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Software Engineering

CMS Development

Content-managed sites your non-technical team can actually run — on the CMS chosen to fit your editors and your content, not our habits.

Overview

A content management system exists so that the people who own the words — marketers, editors, product managers, support teams — can change the site without booking an engineer every time. That sounds simple, and it is where most CMS projects quietly go wrong: the platform gets picked to suit whoever is building it, the content model mirrors the database rather than how people write, and six months later the editors are back to emailing changes to a developer because the tool nobody designed for them is too painful to use. We build the opposite — a CMS chosen and shaped around the editors and the content, so publishing is genuinely self-service.

The first real decision is which kind of CMS you are actually building on, and there are three honest options. A traditional CMS such as WordPress or Drupal gives you an editor, templates and hosting in one integrated package, which is the right and economical answer for a great many content sites. A headless CMS — Contentful, Sanity, Strapi, or WordPress run headless — separates the content store from the front end, so a modern, fast interface consumes content over an API; you get a better site at the cost of a bigger build. And sometimes the honest answer is that what you are describing is not a content site at all but a web application, and forcing it into a CMS will fight you the whole way. We make that call in the open, on your constraints.

Whichever route fits, the work that makes a CMS good is the same underneath: modelling content so it is structured and reusable rather than a pile of formatted pages, designing an editor experience people actually want to use, setting up the workflow and permissions a real team needs, and — because CMS platforms are among the most attacked software on the web — hardening the thing properly. That last point is not optional. A neglected WordPress install with a dozen abandoned plugins is one of the most common ways a business gets breached, and discipline is the only thing that prevents it.

Who it’s for — Organisations whose team needs to publish and update content themselves — without a developer in the loop for every change — and who want the right CMS chosen honestly for their editors and content, not defaulted to whatever is familiar.

What you get

  • A content model designed around how your team writes and reuses content — structured fields and components, not a single freeform blob per page
  • An editor experience your non-technical staff can use confidently, with previews, sensible defaults and guard rails that make the right thing easy
  • Editorial workflow and role-based permissions — draft, review, publish and scheduling — matched to how your team actually signs things off
  • Multi-language and multi-site support where you need it, modelled properly rather than bolted on as duplicate copies
  • A hardened, maintained platform — least-privilege access, a disciplined plugin and dependency policy, security headers and a patching plan
  • A fast public front end, whether that is a well-built traditional theme or a headless front end consuming the CMS over an API
  • Migration of your existing content, redirects to protect search rankings, plus documentation and training so your team owns it

What CMS Development does for you

  • Your team publishes without waiting on engineering

    The entire point of a CMS is to take routine content changes off the development backlog. When the content model and editor are designed for the people using them, a copy fix or a new landing page is a five-minute self-service job — not a ticket that sits in a queue while the page stays wrong.

  • A content model you can reuse instead of rebuild

    Content modelled as structured, typed pieces — rather than pages of formatted HTML — can be reused across the site, syndicated to other channels, and restyled without re-entering everything. That structure is what lets the same content feed a website today and an app or partner feed tomorrow without a rewrite.

  • A platform that stays secure because it was built to be maintained

    CMS platforms are attacked constantly, and most breaches trace back to neglect — an unpatched core, an abandoned plugin, an over-privileged account. We build with a disciplined dependency and update policy from the start, so keeping the site secure is a routine you can follow rather than a rescue job after an incident.

Why teams choose us for CMS Development

  • We pick the CMS to fit your editors and your content, not our comfort. If a traditional CMS is genuinely the right and cheaper answer, we say so; we do not talk you into a headless build you do not need, or into a CMS when what you have is really an application.
  • We treat the editor experience as a first-class deliverable. The people who use the CMS every day are the ones we design for, because a technically impressive setup that editors avoid has failed at the only job that mattered.
  • We take CMS security seriously because we have seen how these platforms get breached. Plugin discipline, least-privilege access and a real patching plan are part of the build, not an afterthought once something has already gone wrong.
  • We operate what we build, so the maintenance, hosting and update decisions we make are ones we would be comfortable being on call for — not tidy-looking choices that become someone else’s nightmare six months in.

What CMS Development includes

The concrete pieces of work this covers — scoped to what your problem actually needs.

  • Content modelling and information architecture

    We model content as structured, typed components — articles, products, people, reusable blocks — with clear relationships between them, rather than a wall of formatted text per page. Good modelling is the single biggest determinant of whether a CMS stays usable as the site grows, so it is where we spend the early effort.

  • Traditional CMS builds — WordPress and Drupal

    Where an integrated platform is the right call, we build properly on WordPress or Drupal: bespoke themes, a curated and minimal plugin set, custom content types, and configuration kept in version control so the site is reproducible rather than clicked together by hand.

