboard order verified with a real keyboard.
  9. Findability lift — Meta titles rewritten, schema repaired, internal link patterns added, redirect spaghetti untangled.
  10. Polish — Vertical rhythm, scroll behavior, hover and focus motion smoothed across templates.
  11. QA matrix — Chrome, Safari, Firefox, iOS, Android, with every primary template type opened.
  12. Merge — Diff reviewed, deployed, monitored; rollback steps documented before we hit deploy.

Typical timeline: 1 to 4 weeks

CHAPTER 05

How do we treat WordPress security as a habit, not a marketing checkbox?

Almost every breach we have cleaned up traced back to the same three failures: a plugin nobody updated, an admin account without two-factor, and a backup that had not been tested. We close those gaps before the contract starts, then keep them closed.

  • WAF policy tuned to your real traffic, not a vendor default
  • Custom .htaccess directives plus a renamed wp-admin URL
  • Authy or Duo two-factor required for every editor seat
  • Plugin allow-list reviewed monthly; orphans purged
  • Off-site nightly snapshots stored on Wasabi or S3
  • Restore drills booked on the calendar every quarter
  • WP file-integrity monitor that pings via email and SMS
  • HTTP headers tightened (CSP, HSTS, X-Frame, Permissions)
  • XML-RPC blocked, unused REST endpoints filtered out
  • Database dumps stored separately from filesystem backups
  • SSH keys only at the host; shared FTP credentials retired
  • Incident response runbook with named on-call engineers
CHAPTER 06

WordPress, but it
understands you.

We code small, well-scoped WordPress plugins and Gutenberg blocks that route your content through OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, and Gemini. The block editor stops being a publishing form and starts behaving like an assistant.

AI-powered WordPress site search results panel
SEARCH

AI-powered site search

Posts and pages are embedded into a pgvector or Pinecone index nightly via WP-Cron. Visitors ask questions in plain English; the result is a paragraph answer with linked citations to your own articles. No more clunky default search.

Branded customer chat assistant docked on a WordPress site
CHAT

Customer-facing assistants

An on-brand chat dock fed your services, FAQ, hours, and pricing rules through retrieval. It answers in your tone, escalates to a human when confidence drops, and writes every transcript back into a custom post type for review.

AI suggestions sidebar inside the Gutenberg block editor
CONTENT

Editorial automation

A custom Gutenberg sidebar panel that proposes titles, meta descriptions, internal link targets, and accessible alt text without leaving the post edit screen. Editors stay in flow; the LLM does the typing.

AI extracting structured fields from a Gravity Forms submission into ACF fields
DATA

Structured data extraction

A submitted Gravity Forms entry hits a parser, gets normalized into typed fields (price, address, availability, intent), and writes the result back into matching ACF fields on a custom post. Inbound chaos becomes clean rows.

WordPress wp-admin dashboard with AI helper assistant panel
OPS

Admin copilots

A small dashboard widget that answers wp-admin questions using your own runbook as the knowledge base. New marketing hires stop pinging the agency; they ask the toolbar instead.

FAQ and speakable content blocks linked to AI engines for AEO and GEO
SEO

AEO + GEO patterns

Templates restructured so the answer comes before the storytelling, FAQ schema attached where it belongs, speakable selectors marked for voice surfaces, and entity facts laid out for LLM crawlers. Pages that get cited, not paraphrased.

CHAPTER 07

SEO, schema, and
everything you need to be found.

WordPress can rank like a freight train or stall like an abandoned blog. The difference comes down to permalink discipline, schema authored by hand, and not letting an SEO plugin auto-pilot your meta system.

01 Clean URLs

Permalinks switched to post-name, category prefixes added only where the IA benefits, dates stripped from URLs, trailing-slash behavior chosen and enforced at the server level. Legacy slugs preserved or 301-mapped one for one.

02 Schema (JSON-LD)

JSON-LD authored per template by hand, never piped through a plugin's UI: Organization, WebSite, WebPage, BreadcrumbList, Service, FAQPage, Article, Product, Event, Review. Run through the Rich Results Test on every deploy.

03 Open Graph

OG and X-card metadata authored per post with sensible site-wide fallbacks driven from Rank Math or Yoast. Every shared link arrives in the feed looking like marketing did the work, not like the link preview gave up.

04 Sitemaps

Sitemaps generated by Rank Math or Yoast and trimmed of noise (paginated archives, attachment pages, low-value taxonomy stubs). Dedicated news, video, and image sitemaps stood up when the content actually warrants them.

05 Google Reviews

A custom plugin pulls reviews from the Google Places API on a nightly WP-Cron, stores them in transients with a sensible TTL, and renders Review + AggregateRating schema in the markup. No bloated third-party widget.

06 Instagram feed

Direct Instagram Graph API token wired into a custom block, cached server-side, rendered with proper alt text and native lazy-loading. No SaaS embed that drops out the next time Meta deprecates an endpoint.

07 Core Web Vitals

LCP held under 2.5s, CLS under 0.1, INP under 200ms. Inlined critical styles, deferred non-critical scripts, fetchpriority on hero media, font-display swap, and WP Rocket settings tuned per template instead of one global preset.

08 Multilingual

Polylang Pro or WPML driving the editorial translation flow, with hreflang tags emitted in head, sitemap entries grouped by language, and URL strategy chosen between subdirectory or subdomain based on traffic patterns.

09 AEO + GEO

Pages restructured to lead with the answer, FAQ schema applied surgically, speakable CSS selectors annotated, and entity-rich facts placed in scannable lists so Perplexity, ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini cite your URL instead of paraphrasing it.

CHAPTER 08

Most agencies vanish
the day after launch.

