Summary
If you’re looking to build a website for your business, a proven approach is to work with an agency and have them deliver the project for you. This could be a bespoke website design and development agency or solely a website or platform development agency.
Before you approach an agency, however, you’ll first need to reach a clear, detailed understanding of your requirements.
This article will provide an in-depth guide to help you through the briefing process and ensure your chosen agency delivers your project successfully, including a free template you can use to create your own brief. This template can also be used for other types of development projects as well, including anything from an online portal to an internal training platform.
Where to Start
Whether you need to design and develop a new website, or rebuild or migrate an existing site, a natural first step is to take your idea to an agency with a view to launching a web development project.
However, it’s a common mistake to go to an agency too early with just a raw, under-developed concept. Rather than meeting with an agency prematurely, we strongly suggest going through the process of defining your specific requirements and creating a project brief first.
The first thing to do is hold a discussion with the relevant people internally. Talk through the idea, and try to define what it is you need and what you want to achieve with it. Get a clear picture of what that idea or a concept will turn into, but also think carefully about what it should do from the perspective of your end-users.
Once you have a more tangible understanding of what you’re looking to build, you should begin creating a brief.
This is a document outlining the key details and requirements for the project. It’s something you’ll need to take with you to your introductory meetings with the agencies you’re considering, as it will be a very useful tool in helping you explain your idea clearly.
A brief doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s just a simple written document that lists everything you want at this early stage. However, while a brief can be simple, it’s important that it’s as specific as possible too. The more detail you provide for your agency, the more chance you’ll have the project delivered on time, within your budget, and meeting your expectations.
Why Having a Brief is Crucial
There are some potential pitfalls to be aware of that could create challenges for you if you don’t create a thorough brief.
Unfortunately, some agencies will be willing to work with you without a detailed brief, glossing over important details and keeping the expectations and requirements vague. This is a red flag to look out for, as it will likely result in one of several outcomes:
- You risk going through a long, expensive discovery and definition exercise that you could’ve done yourself internally for no cost.
- You risk being given a quote that’s too expensive, or a project timeline that’s longer than necessary.
- You risk receiving a service from the agency that doesn’t align with your request or meet your expectations. In turn, you’ll then have to spend even more time and money on a new project to get your original idea developed.
A brief is what gives you and the agency a mutual understanding of the work that needs to be done to successfully deliver the project. Without that specificity, you might end up disappointed. That’s why it’s always wise to put some time and effort in up front before taking your idea to an agency.
Once you submit your brief, you may be invited to participate in a follow-up session to further explore the requirements you’ve listed. This is perfectly normal, and actually a good sign. Experienced agencies will want to talk through each of the elements of your brief with you to help determine the best possible way to deliver those in the project.
How to Create Your Brief
When you begin to discuss and plan the requirements of your project between your team, we recommend thinking carefully about the following points.
Please note: There are a lot of things that could go into a project brief, depending on how complex your requirements are, so we won’t include everything here in this article.
The Project’s Purpose and Goals
Start by thinking about what the purpose of the project is. There’s no use speaking to an agency until you have a clear, specific understanding of exactly what you’re trying to achieve with this project. This should relate to your strategic business objectives, but it should also be designed to meet the needs of your end-users.
Ask yourself how this will allow you to improve your end-users’ experience or solve a problem for them. Answering this might involve working on user personas or developing user stories, or potentially even working directly with some members of your target audience to gather their input.
Project Timelines and Deadlines
Timing is another important point to think about, particularly how much time you have to deliver the project. Deadlines can sometimes relate to certain dates that are out of your control, so it’s better to start as early as possible in those cases. If there’s any flexibility with the timeline for delivery, make a note of that as well.
Project Stakeholders
Make a list of all the stakeholders involved. This is a good thing for the agency to be aware of early on, because the project becomes more complex with a higher number of stakeholders.
Depending on the size of your business, and the nature of your site, your project team will usually be some combination of: A marketing director or marketing manager, someone from your operations department, and someone from IT.
However, if you also have people like someone from your IT team responsible for security, a content writer to provide all the written text, or any external consultants, that should be made clear in advance. If your site will need to integrate with other platforms, such as your CRM system, you may have an integration manager specifically in charge of overseeing that as well.