  • Headless CMS and modern front ends

    When the front end needs to be fast, interactive or shared across channels, we run a headless CMS — Contentful, Sanity, Strapi, or WordPress used headlessly — behind a modern front end that consumes content over an API, giving editors a clean authoring tool and users a quick, well-built site.

  • Editorial workflow and permissions

    Draft, review, approval, scheduling and publishing states mapped to how your team actually works, with role-based access so a contributor, an editor and an administrator each see and do exactly what they should — no more, no less.

  • Multi-site and multi-language

    Shared content and components across several sites or brands from one platform, and proper multi-language modelling — translations as first-class content with the right hreflang and URL structure — rather than duplicated pages that drift out of sync.

  • Migration, hardening and maintenance

    Moving content off a clunky or ageing CMS without losing search rankings, hardening the platform against the attacks these systems attract, and setting up a patching and backup routine so the site stays secure and current after launch.

Where it fits

  • A content site your marketing team runs themselves

    A blog, resource centre or brochure site where non-technical staff publish and update regularly. Often a well-built traditional CMS is exactly right here — economical, familiar to editors, and quick to change — and we build it with the plugin discipline and hardening that keep it from becoming a liability.

  • A headless build for a fast, modern front end

    A content-rich site where load speed, interactivity or reusing content across web and app matter. We separate the content store from the presentation, give editors a clean authoring tool, and build a front end that is quick for users and legible to search engines.

  • A migration off a clunky or insecure CMS

    An existing site on an ageing, over-plugged or unmaintainable CMS that is slow, fragile or a security risk. We assess what is worth keeping, model the content properly on the way across, migrate without breaking rankings, and land you on a platform your team can actually run.

  • A multi-site or multi-language platform

    Several brands, regions or languages that need to share content and components while keeping their own presentation. We model this once, properly, so translations and shared blocks stay in sync instead of being copied and left to rot across separate installs.

How we approach CMS Development

We start with the editors and the content, not the technology. Who publishes, how often, what they publish, how it gets reviewed and signed off, and how the content pieces relate to one another — those answers decide whether you need an integrated traditional CMS, a headless build, or something bespoke, and they matter far more than which platform is fashionable. Getting the content model right at this stage is the decision that keeps a CMS usable for years; getting it wrong is the decision that has editors abandoning the tool within months.

From there we choose the lightest platform that meets the requirement and build it with discipline. On a traditional CMS that means a minimal, curated plugin set and configuration in version control rather than a sprawl of add-ons clicked in over time. On a headless build it means a clean separation between content and front end. In both cases it means security and maintainability designed in from the first commit, because a CMS is a long-lived, heavily-targeted system and the cheap decisions made early are the expensive ones to unwind later.

How we deliver a CMS build

We begin with the editors and the content. In discovery we work out who publishes and how, what content types exist and how they relate, what the editorial workflow and approval steps really are, and whether multi-site or multi-language is in scope. This is where the platform decision gets made — traditional, headless or bespoke — and where, more often than clients expect, the honest recommendation is the simpler, cheaper integrated CMS rather than a full headless build.

With the content model and platform agreed, we build in short, reviewable cycles. The content types, templates and editor experience come first, because everything else hangs off them, and we get editors into a real authoring environment early so their feedback lands while it is still cheap to act on. A CMS that looks right to a developer but frustrates the people using it daily has failed, and the only way to catch that is to put it in front of them before launch, not after.

Before go-live we migrate your existing content, map redirects so search rankings survive the move, harden the platform, and run the same performance, accessibility and SEO passes any serious web build needs. Then we hand over with documentation and training so your team can publish confidently, plus a patching and backup routine so the site stays secure once it is live.

Traditional, headless, and the content model underneath

The defining architectural choice is traditional versus headless. A traditional CMS like WordPress or Drupal keeps content, templates and delivery in one integrated system — the editor writes, the same platform renders the page. That tight coupling is a genuine strength for many content sites: it is economical, editors get instant previews, and there is one system to run. Its weakness is that the front end is bound to the platform’s templating, and — WordPress especially — the plugin ecosystem that makes it flexible also makes it heavy and hard to keep secure. A headless CMS breaks the store apart from the presentation: content lives in a dedicated system and is delivered over an API to a front end you build separately. That buys you a faster, freer front end and content you can reuse across channels, at the cost of more to build and more moving parts to run. We choose per project, on your editors and your budget, and we tell you plainly which trade-off you are taking.

Underneath both sits the content model, which matters more than the platform choice and is where most of the long-term value or pain is decided. We model content as structured, typed pieces with explicit relationships — an article that references an author and a set of tags, a product that pulls in reusable specification blocks — rather than as pages of formatted HTML where the structure exists only in how it happens to look. Structured content is what lets you restyle the site without re-entering everything, syndicate the same content to an app or a partner feed, and keep a large site consistent. It is also the difference between a CMS that grows gracefully and one that becomes an unmanageable sprawl of one-off pages.

