WordPress
Leave WordPress cleanly (or not), without breaking SEO or losing content.
WordPress still powers nearly 40% of the web, and that number isn't an anomaly. For many SMBs, it remains a choice that keeps proving itself: large community, autonomous editorial team, rich plugin ecosystem, controlled startup costs. For others, what seemed simple has grown heavy: slowdowns, constant plugin maintenance, rising hosting costs, vulnerabilities tied to plugin sprawl. The right question isn't 'WordPress or not', it's 'is it still the right tool for my case, and if so, is it deployed properly?'.
My take on WordPress:
I've been working with it since 2009 and shipped hundreds of sites with custom themes and custom-built plugins. That experience lets me give you a clear diagnosis of your situation.
WordPress stays relevant when your editorial team is trained, you publish regularly, and you rely on business plugins with no equivalent elsewhere. The question then isn't 'leave or stay', it's 'how to operate WordPress seriously when you keep it'.
Too many WordPress sites are still deployed via FTP, with plugins pushed by hand and no versioning. That's exactly where attacks come through.
When your site stays on WordPress, I move it under Bedrock: a restructuring of the installation that isolates the core, plugins and secrets outside the public web root. Attack surface drops drastically, updates become traceable and auditable.
If on the other hand your need has genuinely outgrown WordPress (structural slowness, technical debt too heavy, redesign planned anyway), I'll guide you through the exit with complete 301 redirects and preserved SEO equity. Both paths are defensible.
Your situation decides, never dogma.
- →Editorial team trained on WordPress publishing regularly: migration cost isn't justified
- →5+ business plugins with no equivalent elsewhere
- →Existing WordPress site to consolidate: move to Bedrock to secure and professionalize it
- →Active corporate blog with established editorial workflows
- →Acceptable maintenance budget, decent performance after optimization
- ×Site slow despite caching, CDN and optimizations: structural limit reached
- ×Recurring security flaws tied to plugins, despite regular maintenance
- ×Ambitious design or SEO refactor: migrate at the same time
- ×Mostly static content edited rarely: pre-rendered Astro suffices
- ×Hosting cost disproportionate to actual traffic
- →Bedrock (Roots.io)Stay on WordPress but properly: Composer, env vars, versioning, scriptable deployment
- →Next.js + StrapiEditorial sites with regular editing by a non-technical teamView page
- →AstroMarketing sites + blog, fast static generationView page
- →Next.js + StripeCustom storefronts moving off WooCommerceView page
- →ShopifySimple e-commerce if technical control isn't a goalView page
- 01
Honest audit: does this site deserve Bedrock consolidation or a migration? No dogma
- 02
If kept: move to Bedrock (Composer, env vars, versioning), security hardening, plugin audit
- 03
If migrated: target stack chosen for actual needs (Next.js for dynamic apps, Astro for pure content, Strapi for frequent editing)
- 04
Cutover only after parallel production validation, with full 301 redirects to preserve SEO
- 05
Documentation and training to preserve editorial team autonomy
Do I really need to leave WordPress?
Not necessarily. WordPress stays relevant when the editorial team is trained, the site runs correctly, and there's no ambitious redesign planned. In those cases, I prefer consolidating the existing setup by moving under Bedrock (modern structure with Composer, plugin versioning, clean env vars) rather than migrating. Migration is justified when the site has become structurally too slow despite optimizations, when plugins compromise security regularly, or when a redesign is planned anyway.What is Bedrock and why use it?
Bedrock is a modern WordPress structure created by Roots.io. Concretely: clean folder organization (core / config / content separation), plugin and theme management via Composer (all dependencies versioned), environment variables loaded via dotenv (secrets out of code), scriptable deployment like any modern app. For most WordPress sites meant to last, it's the step that turns ad-hoc setup into a serious tool. Expect 2-5 days to migrate an existing WP site to Bedrock depending on complexity.How much does a migration or Bedrock consolidation cost?
Move to Bedrock for an existing WordPress: €1,500 to €4,000 depending on the number of plugins and theme complexity. Full migration to a modern stack (Next.js, Astro, Strapi) for a mid-size WordPress marketing site: €2,000 to €5,000. For a WooCommerce e-commerce site, expect €4,000 to €12,000. ROI is mostly measured on hosting and maintenance time saved.Will I lose my Google ranking after migration?
No, provided the migration is properly prepared. All old URLs are preserved via clean 301 redirects, and existing content is reproduced. Core Web Vitals usually improve significantly, which Google has been prioritizing since 2021. In most cases, SEO improves after migration. If you stay on WordPress with Bedrock, existing SEO is unaffected. You only change how you operate it.Can I still edit my content?
Yes in both cases. If you stay on WordPress (with or without Bedrock), the WP admin remains identical for your editors. If you migrate, the site ships with an appropriate headless CMS (Strapi, Decap, Sanity) offering a clean editing interface, often clearer than the WordPress admin. For mostly static sites edited rarely, content can also be exposed as markdown files editable on GitHub.
A project involving WordPress?
Describe your context: I'll suggest the right level of investment.
First callLet's talk aboutyour project.
Describe your need in a few lines. Reply within 24h to plan next steps, detailed quote within 48h.
- 24h response
- NDA on request