It’s useful to designate roles to certain stakeholders, such as project sponsors, product owners, administrators, and so on. This will help you understand who’s responsible for different aspects of the project internally.
If you plan to work with external agencies for things like SEO or branding, it’s important to note that in your brief. This is necessary for the development agency to be aware of as early as possible, because collaborating with other third-parties at different stages of the project requires a lot of coordination.
Certain processes may also have to run differently if other third-party agencies want to be more hands-on or handle some parts of the site themselves. The earlier this is made clear, the more smoothly the project will run.
Technology Preferences
If you have any preference of technology platform or any requirements related to your existing tech stack, that will be something you’ll need to decide early on. For example, would you prefer to use WordPress due to its scalability, or do you have any existing investment in any other platforms?
Think about any preference you have for the various technology choices available, why they’re important to you, and whether your agency will have to tailor their approach to accommodate that.
If you need help understanding and evaluating your options for technology platforms, check out our helpful guide here.
Budget
Try to determine a minimum and maximum budget for your project, even if it’s just a loose range for now. It will help you evaluate agencies, and will also help you prioritise the various aspects of the project as “must have” or “nice to have” in many cases.
Design Look and Feel
This is where your company’s brand comes into play. You’ll want your site to reflect your brand and that will come through in the design. Bring any brand guidelines to the table, and think about what sort of tone or experience you want to convey to your end-users.
If you don’t have any recent brand guidelines and want help updating them, or need to go through a rebranding process, mention that in your brief as well. Design and development agencies will often be able to help you in these areas too, or at least refer you to a trusted partner who can.
User Interface (UI)
How your end-users will interact with your site, and what kind of experience they’ll have, is largely determined by the user interface. When it comes to design and UI, simplicity is usually the best approach. However, depending on the function you’re providing, you might have some specific or bespoke UI requirements.
Consider your target audience carefully here as well. For example, if most of your users will be accessing your site from a mobile device, it’s probably wise to opt for a mobile-first design.
Some other important things to think about here include how you’d like your sitemap to be structured, especially if you have an existing site that you’re already happy with.
If your project will involve rebuilding or migrating an existing site or platform, it will be helpful to gather any existing data sources, such as Google Analytics, that will provide insight into your current site.
Non-Functional Requirements
Non-functional requirements are all the aspects of your site that happen behind the scenes. These are things that allow your site to do its job properly for your end-users, but won’t be evident to those people while they’re using it.
There’s a lot of things to consider with non-functional requirements, so we won’t cover everything here.
Hosting
If you have any specific hosting requirements, such as a preference for a certain cloud-based platform, or a particularly secure data centre, those will be important to identify as early as possible.
Say, for instance, that sustainability is a core value for your business, this could also have an influence on how and where your hosting is managed.
If you have an internal IT team that will be contributing towards the hosting decision, make sure you involve them in the discussion.
Security and Compliance
Security is a growing concern for all businesses today. It’s crucial to think about security as a core component of any web development project, to minimise any potential risks for your business.
If you have someone in your team responsible for security, they should begin to think about issues such as:
- How will you be backing up the site’s data?
- What level of data encryption do you need?
- How will users’ personal details be stored and protected?
- Will you have two-factor authentication?
- What password recovery process will there be for users?
Robust security also involves keeping compliant with any specific security or industry regulations that may affect your business. Of course, compliance with things like GDPR should be planned for at this stage too.
Some other common non-functional requirements include things like session management capabilities to track and things like log-in time, session length, pages visited, and so on. Search engine optimisation (SEO) tools, analytics, or other capabilities might need to be built into your site as well.
Accessibility, Usability, and Responsive Design
When it comes to aspects that will make your users’ experience as seamless as possible, such as accessibility, a good agency will ensure all these things are taken care of for you. This is also the case for ensuring all major web browsers, operating systems, and devices are fully supported and compatible. Development should always be compliant with industry standards, taking into account optimum accessibility and usability.
However, if you have any additional or bespoke requirements for any of these things, those will be useful to note early on.