For the delivery layer we keep a clean boundary between content, presentation and integrations, and we build on infrastructure you own and can run — your hosting, your accounts, your domains — with caching sized to your traffic. Nothing proprietary you have to keep paying us for, and nothing another competent team could not pick up. Where the requirement is really a complex web application wearing a CMS as a costume, we say so and steer you to the right kind of build rather than bending a content system into a job it will fight.

Security and hardening

CMS platforms are among the most attacked software on the public web, and that is not a scare tactic — it is a consequence of their ubiquity. WordPress in particular runs a large share of the internet, which makes it a standing target, and the overwhelming majority of compromised CMS sites are breached not through the core software but through a neglected plugin, an unpatched dependency, a weak or reused admin password, or an over-privileged account. The uncomfortable truth is that the flexibility of the plugin ecosystem is also its biggest liability: every add-on is third-party code running with access to your site, and a plugin whose author has abandoned it is an open door waiting to be found.

So we build with discipline from the start. We keep the plugin and extension set minimal and curated, preferring to build a small amount of bespoke functionality over installing three abandoned add-ons to avoid it. We enforce least-privilege access so editors cannot reach administrative functions they do not need, keep configuration in version control so the platform is reproducible and auditable, and apply the fundamentals — security headers, HTTPS everywhere, strong authentication, locked-down admin surfaces, and dependency scanning wired into delivery so known vulnerabilities do not ship.

Because a CMS is a long-lived system, hardening is not a one-off event but an ongoing routine, and we set that up as part of the work: a patching plan for core and dependencies, monitoring and error tracking, and regular backups you can actually restore from. Where the site handles logins or personal data we treat UK GDPR obligations as part of the design rather than a compliance gap to discover later. The goal is a platform that stays secure because keeping it secure is a routine your team can follow, not a rescue operation after an incident has already happened.

Signs it’s time

  • Your team needs to publish and update content themselves, but every change currently means booking a developer, so the site goes stale
  • You are stuck on a clunky, slow or over-plugged CMS that is painful to edit and a growing security worry
  • A security scare, an unpatched plugin or a breach has made the state of your current CMS suddenly urgent
  • You are expanding into new languages, regions or brands and need a platform that shares content across sites instead of duplicating it

How we work and hand over

We work in short cycles with editors involved early, because the only reliable way to know whether a CMS works is to watch the people who will use it every day try to publish something in it. You get a running authoring environment early, a senior engineer who can explain any decision in plain terms, and honest flagging of trade-offs as they come up — the cost of a heavier, more flexible platform against a leaner one, the value of a headless front end against an integrated theme — so you are making informed calls rather than discovering the consequences after launch.

Handover is a real deliverable. Your content model, templates and configuration live in your own repository, the site runs on infrastructure you control, and your team gets documentation and training thorough enough to publish, manage roles and run the platform without us. We hand over the patching and backup routine too, so the security discipline the build started with continues after we step back. Ongoing maintenance with us is available and, for a heavily-targeted platform like a CMS, often sensible — but it should be a choice you make freely, never a dependency we engineered you into.

Technologies we build it with

Chosen per problem, not per fashion — this is the stack we most often reach for on this work.

How we deliver

  1. 01

    Discover

    We map the system, the constraints and the business it serves — including the parts nobody documented.

    Architecture brief

  2. 02

    Architect

    Decisions get made, written down and defended before a line of production code exists.

    Decision records

  3. 03

    Build

    Short cycles against working software. You see progress in the product, not in a status deck.

    Shipping increments

  4. 04

    Operate

    Monitoring, incident response and iteration. The system is alive, so the engagement is too.

    Runbooks & SLOs

What changes

  • Self-service publishing

    A CMS your non-technical team uses confidently, so routine content changes leave the development backlog for good.

  • Content you can reuse

    A structured content model that restyles, syndicates and scales — not a pile of one-off formatted pages that has to be rebuilt to change.

  • A platform that stays secure

    Plugin discipline, least-privilege access and a real patching routine, so the site stays hardened rather than drifting into a breach waiting to happen.

Industries we serve

Domain knowledge changes what gets built. A few of the sectors we know before the first meeting.

