WordPress website design and development agency

We’ve been building grown-up WordPress websites for large organisations for decades. Our decades of experience and with senior stakeholders, large-scale studies, big organisations and our broad range of experience means we can provide value that other agencies or in-house teams might overlook. 

There are many ways to build a site on WordPress; this page explains our approach, why we do it and what kinds of organisations can benefit from our experience, all in one place.

Helping organisations design and build award-winning websites 

WordPress is one of the most powerful and flexible content management systems available. At Headscape, we use it to design and build websites that are reliable, accessible, and easy to manage, helping organisations communicate more effectively online.

We’ve been creating websites for over twenty years, and WordPress is now at the heart of much of what we do. Our in-house team of experts combine strategy, design, and development to deliver websites that are not only visually engaging, but structured and engineered for long-term success and scalability.

Why do we use WordPress?

WordPress powers over 40% of all websites on the Internet. It’s flexible, accessible and supported by a huge global community.

We recommend WordPress because it offers:

• Ease of use: Manage your own content without technical help
• Scalability: When well built, WordPress can power complex websites at scale
• Security: When properly engineered, WordPress sites can be a robust and resilient
• Extensibility: Thousands of plugins and integrations to extend functionality
• Business Continuity: Unlike proprietary CMS platforms, WordPress can be supported by thousands of developers and is relatively easy to move from server to server 

We work with WordPress because it gives our clients freedom, control, and future flexibility — with none of the licensing restrictions or vendor lock-in of proprietary platforms. It gives us a great platform to work from that we can customise to the needs of our clients.

Our approach to WordPress design and development projects

Your organisation is unique; your website needs to reflect that. We start all our projects by taking the time to understand your organisation, audience, and their aims and objectives. 

That understanding then underpins all our work, from how we structure your website through to the design and build of your website. When we’re assessing design decisions or development choices, we’ve a firm understanding and criteria for evaluating what’s right for your organisation.

1. User research

First, we’ll get to know your audience. By using the right blend of qualitative and quantitative methods we can begin to understand who we’re building your site for, and why. We might conduct a review of existing analytics, carry out internal stakeholder interviews, usability and accessibility testing, design surveys, and other targeted user research to make sure we make smart, strategic decisions grounded in research, not guesswork.

With an existing site, we’ll use analytics data (like Google Analytics) to understand what works and what needs improvement – identifying dead ends to user journeys, what devices visitors use (mobile vs. desktop), seasonal variations, and key sources of traffic.

Next, we address the context of the project within the organisation. Often this involves key stakeholder interviews. We need to understand the organisation’s views and expectations around the new design and existing brand. These interviews might include board members, editors and other internal users of the website. 

Finally, we package all our understanding up, producing persona documents, user stories (“I am a …, I want to …, so that I can…”) and journey maps which can be used to understand where we are and where we need to get to.

This stage often uncovers key findings that are applicable to the wider business, delivering additional value outside of just the website project.

2. WordPress website design

Good design is about more than appearance. It’s about how people interact with your content, and meet their aims through your site.

Our design process is research-led. We use insights from user interviews and analytics to inform the way your site looks and behaves.

We start by reviewing brand guidelines and assets, across both digital and non-digital settings. How the brand is in use today should often inform (but not necessarily lead) the design of the site.

We’ll build wireframes, so we can test key our interpretations of the research and communicate the content and layout of key pages. 

Sometimes we’ll move on to creating interactive prototypes of the site; simple black and white renderings of representative content, different types of page, navigation elements, and approximate desktop and mobile layouts within a WordPress website. We can then use this to test the design and functionality of the site with representative users.

The result is a website that not only reflects your organisation’s identity but genuinely works for the people who use it.

Law WordPress projects

Zuckerman Spaeder

We have recently helped the Zuckerman team move their site to WordPress as part of an overall brand refresh.

Wilson Sonsini

Law firm Wilson Sonsini’s main site was failing to serve the firm’s many prospective employees.

Michigan Law Review

The Michigan Law Review is a student-run legal journal.

3. Development and build

With designs complete and signed off, we then move on to development. Our focus on complex projects means we develop fast, secure, future-proof, and scalable WordPress websites. 