Functional Requirements
The term ‘functional requirements’ refers to everything that your site will be able to do for its users, in terms of its features, functionality, and capabilities.
As mentioned earlier, one of the first things you discussed was what the site will help your end-users achieve. From the perspective of building something your target audience can use, you should start to get a feel for what functionality is required to ensure they can achieve that.
Features
Your features are the things your site will allow your users to do. These can be very simple, or very sophisticated, depending on what you’re aiming to provide for them.
When putting your brief together, think of any and all features and functionality that might benefit your users. Your agency will then work with you to explore these and find the best way to turn that into intuitive, user-friendly features for you.
What to Do Next
Once your team has been through the process of talking through all the points listed above, you should have a very thorough, useful brief to work with. The next step is to take that brief to any introductory meetings you have with agencies and ask them what they think of the project initially.
It’s normal for an agency to ask lots of questions at that stage and really dive into the ‘WHY’ behind all the things you’ve put into your brief. A good agency will even challenge you on certain decisions, to help you determine the best possible way to build what you need.
Once you’ve discussed your brief with an agency, determine which one feels like the best fit. Choosing the right agency is crucial, as it will have a huge influence on whether or not your project is successful.
As mentioned earlier, some agencies will agree to launch into a project without a brief, and that can be extremely problematic. While the main purpose of a brief is to help you and your agency understand exactly what you need, it should also be used as a way to spot partners who may not be sufficiently thorough or conscientious.
Whichever agency you choose, a detailed brief will help you ensure you’re given a fair quote, realistic timelines for completion, and a finished product that meets your requirements and expectations.
More Helpful Resources
If you’re considering a bespoke development project, our related article provides useful guidance to help you choose the right technology platform for your specific needs:
Understanding and Evaluating Enterprise Options for Bespoke Web Development
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- In October 2024, Bing recorded its second-highest market share ever (4.16%), the highest since 2011.
- Yandex reached a record-high market share of 2.78% in the same month.
- This decline in Google’s market share does not account for AI-based search alternatives, meaning the real shift could be even more pronounced.
- Whilst Google is still dominant and search competitors still pale in comparison, the direction of the trend is noteworthy and something SEOs and businesses should closely monitor.
- 57% of respondents use AI daily.
- 49% see AI and traditional search engines as interchangeable.
- 67% believe AI will replace traditional search within three years.
- “Does Google realize they already had a really good search engine? The AI doesn’t work. It sucks.” (5.6k upvotes)
- “It’s shaping up to fit in with the shockingly poor Google Search results that are loaded with sponsored garbage.” (2.3k upvotes)
- “Even when you get to the first results, they are usually useless articles, AI-generated content, or sales pitches.” (2.3k upvotes)
- Tracking and analysing search trends across platforms.
- Optimising for both traditional search and AI-driven search tools.
- Enhancing conversion funnels to capitalise on the traffic they do receive.
- A fully-managed service with 24/7 support
- Automated monitoring and alerts
- Back-up and disaster recovery
- 99.99% up-time
- 100% pass-rate for data centre audits.
Industry News
14 March, 2025
Google at a Crossroads: Declining Market Share, Stock Slump, and the Future of SEO
For over two decades, Google has been the dominant force in search, shaping the way users access information online. But recent data and a declining share price indicates Google’s once-unquestioned supremacy is beginning to show cracks.
As of January 2025, Google’s market share had remained under 90% for four consecutive months, sitting at 89.78%. This decline marks a significant shift, as prior to October 2024, the last time Google’s market share dipped below 90% was in March 2015. Meanwhile Alphabet, Google’s parent company, has seen its stock price fall 20% (as of March 11, 2025) following a disappointing earnings report and volatility in the US stock market.
While Google remains the dominant player, growing competition from other search engines, AI-driven search alternatives, increased scrutiny over search result quality, and evolving user behaviour all raise serious questions about the company’s long-term future. SEOs, digital marketing professionals and businesses must take note of these shifts and prepare for a changing landscape.