How pricing works

  • The platform decision is the biggest driver. A well-built traditional CMS on WordPress or Drupal is markedly cheaper than a headless build with a separate custom front end, because the latter is two systems and an API rather than one integrated one — so we cost these routes separately once we know which fits your editors and content.
  • The content model and migration are easy to underestimate. Modelling structured content properly, and moving an existing site across without breaking its search rankings, can be as much effort as the visible build — especially where the old site is a sprawl of inconsistent, unstructured pages.
  • Editorial complexity adds cost: a simple author-and-publish flow is far lighter than multi-stage review, granular role-based permissions, scheduling, and multi-language or multi-site content sharing, so the shape of your workflow shifts the figure.
  • Ongoing maintenance is a real line, not an optional extra to wish away. A CMS is a heavily-targeted, long-lived system that needs patching, monitoring and backups, and budgeting for that upkeep from the start is far cheaper than paying for an incident later.

Typical timeline

  1. 01

    Discovery and platform choice

    We establish who publishes and how, model the content types and workflow, decide traditional versus headless versus bespoke, and agree the scope — including whether multi-site or multi-language is in play.

  2. 02

    Content model and editor experience

    The content types, templates and authoring experience get built and put in front of real editors first, because they are the decisions everything else depends on and the ones most costly to get wrong.

  3. 03

    Build, integrate and migrate

    The front end, integrations, permissions and workflow are built in short cycles, and existing content is migrated with redirects mapped to protect search rankings.

  4. 04

    Hardening, training and launch

    Platform hardening, performance, accessibility and SEO passes, editor training, and a patching and backup routine put in place, then launch behind monitoring from day one.

Why teams choose us for CMS Development

  • We pick the CMS for your editors, not our habits

    Traditional, headless or bespoke — the choice follows who publishes and what they publish, and we recommend the simpler, cheaper option when it genuinely fits rather than selling complexity you would only pay to maintain.

  • The editor experience is a first-class deliverable

    We design for the people using the CMS daily and test it with them before launch, because a setup editors avoid has failed at the only job that mattered.

  • We take CMS security seriously

    Plugin discipline, least-privilege access, dependency scanning and a real patching plan are built in from the start, because we have seen exactly how these heavily-targeted platforms get breached.

  • We operate what we build

    The hosting, maintenance and update decisions we make are ones we would be comfortable being paged about — not choices that look neat in a proposal and unravel once the site is live and under attack.

How to engage us

Three ways to work with us on this — chosen to fit the problem, not our margin.

Related services

Part of Custom Software Development. Other work we do alongside this.

Common questions

Should we use WordPress, a headless CMS, or something bespoke?

It depends entirely on your editors and your content, which is why we decide it during scoping rather than in advance. A traditional CMS like WordPress or Drupal is the right, economical answer for a great many content sites — integrated, familiar to editors, quick to change. A headless CMS buys you a faster, more flexible front end and content you can reuse across channels, but it is a bigger build with more moving parts. And occasionally what you are describing is a web application, not a content site, in which case forcing it into a CMS is a mistake we will steer you away from. See our WordPress and Drupal technology pages for how we build on the traditional platforms specifically.

Is WordPress secure enough for a serious business site?

Yes — with discipline, and that caveat is the whole answer. WordPress powers a huge share of the web and is a standing target, but the overwhelming majority of breaches come not from the core software but from neglect: abandoned plugins, unpatched dependencies, weak admin passwords and over-privileged accounts. Its plugin ecosystem is both its greatest strength and its biggest liability. We build with a minimal, curated plugin set, least-privilege access, security headers, dependency scanning and a real patching routine, which is what keeps a WordPress site defensible rather than a breach waiting to happen.

Why does headless cost more than a traditional CMS?

Because it is genuinely more to build and run. A traditional CMS gives you the content store, the templates and the delivery in one integrated system. A headless setup separates the content store from the front end, so you are building two systems and the API between them — a dedicated authoring platform and a bespoke front end that consumes it. You get a faster, freer, more reusable front end in return, which is well worth it for the right project, but it is a real trade-off and we will not pretend the extra capability comes for free.

Can you move us off our current CMS without losing our search rankings?

Yes, and protecting rankings through a migration is a deliberate part of the work, not something we hope happens by accident. We map your existing URLs, put permanent redirects in place, preserve the metadata and structured data search engines rely on, and model your content properly as it moves across rather than dragging the old mess with it. Rankings can wobble briefly around any major change, but a carefully handled migration protects the search equity you have already earned.

Our editors find our current CMS painful — how is what you build different?

Usually the pain comes from a CMS that was built to suit the developers rather than the editors, with a content model that mirrors the database instead of how people actually write and publish. We start from the editors: who publishes, how often, how things get reviewed, and how the content pieces relate. Then we model the content and design the authoring experience around that, and — crucially — we put it in front of your real editors before launch. A CMS that frustrates the people using it every day has failed regardless of how clean the code is, so we treat the editor experience as the deliverable, not an afterthought.

Let’s talk about CMS Development.

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