Hi, I'm Dan · freelance · UK & remote
A website without WordPress
No themes, no plugin updates, no security patches, nothing to break while you are busy running your business. Just clean hand-written code that loads fast and keeps working. If you already have a WordPress site, I can move you off it without losing your Google rankings.
- ✓ Old URLs redirected properly
- ✓ Nothing left to update
- ✓ Reply within 24 hours
Why people move away from it
> It needs constant maintenance. WordPress core, the theme and every plugin update on their own schedule. Skip them and you have a security problem. Apply them and something occasionally breaks. Either way it is your problem on a Tuesday morning.
> It gets slow. A typical small business WordPress site carries a theme, a page builder and fifteen to thirty plugins, each adding code to every page. The result is often several seconds of load time for a site that is really five pages of text and photos.
> The running costs add up. Managed hosting, a backup service, a security plugin, a premium theme licence, a form plugin, a page builder licence. Individually small, collectively a few hundred pounds a year, forever.
> It is more machine than most sites need. WordPress is a content management system designed for sites that publish constantly. If you update your site three times a year, you are maintaining a printing press to write the occasional postcard.
Where WordPress is genuinely the right answer
> I am not going to pretend WordPress is bad software. It runs a huge share of the web for good reasons, and there are jobs where I would tell you to stay on it.
> If you publish content several times a week and multiple people need to write and edit without a developer, a CMS earns its keep. If you run a large shop with hundreds of products, variants and stock management, WooCommerce is a mature answer. If you depend on a specific plugin ecosystem such as memberships, complex bookings or course delivery, rebuilding that from scratch would cost more than it saves.
> If none of that describes you, and your site is a handful of pages you change occasionally, you are paying the maintenance cost of a CMS without using what it is for.
What I build instead
Hand-written code
HTML, CSS and JavaScript written for your site specifically. No theme to outgrow, no builder markup, nothing loaded that the page does not use.
Nothing to update
There is no admin login, no plugin list and no core version. There is no update to forget, and nothing for an automated bot to exploit.
Genuinely fast
Static files served from Cloudflare's global network. Pages typically arrive in well under a second, which helps both visitors and search rankings.
Near-zero running costs
No managed hosting bill, no plugin licences, no security subscription. At small business traffic levels, Cloudflare hosting is usually free.
Content you can still change
Occasional edits are covered by the free tweak window or a support package. If you need to edit constantly yourself, I will say so and recommend a CMS instead.
You own all of it
Every file is handed over at the end. Host it yourself or give it to any other developer. No licence, no lock-in.
Moving off WordPress without losing rankings
> This is the part people get wrong, and it is the part that can genuinely damage a business. If you rebuild a site and the old page addresses stop working, Google drops the pages it had ranked and the traffic goes with them.
> I map every existing URL before anything is rebuilt, then put a permanent 301 redirect from each old address to its new equivalent, so both Google and anyone with an old bookmark land in the right place. Page titles, descriptions and heading structure carry across. The sitemap and robots.txt are regenerated and resubmitted, and I watch Search Console afterwards for anything that slipped.
> DNS, HTTPS and email records are handled as part of the move, so your email keeps working, and the old site stays up until the new one is confirmed working.
Common questions
Not if the migration is done properly. The risk comes from changing page addresses without redirects. I map every old URL and set a permanent 301 redirect to its new equivalent, carry across titles and descriptions, resubmit the sitemap and then monitor Search Console. Done that way, rankings normally hold and often improve because the new site is faster.
Most small business sites change a handful of times a year, so edits are usually a quick message to me. Small tweaks are free for the first 14 days after launch, and after that they are covered by an optional support package or quoted individually. If you genuinely need to edit content weekly yourself, I will tell you honestly that a CMS suits you better.
Forms are rebuilt as a lightweight form that emails you directly, with spam protection, which is what most form plugins were doing anyway. Other plugins are looked at one by one: most are replaced with a few lines of code, some are genuinely not needed, and occasionally one is the reason to stay on WordPress. I will tell you which before you commit.
No, it works the other way round. You own clean, standard code that any developer can pick up and extend. If you later need a shop, a booking system or customer logins, those can be added, or a CMS introduced at that point. You are not boxed in by a theme or a platform decision made years earlier.
A blog is straightforward and can be built so new posts are simple to add. A full shop with lots of products and stock control is a different conversation, and depending on scale I may well recommend a dedicated platform. I would rather tell you that up front than sell you the wrong thing.
Related: Small business website design · Website speed audit · What a website costs · Cloudflare development