Google’s Declining Market Share: Key Trends
Google’s market share had been above 90% since 2015, but the recent downturn suggests a gradual erosion of dominance. October 2024 marked the lowest point in over a decade (89.34%), highlighting a downward trajectory that coincides with competitors like Bing and Yandex making small but notable gains:
A recent study of UK and US users found 27% now prefer AI chatbots like ChatGPT over traditional search engines. AI-driven search alternatives are altering user behaviour by providing direct answers without the need for traditional search engine result pages as tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity AI, powered by Large Language Models (LLMs), deliver instant, research-driven responses, reducing reliance on Google for informational queries.
This shift to LLMs and AI platforms is underlined by data showing:
In response, Google has started integrating AI into its search experience via the Google Search Generative Experience (SGE), or AI Overviews.
However, reaction to Google’s jump into AI has been mixed, with concerns over bias, accuracy, and its role in increasing zero-click searches, leading to outcry from the SEO world and from companies harmed. Education platform Chegg is suing Google regarding Google’s AI Overviews, alleging AI-generated content is infringing on their educational material. There are numerous examples of AI Overviews providing users with incorrect information, including suggesting users can eat rocks, stick cheese to pizza with glue, and misattributing awards to different musicians, including claiming US indie musician MJ Lenderman has won 14 Grammys, when the true number is zero, which corresponds with a recent Vox Media survey found that 42% of respondents believe Google Search is becoming less useful. While Google’s lead remains substantial, the shift suggests that users are actively exploring alternatives—not just AI tools, but competing search engines as well.
Anecdotal evidence from popular forums like Reddit suggests growing dissatisfaction with Google’s search results. Users have expressed frustration over declining result quality, increased ad placements, and ineffective AI-generated search responses:
But for now, this criticism is not slowing Google down. Recent data claims AI Overviews now appear in 42% of Google search results, and last week Google announced AI Mode, search results pages which now only exclusively show AI-generated results.
The Search Landscape has vastly changed in a short amount of time, with SEO professionals and businesses reliant on Search left no choice but to adapt to these changes. From our recap of BrightonSEO back in October 2024, we reported that when an AI Overview appears in a Google search, organic click-through rates (CTR) drop by 70%. By January 2025, a new study has revealed this estimated CTR decline to have reached 84%.
SEO isn’t dead or dying, but is evolving at a faster pace than we’ve become accustomed to. Declining CTRs due to more AI Overviews means data optimisation is more important than ever, as is having the knowledge and resources to capitalise when opportunities arise.
This evolving search landscape presents both challenges and opportunities for SEO and digital marketing. With AI reshaping user behaviour, businesses must consider multi-platform strategies and optimise for AI-driven search as well as traditional search engines. SEO remains essential, but the rise of AI-driven platforms underscores the importance of conversion optimisation and data analysis. Businesses need to make the most of their traffic, and the utilisation of tools like Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Looker Studio for tracking user behaviour and refining marketing strategies has never been more important.
Google’s Stock Price Downturn After February’s Earnings
At the time of writing, Google’s parent company Alphabet has seen its stock fall by 20% since its most recent earnings report. Revenue growth in key sectors, including cloud computing, fell short of expectations which fuelled investor concerns as Wall Street firms cut Alphabet’s price target, citing increased competition and AI disruption. This includes Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Citi. Analysts have explained this is due to tougher year-on-year comparisons in search revenue and anticipated increases in expenditures, such as higher spend on AI to adapt to the changing market.
Google remains the dominant player in search, but its supremacy is being tested as alternative search engines, privacy-focused platforms, and AI tools gain traction. The company is heavily investing in AI and cloud services to counteract market shifts, including plans to increase capital expenditures with $75 billion earmarked for AI development and expansion. Google has also invested $3 billion into Anthrophic, and have been boosted by the Department of Justice recently deciding not to proceed with a plan that would’ve required Alphabet to sell its stakes in AI firms.
Google is heavily investing in AI and cloud computing to maintain its competitive edge, but its cloud division’s underperformance and search revenue expectations raise questions for Wall Street, investors, SEOs and businesses about its long-term dominance. SEOs and businesses must prepare for a future where Google is no longer the sole gateway to online visibility.
Of course, there’s wider geo-political uncertainty and volatility in the stock markets stemming from the policies of the Trump administration. But this sort of stock downturn and decline in market share isn’t a surprise to many within the SEO community. SEOs and businesses crave consistency and stability, and the flurry of sweeping changes from Google over the past two years has provided anything but.