We do not. Pick a monthly retainer or send us hourly tickets. Either way, the same engineer whose name is on the commit history is the one replying.

Essential Set-and-monitor
  • Core, theme, and plugin patches on a tested staging-first cadence
  • UpdraftPlus snapshots offloaded nightly to S3 or Wasabi
  • Uptime watch with email and SMS escalation
  • SSL renewal handled before it lapses
  • One quarterly performance write-up with action items
  • Two hours of editorial or design tweaks every month

Right fit for steady sites with low change frequency.

Partner Embedded team
  • Everything bundled in the Active tier
  • Named engineer plus a shared Slack channel
  • Four-hour priority response inside business hours
  • Quarterly roadmap working session with stakeholders
  • Block, plugin, or integration build hours included
  • Twenty-plus engineering hours monthly, with rollover

Right fit for storefronts and platforms where downtime costs real money.

Need something smaller? Send hourly tickets and pay against a prepaid block. We also white-label WordPress engineering for agencies whose roster does not include a senior WP team.

CHAPTER 09

Questions clients ask
before they hire us.

Why WordPress instead of Webflow, Squarespace, or going headless?

WordPress powers somewhere north of 43% of the indexed web, and that is not a popularity trophy — it is a sign that the open-source codebase, GPL ecosystem, and Gutenberg editor have matured into the most flexible publishing layer available. For sites that need real custom logic, a marketing team that ships content weekly, a WooCommerce storefront, or a learning or membership product without a per-seat SaaS fee, WordPress is usually the right call. When headless is genuinely the better architecture (publishing at huge scale, app-driven product, very specific frontend frameworks) we will say so.

Do you handle new builds, rebuilds, and theme tweaks?

All three. We launch brand-new WordPress sites from kickoff to DNS swap, replatform existing sites that have outgrown their current setup, and run targeted child-theme work on installs you already own. Every project opens with a no-obligation audit so the scope is grounded in your actual codebase, not a generic checklist.

Which WordPress plugins do you reach for most?

Our working bench includes ACF Pro, Wordfence, UpdraftPlus, Solid Security, Gravity Forms, Contact Form 7, Rank Math, Yoast, Redirection, Smart Slider 3, The Events Calendar, Polylang or WPML, CartFlows, WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, WP Rocket, LiteSpeed Cache, Akismet, and Query Monitor. Which subset shows up in your install depends on the brief; we install what your site genuinely needs and leave the rest at the door.

What does WordPress security actually look like with you?

Layered defense in plain terms: a hardened wp-config, a WAF tuned for your traffic, two-factor enforced on every editor account, a plugin policy that retires anything abandoned, nightly off-site snapshots, a file-integrity watcher that alerts via SMS, tightened HTTP headers, and an incident response runbook with named on-call engineers. We schedule restore rehearsals quarterly so the first time we restore your site is never during an actual incident.

Can WordPress hook into modern AI services?

Yes, and it is some of our favorite work right now. We code custom plugins and Gutenberg blocks that route content through OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, and Gemini for vector search, retrieval-grounded chat, automated drafting, summarization, structured-data extraction, and editorial assistants pinned inside wp-admin. The point is to keep humans in the loop, just faster and with more context.

How do you approach SEO and schema on WordPress?

Permalinks set with intent, JSON-LD authored by hand per template type (Organization, WebSite, WebPage, BreadcrumbList, Service, FAQPage, Article, Product when relevant), OG and X-card metadata baked into every layout, sitemaps trimmed of low-value URLs, Core Web Vitals tuned per template, internal linking patterns documented in code, and AEO and GEO structures laid down so LLM-driven search engines have something to cite.

Do you only do full builds, or theme-only engagements too?

Both ends of the spectrum. We will install and tune a vetted commercial theme on a tight timeline, code a fully custom block theme from theme.json down to the last template part, or layer surgical changes onto your current theme through a properly scoped child theme. Plenty of our retainer clients started as a one-week child-theme rescue.

Is there ongoing support after the site goes live?

Yes — ongoing care is how most of our client relationships actually run. Retainers cover the patch cadence, log review, performance reporting, copy edits, backup validation, and a guaranteed response window. Prefer to handle most things in-house? You can also send us hourly tickets against a prepaid block of engineering time.

Can you replatform from Squarespace, Wix, Shopify, or Drupal?

Replatforms are one of our most repeated engagements. We map old content types into WordPress post types and ACF field groups, port the design into a fresh block theme, stage the import on a clone behind HTTP auth, prove out URL preservation with a documented redirect map, and cut over with a rollback path queued in advance.

Will you build custom Gutenberg blocks and plugins?

Yes, and we ship them properly. Server-rendered blocks where the data is dynamic, React-driven blocks where the editor experience demands it, all packaged via @wordpress/scripts with REST routes, capability checks, settings screens, and translation files. When a respected commercial plugin already nails it, we install that instead of reinventing it.

Will the WordPress site we ship actually be fast?

Yes. WP Rocket or LiteSpeed for asset combining, automatic conversion to WebP and AVIF, hero images preloaded with fetchpriority, critical CSS inlined per template, Redis object cache where the wp_options table benefits, and a CDN in front of static assets. Sites we hand off routinely score 90+ on mobile Lighthouse and pass Core Web Vitals on real-user data.

How does a project start with you?

Book a free WordPress consultation. We open your existing install or sketch your new one, point at the wins worth doing first, and walk you out with a written plan and timeline whether the contract closes or not.

Let's ship a WordPress site
your editors will not outgrow by next year.

Book a free consultation. No sales loop, no upsell deck. We will tell you what to prioritize, what to ignore, and roughly how many weeks it will take.