Our work is about more than just making your WordPress website look good; it has to work well for its users and be accessible too. Our team focuses on how to support both external audiences (visitors to your website) and internal audiences (such as editors, with different access and ease of editing requirements).

It’s at this stage when our technical expertise brings real value. Depending on requirements, our team will:

• Create a custom theme: All our sites require a custom theme for speed and accessibility; we don’t use off the shelf templates or page builders 
• Build custom WordPress plugins: Sometimes a site calls for a feature that doesn’t yet exist. We’ve got the experience and flexibility to build it
• Add on secure e-commerce facilities: We use WooCommerce on most sites requiring e-commerce. It provides a safe, well-documented, and well-supported set of features that can be customised based on the requirements of a project
• Support custom block-based editing: Using the modern WordPress editor provides all the features of a visual editor without affecting performance or accessibility. We go beyond just using the basics; implementing our own blocks within the editor for seamless integration and use
• Create custom integrations: Integration with CRMs, APIs, and third-party tools (like HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, payment processing gateways and so on)
• Support accessibility throughout: WCAG 2.2 Level AA guidelines are a baseline. We take it a step further, using our understanding of accessibility implementation with specialist websites (like Sense) to improve accessibility further
• Performance optimisation as standard: All our sites must meet clear performance standards
• Create Multisite and multilingual WordPress setups: For sites that require multiple languages, or the ability to manage a network of sites

Our experience building complex websites for large organisations means all our builds are accessible, secure, fast, and work well across multiple devices. 

We use WordPress as a platform and build out tailored solutions for each project using it as a base. Our ability to use it as an integrated platform, rather than a CMS with a mix of functionality bolted on to it, means we can achieve technically complex projects elegantly and efficiently.

4. Content migration and support

Most of our sites are built to replace something that already exists, and we’re able to assist with large or complex content migrations from existing WordPress or other CMS-based sites. 

A key consideration when working with existing sites is the transfer of existing SEO value. By ensuring that redirections are used and important existing pages are retained in the new structure, we reduce the risk of a new website adversely affecting your site’s visibility.

Once your site is live, we can continue to monitor for issues that may otherwise go unnoticed but nonetheless will cause issues over time, such as broken links from other sites or functional issues. This saves you the cost of sporadic large projects to correct these problems after the fact, nipping them in the bud when they occur.

5. Getting your WordPress website live

Once all the development work has been done, all the content added and the final amendments made, your site’s ready to go live. Our team follows a process to ensure that the change is as seamless as possible, running checks before, during and after the site goes live.

Going live can be a simple process. Equally, we’re flexible enough to help when your go live is more complex; for example, if there are PR considerations or deadlines that dictate when the launch can go ahead. We’ll work with you to make sure your go live happens at the best possible time.

6. Ongoing support & maintenance

Once your site is live, it’s time to start using it; for both you and your audience. One of the great things about the web is that it’s always evolving, and your website should move forward with your organisation. 

First and foremost, it’s important that any ongoing arrangement prioritises site uptime. Using an alert system we actively monitor supported sites for downtime which means any issues are resolved quickly, rather than having lengthy spells before the issue is reported.

Our clients enjoy an enhanced level of protection from security threats, which we configure and manage on their behalf. We also actively monitor for errors during the normal operation of the website; our tools forward any issues as they arise to us for internal review, triage and resolution. 

Finally, there are the day-to-day requirements for answering queries, supporting reported issues, improving design and functionality and generally being on hand to help. We have dedicated project managers who can answer questions and triage requests, so that everything is resolved efficiently and in the least possible time. 

Science and research WordPress projects

Royal Entomological Society

The Royal Entomological Society needed a new bold look to represent a more modern brand aesthetic.

UK Biobank

Custom WordPress-based site for one of the world’s most significant health research resources.

Field Studies Council

If, during your school days, you ever went on a geography or biology field trip, the chances are that you went to one of the Field Studies Council’s 29 centre locations.