So what does the future hold?
Google’s declining market share reflects a broader shift in how users seek information. While AI-powered search tools and alternative search engines continue to grow, SEO remains crucial. The past year has seen the term Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) coined, focusing on optimising content for discoverability by LLMs. For marketers and businesses, this marks a wider shift, from not just ranking well in search results, but adapting to the evolution of user behaviour as LLMs continue to gain precedence.
Companies must adapt by:
The search landscape is changing, and businesses that evolve alongside it will be best positioned for success. At SoBold, we can help you navigate these shifts and develop a strategy that keeps you ahead in an AI-driven digital world.
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Announcement
31 January, 2023
SoBold launches bespoke online platform that is considered a “game-changer” for global financial services firm
SoBold, the High-Performance WordPress design and development agency, has delivered an industry-first portal for Rede Partners, a private equity fundraising advisory firm that provides fundraising services to PE funds across Europe, North America and the APAC region.
This bespoke portal, built on the WordPress platform, allows institutional investors to navigate upcoming funds advised by the placement agent.
Rede approached SoBold wanting to create a better user experience and improve fundraising outcomes for its customers. Rede wanted to achieve this by replacing its ‘Current Fund Offering’ mailout and PDF with an interactive, personalised, and secure online portal. Rede and SoBold worked in close collaboration to devise a simple, bespoke solution capable of delivering on a complex set of requirements, and that online portal soon became RedeWire.
RedeWire was fully integrated with Rede’s CRM system, Dealcloud, passing back data on user interactions and page views, allowing the team to follow up with interested clients.
RedeWire has been built fully personalisable for users, meaning that limited Partners are able to set all their preferences on first login, and through their account, allowing them to tailor the funds they see on their fund offering dashboard.
As part of the RedeWire platform, SoBold also designed and developed a bespoke front-end editing and approval interface to digitalise their offline fund approval process. This process has enabled Rede Partners and their clients to send out live previews of how a fund will appear on RedeWire, gather real-time comments, or make fully audited edits to a page’s content before submitting it for approval and publication on the RedeWire portal.
RedeWire has now launched to Rede’s full customer base and initial feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. The platform has already seen a high number of account activations and interactions within its first full week of use.
SoBold and Rede will continue to work together to develop RedeWire’s capabilities further and improve the portal’s user experience. SoBold will provide ongoing support to manage the platform and deliver enhancements on a monthly basis.
You can read more on our working relationship with Rede Partners here.
Gabrielle Joseph, Head of Due Diligence and Client Development for Rede Partners said,
“The SoBold team has been a real pleasure to work with and has successfully made our vision a reality. Originally conceived as a game-changer within our industry, we are thrilled with the outcome of RedeWire and have had several clients highlight how intuitive and easy-to-use the platform is.”
“Throughout the project, SoBold clearly understood our vision and provided thoughtful solutions to our needs. Choosing to partner with this team was one of the best decisions we’ve made, and we couldn’t be happier. We look forward to continuing to work with the team as the site evolves.”
Will Newland, Managing Director, SoBold said,
“We’re delighted to see such high early adoption of the new platform. The user feedback has been excellent so far, and this is the first of its kind in the private equity space, creating a personalised experience. We’re continuing to roll out enhancements on a monthly basis and can’t wait to grow the platform further.”
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Digital Business
8 March, 2023
5 Women To Shape the Design and Tech Worlds
March 8th is still an important date to remind us of the brilliance of being a woman in our society. Even though it can be a struggle every day, we know that women are capable of anything and we are very proud to celebrate the achievements of these creative and intelligent women.
Hedy Lamarr
Who can live without Wi-Fi nowadays? In 1942, Hedy invented the technology that later helped the creation of wireless signals.
Rear Admiral Grace Hopper
If you’re not in the programming world, you may not have heard of COBOL. This programming language created in 1952 is still used on business applications to this day. Grace was one of the first ever compilers and her work led to the creation of COBOL.
