Theme
We use the Elementor Hello theme. To ensure that we can use style.css, functions.php, and any other overrides we need without involving the parent theme, we always create a child theme that is branded for each of our partners.
Plugins
In the table below, you’ll find our default plugins. We only use licensed plugins, both for security and performance.
Some plugins are only used on installation and are removed before launch. Others may not be needed and will also be removed before launch.
Each site is unique, so we may use any of our other licensed plugins or find an alternative plugin for the client, if necessary.
Plugin | When we use it | Why we use it |
Accessibility New Window Warnings | Always | Adds “opens in a new window” to links set to open in a new tab/window. |
Admin and Site Enhancements (ASE) | Always | Cleans up the admin interface and allows us to organize it to optimize for clients and development. |
Advanced Custom Fields PRO | Always | Our go to for CPTs and custom fields. We also include an options page on all builds to have one place for “business information” to be stored and referenced dynamically so that future changes (like a phone or email) are easy/in one place. |
Advanced Post Queries | Only when needed | We will use this plugin when we need to do advanced queries or CPT relationships (for example referencing a product in a blog post). |
AltText.ai | Always | Automatically adds alt text using AI. We still recommend manual review, but this creates a good baseline. |
Bulk Page Creator | Only during initial set up | We use this to quickly add pages to the dev site if there are a lot of pages. |
DynamicConditions | Only when needed | If we need more control over visibility in Elementor, we’ll add this. |
Elementor | Always | Our preferred page builder; read more about Elementor in link. |
Elementor Pro | Always | The pro add-on, which is also essential. |
Gravity Forms | Always, unless there are no forms | Our preferred form builder as it’s best for accessibility and integrations. |
HappyFiles Pro | Always | Adds folders to the media library to keep it more organized. |
LoginPress | Always | Allows us to style the login page easily. |
OOPSpam Anti-Spam | Always | Protects the site from comment and form spam. |
Perfmatters | Always | Adds performance optimizations for WordPress and Elementor and is where we typically store GTM code. |
Post SMTP | Always | Connects to PostMark (and later our care plan monitoring) for transactional emails. |
PowerPack Pro for Elementor | Always, unless there are no forms | We use this to style Gravity Forms in Elementor and sometimes for other widgets. |
Quick Featured Images | Always | Allows us to set a default featured image (which we set up a branded image for each site) in case the client forgets or there isn’t one set so that social media and links are branded nicely. |
Reorder Posts | Only when needed | If we need to set post order to menu and want control over the order on the front end, we’ll add this so that we can control the order posts show up in. |
Search Exclude | Always | Excludes the post from WordPress search, which is helpful for posts set to No Index or for thank you pages that should not show up in search results on the site. (This is different than SEO.) |
SEOPress | Always | Our preferred SEO plugin. |
SEOPress PRO | Always | The pro-add on, which is also essential. |
ShortPixel Image Optimizer | Always | Resizes and optimizes images for performance. |
WP 2FA - Two-factor authentication for WordPress | Always, not activated until launch/care plan | Adds additional security to the site. |
Any client with an active care plan will have access to any of our plugin agency licenses. If a client decides to discontinue their care plan, we will create a list of paid plugins that they will need to purchase to receive updates and have their site continue to operate normally.
Many times, the cost of these paid licenses is enough for the client to justify the cost of the care plan. That’s a win for everyone!
SEO
SEO has 2 areas: technical and strategy. We do not provide strategy services, but we do include technical SEO as part of our build projects.
- We continue to monitor trends and best practices and do what we need to in order to stay up to date.
If you are interested in taking SEO further for your clients, we recommend SEO Hive.
As part of our development project, we include the following SEO services:
In Development
- Hide from search engines for dev site
- Set up homepage and blog settings
- Configure permalinks
- Set default post category
- Set appropriate date/time settings
- Deactivate comments (unless needed)
- SEO plugin installation and setup (SEOPress)
- Redirection plugin installation and setup (Redirection)
- Ensure that each page has a H1
- Ensure that we use the correct heading tags as we build pages/templates
- Set page titles and meta descriptions (must be provided to us)*
- Set pages/posts to “no index” (must be provided to us)*
- Set alt text for images (this is done automatically via AI)
- Set up schema for the appropriate posts/pages
- Add social media account links (must be provided to us)*
- Check business schema data is set and accurate (must be provided to us)*
- Check 404 page is configured
- Ensure site search is configured
Some items can only be included if we receive a completed SEO questionnaire upon project launch.