WordPress security

WordPress is inherently secure; the out-of-the-box setup is sufficient to prevent most attacks other sites and CMS software can struggle with. WordPress has a core security team, made up of security experts who review the core codebase and ensure its suitability for projects of any size.

As you add to WordPress, the danger is that risk can be reintroduced or increased unintentionally, through outdated plugins, poor technical architecture or lack of implementation of WordPress’ core security features in custom code.

We have Cyber Essentials certification, are registered with the ICO and have an information security policy that forms part of all our contracts of employment. We support best practice with security, keeping up to date with the latest developments and have a deep understanding of the security within WordPress and the plugins we use.

Although WordPress is inherently a secure platform, there are further enhancements that can be made to block more sophisticated attacks. Through the use of CloudFlare (that blocks Distributed Denial of Service – or DDOS – attacks), WordPress plugins and configuration and server setup, most attacks can be mitigated.

WordPress search engine optimisation (SEO)

With the sheer volume of competition for most websites, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is usually a key goal when building a new one.

WordPress’ default setup is good for SEO. A clear structure to each page’s address makes it easier for Google to see the structure of your website and additional features like categories and custom page types help to organise content in a logical way. Lots of additional optimisation features are easily added via well-known plugins, such as Yoast SEO and RankMath.

We take WordPress a step further, adding SEO enhancements including specialist plugins and configuration, along with additional search-friendly features built in. Our implementation is more than just a post-build optimisation; our process of paying attention to the information architecture of a site makes all the sites we build more search engine friendly. Having a good layout of content, especially on sites surpassing thousands of pages, makes all the difference for Google when it crawls your site.

For organisations taking it a step further and involving third parties or internal stakeholders to manage their SEO, we can provide valuable support. Support credits can be used towards adding new features, keeping up with best practices and changes in SEO or resolving issues raised by your SEO team. 

Why work with Headscape?

We’re not just another WordPress agency – we’re your technical design partner. That means we bring together strategy, design, and development under one roof, ensuring everything works together.

Here’s what sets us apart:

• Experience: Two decades of digital delivery across sectors including higher education, charities, law and science; the likes of University of Michigan, Sense, Wilson Sonsini, and UK Biobank
• UX-first approach: We’re designers and strategists first – every build starts with understanding your users and your data to eliminate guess-work
• Collaboration: We work as an extension of your team, not just a supplier
• Accessibility & standards: Every site we build is inclusive, compliant, and built to last
• Long-term partnerships: Many of our clients have worked with us for years. We’re invested in their success

Our experience building WordPress sites at scale (with sites that range from hundreds to thousands of pages) gives us experience working with larger organisations that need a safe pair of hands. 

All web builds require careful project management. Our process has been born of working with large organisations on complex projects with lots of stakeholders – so we’ve already ironed out the kinks. All projects are different though, so we’ve built in processes to handle any tricky issues or risks to the project as they arise.

Higher education WordPress projects

Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI)

The Higher Education Policy Institute wanted to improve engagement with its collection of reports and other content.

Universitas 21

Universitas 21 is a network of leading, research-intensive global universities, all sharing a common vision and goals.

Curtin College

Headscape worked with Curtin College to redesign and redevelop its website with a particular focus on ensuring users are guided to course information they’re looking for.

Industries we work with

We’ve designed and developed the company websites for a wide range of sectors:

• Higher education
• Charities and non-profits
• Law
• Science, research, and think-tanks

Our clients include well-known names who rely on WordPress for its flexibility, accessibility, ease-of-use, and content management capabilities. They count on us to improve on it as a platform, delivering return on investment through clear strategy, research, award-winning design and build.

Charity WordPress projects

Sense

Sense supports and campaigns on behalf of people who are deafblind, or have a hearing or vision impairment with another disability.

Taskforce for lung health data tracker

Using data visualisation to track progress of the UK’s lung health.

My Big Career

My Big Career helps young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Starting in 2013 the charity began by supporting a homeless young woman to secure a place at university to study medicine and has since helped thousands of young people to overcome…

Ready to start your WordPress project?

Whether you’re planning a full redesign, need help with your existing WordPress site, or want a partner to support ongoing development, we’d love to hear from you.