Margaret Calvert
Even in the age of Sat Nav, you’ve probably relied on a road sign at some point, right? Either driving or walking down the street, the reliable signs are a source of comfort when technology fails. Margaret was part of the team that redesigned the whole UK road sign system. It all started in the late 1950s and her work still guides us even to this day.
Carolyn Davidson
‘Just do it’ – the famous tagline from a brand you might have heard of, called Nike. The tick logo was first developed by Carolyn when she was just starting design and the idea behind it to represent speed and motion. Even though the Nike tick is now one of the top 10 most recognised logos worldwide, Carolyn has only made $35 from her design.
Susan Kare
We all know Apple. We all know that they’ve conquered the world of technology by consistently presenting unique designs with both their hardware and software. What you probably didn’t know was that Susan was the designer responsible for developing all the typefaces, icons and other elements that serve as the core for what we now know as the Apple brand.
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Digital Business
9 February, 2023
10 Tips to Improve WordPress Security and Minimise Risks
Cyber security and data protection should be top priorities for your business right now. Of course, this is particularly important for large businesses, and those in strictly regulated industries like financial services, where the outcome of a cyber attack or data breach can be catastrophic.
As these security concerns continue to intensify, you must be increasingly careful and vigilant about the technology solutions you use. You should also take more proactive steps to ensure everything in your tech stack is built and managed in a way that minimises your risks.
When it comes to WordPress, there’s a common misconception that the platform isn’t secure enough for large businesses. This misunderstanding tends to come from the fact that it’s free-to-use, so it was originally more popular among smaller independent businesses and B2C blogs.
Today, however, WordPress is the world’s most popular content management system (CMS), and for good reason. Considering a significant percentage of that user base includes global enterprises, you’d think such popularity would be enough proof that it’s a secure platform.
On the contrary, large businesses still ask us on a regular basis, “Is WordPress secure enough for us?”
Is WordPress Secure?
The answer to that question is, yes, WordPress is a secure, stable platform, even in its “out-of-the-box” state. WordPress’s core code is thoroughly tested and quality-checked by a team of security experts continuously. Not only that, but the same team regularly releases security updates and reinforces any potential weaknesses before they can be capitalised on by cyber criminals.
In fact, the speed at which security updates are implemented in WordPress is arguably the fastest in the world today when compared with other CMSs.
Additionally, WordPress is open-source software, meaning all its code is available to the public. Users are constantly suggesting changes and updates, often to fix bugs in the code and minimise opportunities for cyber criminals. This keeps the platform safe and secure for everyone else.
But while WordPress does have the ongoing support of some of the most talented and devoted developers in the world, it’s not immune to security vulnerabilities. No software is, unfortunately.
That’s why it’s important to be aware of, and work with, some fundamental best practices for security. Listed below are some steps you can take to further strengthen the security of the WordPress CMS.
Best Practices to Strengthen WordPress Security
1 – Secure Hosting
The hosting service you choose for your platform will determine how secure and well protected your data will be.
It goes without saying that WordPress should be hosted in a secure environment, overseen by an experienced provider who prioritises security within their services.
Some things you should consider essential for a hosting provider include:
Before choosing your hosting provider, do plenty of research to ensure they’re able to provide these measures. Most businesses will work with a development agency partner for WordPress, and that agency should be able to help you with this process.
2 – Back-Up and Disaster Recovery
Following on from the previous point, any good hosting provider should also offer back-up and disaster recovery services. These are like safety nets that will allow you to protect, save, and recover all your data in the event of any losses.
3 – Be Careful with Plugins
Plugins are a great way to enhance the WordPress platform with new capabilities and features. But you should only ever use plugins from reputable, credible sources, otherwise you could experience security problems.
It’s also important to keep all your plugins regularly tested, maintained, and updated. Again, this is an area where a WordPress agency partner will help you.
4 – Always Keep Your Platform Updated
When you’ve built a website with WordPress, you’ll often receive software updates from the platform. Any time this happens, it’s because a bug has been fixed or some improvements have been made to the software.
Keeping up with these updates is so important from a security perspective, because they’re designed to keep your site secure. By letting your site run on an outdated version of the platform, you leave yourself at risk of a known issue being exploited by a cyber criminal or some malware.