Pre-Launch/Launch
- Update URLs
- Untick “Disallow search engines”
- Configure XML Sitemaps in SEOPress
- Configure Robots.txt in SEOPress
Additional Scope
These items are not included in each project by default; however, we can add them during the project or include them in our initial proposal.
- Set up/import redirects
- Set up/install Google Tag Manager (Analytics)
- Create Google Search Console account
- Authorize Google Search Console with SEOPress (must be provided access or have us set up)
- Submit site to Google Search Console
- Submit site to Bing Webmaster Tools (must be provided access or have us set up)
- Configure Instant Indexing with SEOPress
Accessibility
We follow the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.2 as our standard. While we cannot guarantee 100% compliance with this standard (since we often don’t have control over the design or content), we do strive to get as close as possible.
We have also made our own remediations in Elementor to create a situation that is better than the default:
Our fix | What it does |
Add accessible name to link (no text) in section | Elementor will sometimes fail to add an aria-label on a tag used in carousels, swipers and etc. This is code we can use to remediate that. |
Background Video Pause | This code looks for an video element with a certain class and gives control to the button to play or pause the video element. |
Skip to Content | There is an Elementor bug that causes the Skip to Content button to not work when a user has tabbed through the page to get to the button. This code remediates the bug and allows the Skip to Content button to work correctly. |
Cancel Animation when Accessibility is triggered | When a user tabbed through the site, there was an issue with the fade-in animations not fully rendering. This code triggers all the animations when tab is clicked so everything displays normally. |
We also include the Accessibility New Window Warnings plugin by default to ensure external links are marked appropriately. Many of our SEO technical standards also help with accessibility.
Our entire team is scheduled to complete the “Everything Accessibility” certification by the end of 2025!
If your client requires compliance or additional remediation:
- We can set up RAMP to run an automated report for a baseline and provide a dynamic accessibility statement on the website that includes a public log of changes we make as well as a point of contact for the organization to help them meet minimum requirements. This is a $40/month care plan add-on and our base requirement for any additional accessibility remediation.
- Additional remediation for automated scans OR manually testing the site is best sold to clients through an ongoing remediation retainer. We can discuss this on a per-site basis.
Performance
We know how important performance is for SEO and user experience. We strive to keep our site builds fast!
Here are some of the things we do during development to ensure a quick site:
- We continually monitor Elementor’s experiments and activate performance-based improvements as they become available.
- We build with Elementor’s containers/flexbox and not the older section/columns.
- We use Elementor’s global colors and fonts whenever possible vs selecting manual styles in each widget.
- We include Perfmatters by default and configure it to increase performance of the site.
- We build with as few plugins as possible.
- We include ShortPixel (during development and ongoing if they are on a care plan) to ensure images are optimized.
- We use SVG images over PNGs whenever possible.
- We use videos over GIFs whenever possible.
- We avoid external fonts and use local fonts whenever possible.
- We can add WP Rocket caching if needed upon launch to further increase performance.
Our hosting plans offer a boost to performance as well!
Security
Most people only think about security after a site is already live, but we take security into consideration from the start!
- We only use licensed plugins/themes. No nulled plugins. Ever.
- Our team uses 1Password to securely share any credentials we need.
- Valerian monitors the security of our team’s devices to ensure we are up to date with security patches.
- We build each site on our own hosting platform to ensure it’s contained in its own environment and not mixed in on a server with other sites.
- We take daily backups of each development site.
Of course, the attention to security continues after a site goes live!
Documentation
Post-launch support makes it easy to make changes down the line! Nothing is worse than trying to remember what CSS class to use or how a complex area was built.
Included in all of our builds:
- Custom Video Tutorial Library for any site-specific features
- Access to https://mywebsiteguide.com/ (or your own branded version) for general client training
- Dev notes document that outlines:
- Fonts
- Buttons
- CSS classes
- Custom code, scripts, and integrations
- Forms
- Templates
- Nice-to-knows