This is another thing that a good agency partner should take care of for you, so you don’t need to worry about keeping your platform up-to-date.
5 – Never Auto-Update Your Plugins
You have the option to enable auto-updates within your WordPress platform. While this may seem like an easy way to keep your CMS up-to-date, doing so can create technical issues and security risks that simply aren’t worth the convenience.
Each plugin you use will have its own button for you to turn auto-updates on or off. Any good agency will advise you to turn those auto-updates off and instead opt for a more secure approach to your updates, to maintain the resilience of your platform.
6 – Use Security-Specific Plugins
Another way to reinforce the security of WordPress is by implementing security-specific plugins like WordFence, Sucuri, or Defender Pro.
These handy tools will do a lot of the hard work for you, monitoring your platform and spotting potential vulnerabilities so you can fix them before they’re allowed to have any negative impact.
7 – Enable SSL
A secure sockets layer (SSL) is a protocol which encrypts the transfer of data between your website and your users’ browsers. Enabling SSL makes it more difficult for cyber criminals to steal or compromise data online. Don’t worry, though, as this will be taken care of by your hosting provider as a standard practice.
8 – Avoid Tools that Open Direct Access to Your Site Database from the Dashboard
Some tools and plugins will enable direct access to your site’s database from within your CMS dashboard. While this can make certain aspects of website management easier for you, it also creates security vulnerabilities. This is something you should always avoid, because these additions are often severe security risks.
9 – Encourage Your Users to be Mindful of Security
The biggest security risks, and many opportunities for cyber criminals, come from unsafe user behaviour, poor platform maintenance, and badly built sites.
Your behaviour, and the behaviour of your end-users – and your agency – should always be mindful of security. If it’s not, sooner or later you’ll encounter problems. Some security best practices you can introduce include making strong passwords compulsory for all users and implementing measures like two-factor authentication.
10 – Find a Trustworthy Agency Partner to Support You
We understand that following all these steps sounds like a lot of work. Of course, when you’ve got your own job to focus on, the last thing you need is to be spending time struggling through complex website security processes.
That’s why it’s so valuable to find a reliable, trustworthy agency partner when using WordPress to build and manage websites. A good agency will ensure everything is secure and up-to-date for you, so you can spend more time providing outstanding services and experiences to your customers.
It’s always worth taking time to find an experienced agency with a strong track record of building robust, secure sites, to give you the peace of mind you deserve. That means they should handle your secure architecture, testing, monitoring, updates, and ongoing support for you as part of their services.
Being Truly Secure is an Ongoing Process
When you’re selecting a content management system (CMS) to build critical digital assets like your website, security must be a top priority. It’s for that very reason more and more large businesses are looking to WordPress as their platform of choice.
However, it’s equally important to choose an agency you can trust, and one that has these security best practices incorporated into their approach. This doesn’t just stop at the delivery of your website, either. True security is a constant ongoing process, and your agency partner should help you through that.
Following the tips listed here will give you everything you need to build a resilient, secure website on WordPress, suitable for the enterprise.
Interested in learning more about WordPress? Discover how a global enterprise achieved game-changing results by using WordPress to build a secure, innovative, bespoke solution. Check out the story of RedeWire from Rede Partners LLP here.
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Digital Business
29 March, 2023
Just How Scalable is WordPress?
When looking at content management systems (CMS), scalability refers to the ability to expand and grow your site with more content, capabilities, features, and functionality.
Your CMS is a long-term investment, and its scalability will have a strong influence on whether or not that investment is successful.
“When sustainable business growth is a top strategic objective, you need full confidence that your web presence can seamlessly scale and evolve to support that growth.”
This requires a platform that allows you to quickly and easily create new features and functionality. Ideally, you should be able to do this without having to invest significant time and resources into additional costly development work.
WordPress is One of the Most Scalable Platforms Around
Evidence of WordPress’s great scalability can be found in the fact that almost 45% of the world’s websites are built on the platform. That includes global enterprises such as investment firm Blackstone, research and advisory leader Forrester, the NHS England, and leading pharmaceutical company Hutch Med.
This is because WordPress websites can seamlessly scale as your needs change and your business grows. You can easily add a high volume of new content to your site at speed without compromising on quality.
WordPress is also renowned for how easily you, or your development partner, can build bespoke features and functionality, so your site can keep evolving with new capabilities to support more advanced requirements.
“No matter the size or complexity of your site, WordPress can provide fast, intuitive development capabilities with ongoing growth acting as a natural outcome.”
Using WordPress at Scale
Developing, managing, and maintaining a high-performance website at scale is a complex challenge. For that reason, it’s important to work with an experienced web design and development agency who can enable continual growth and support you through it.
Part of your agency’s services will include configuring your platform, and building your site in the back-end, in a way that encourages long-term scalability. We’ll explain our own approach to this in more detail in the next section. But first, let’s look at some of the fundamental ways to use WordPress at scale:
Bespoke Features and Functionality
If you want to build out your website with new capabilities, WordPress stands above all its competitors thanks to its ability to develop bespoke features that are unique to your site.
WordPress is built on PHP, which is the most popular development language around, as it’s currently used by over three quarters (77.5%) of all websites with a known server-side programming language. With PHP, WordPress has a significant advantage over other CMSs, because it allows you to create virtually anything and integrate it with the platform.
WordPress Plugins
WordPress also comes with a vast range of plugins, which can help with adding to, and enhancing, the existing functionality of your site. Plugins are an essential aspect of WordPress development, but it’s crucial that you only choose the most reputable, tested, and proven plugins.
Your agency partner should be experienced in this plugin selection and use their past experience to recommend the best ones to use for your specific requirements. Your agency partner should also be able to advise you on how plugins will scale with increases in website size or traffic volume to help preserve your site’s performance.
Using plugins that are not regularly updated, or that come from unknown development owners, could harm your site by making it heavier, slowing down your page loading times, and possibly even creating security vulnerabilities.
Using a particularly large number of plugins is another situation that could result in slower loading speeds or other performance issues. Be mindful that use of plugins can reduce the bespoke development time needed to build your site, and the use of too many plugins could cause performance issues. If you find yourself in this situation, it could be an indication that your development partner might actually be taking shortcuts.
The Importance of a Trusted Partner
Whether you’re using plugins or building new bespoke features, your agency will be able to take care of all of these crucial aspects of your development for you. Their support and guidance will ensure you can expand your site freely without running into any technical issues.
Once you have everything you need in place, your agency will then be able to accelerate the speed at which you can scale moving forward. A great agency partner will also provide you with ongoing education and support, allowing you and your team to build your site out easily and efficiently by yourself too, whenever you want or need to.
Taking a More Scalable Approach – Building with Blocks
While many agencies still use a more traditional method of developing sites with WordPress, taking a block-based approach provides even greater opportunities for dynamic scalability.
As an alternative to the time-consuming practice of inputting text and images into a rich text editor in your CMS, the block-based approach allows you to create each page on your site more easily with a set of pre-built components.
Components are blocks of code with pre-defined style and input types. You can use and re-use these components across multiple pages of your site to scale it at a much faster pace. Any time you want to create a high volume of new content, you simply pick your already-built components and place them in the correct positions.
This is an approach that enables virtually limitless growth of your website at speed with a high level of quality and accuracy. Building components that can be reused across your site will also deliver added benefits like increased efficiency and reduced costs. This in turn provides you with more time to focus on developing better services and experiences for your site visitors.
The block-based approach to building websites is another way to make your WordPress platform leaner for better performance as well, because it removes the need for a bloated library of unnecessary plugins and features.
An Enterprise-Grade CMS
Scalability should be a key aspect of your criteria when selecting a CMS to build a website. Rapid growth and flexibility are crucial for your platform of choice.
Despite some still mistakenly thinking it might not be up to the task, you can use WordPress to build large, robust, high-performance sites at speed, and easily adapt them as your requirements change.
This arguably makes WordPress one of – if not the – best CMS options available today. When you look at some of the world’s leading businesses currently using the platform to great success, that argument becomes much easier to appreciate.
Like with any CMS, though, the key to successful scalability is having the support of an experienced, trusted agency partner behind you, ensuring you’re leveraging the platform to its full potential.
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