Forem: Jack Warner

The Small Business Owner's Guide to Local SEO (No Jargon, Just Results)

Jack Warner — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 08:48:45 +0000

Most small business owners I work with have heard of SEO. Some have even paid for it. But very few actually understand what local SEO is and why it matters more than "regular" SEO for a business that serves a specific area.

I run WebDev Wales, a web development studio in Neath, South Wales. Over the past four years, I have built and optimised websites for small businesses across Wales -- from plumbers in Swansea to cafes in Cardiff. Here is what I have learned about local SEO that actually moves the needle.

What Is Local SEO (and Why Should You Care)?

Regular SEO is about ranking for broad terms like "best web design tips." Local SEO is about ranking when someone in your area searches for what you do. Think "plumber near me" or "web designer Neath."

For a small business that serves a geographic area, local SEO is everything. You do not need to rank globally. You need to rank when someone 10 miles away needs your service right now.

Here is the thing: local SEO has different rules from regular SEO. Google uses a separate algorithm for local results (the map pack), and the ranking factors are different.

The Three Pillars of Local SEO

1. Google Business Profile (Formerly Google My Business)

This is the single most important thing you can do for local visibility. If you have not claimed and optimised your Google Business Profile, stop reading this and go do it now. It is free.

What to get right:

Business name exactly as it appears on your signage (do not stuff keywords in here)
Category -- pick the most specific primary category available. "Web Designer" is better than "Internet Company"
Description -- use your full 750 characters. Mention your location, services, and what makes you different
Photos -- businesses with photos get 42% more direction requests. Upload real photos of your work, your premises, your team
Opening hours -- keep these accurate. Incorrect hours are the fastest way to lose trust
Reviews -- more on this below

2. Consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone)

NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone number. Google cross-references your NAP across the web to verify your business is legitimate. If your business name is "WebDev Wales" on your website but "Webdev Wales Ltd" on Yell and "Web Dev Wales" on FreeIndex, Google gets confused.

Pick one exact format and use it everywhere:

Your website footer
Google Business Profile
Every directory listing
Social media profiles

This sounds trivial but inconsistent NAP is one of the most common local SEO problems I see.

3. Local Citations (Directory Listings)

A citation is any online mention of your business name, address, and phone number. The more consistent citations you have on reputable directories, the more confident Google is that your business is real and located where you say it is.

Priority directories for UK businesses:

Google Business Profile (essential)
Yell.com (DA 81, still relevant)
FreeIndex (strong for UK service businesses)
Bing Places (catches Bing/Cortana searches)
Yelp (good domain authority)
Industry-specific directories (e.g. Clutch, DesignRush for agencies)

You do not need to be on 500 directories. 20-30 quality citations with consistent NAP beats 200 inconsistent ones.

Quick Wins That Most Businesses Miss

Get Reviews (and Respond to Them)

Reviews are the second most important local ranking factor after your Google Business Profile. But most businesses never ask for them.

After completing a job, send a short email or text: "Thanks for choosing us. If you have 30 seconds, a Google review would really help us out: [direct review link]."

Respond to every review, positive or negative. Google counts responsiveness as a ranking signal.

Add Location Pages to Your Website

If you serve multiple areas, create a dedicated page for each. Not thin doorway pages -- genuinely useful pages that explain your services in that area, mention local landmarks or considerations, and include your NAP.

For example, a web designer in South Wales might have pages for Swansea, Cardiff, Neath, and Bridgend. Each page should have unique content about serving businesses in that specific area.

Optimise Your Website Title Tags

Your homepage title should include your primary service and location. Not "Home | My Business Name" but "Web Design in Neath, South Wales | WebDev Wales."

This is the single easiest SEO change you can make, and most small business websites get it wrong.

Use Schema Markup

Schema markup is code that tells Google exactly what your business is, where it is located, and what it does. It is not visible to users but it helps Google understand your site.

At minimum, add LocalBusiness schema to your homepage with your name, address, phone, opening hours, and geo-coordinates. If you are using Next.js or a modern framework, this is straightforward to implement with JSON-LD.

What Not to Waste Time On

Keyword stuffing your Google Business Profile name -- Google will suspend you
Buying fake reviews -- Google is increasingly good at detecting these
Building hundreds of low-quality directory links -- quality over quantity
Obsessing over meta keywords -- Google has not used these as a ranking factor for over a decade
Paying for "SEO audits" from cold emailers -- if someone emails you unsolicited about your SEO, they are selling, not helping

How Long Does Local SEO Take?

Honest answer: 3-6 months for meaningful results. Anyone promising page 1 in 30 days is either lying or using techniques that will get you penalised.

The good news is that local SEO compounds. Every review, every citation, every month of consistent effort makes the next month easier. And once you are in the map pack for your primary keywords, you tend to stay there.

Getting Started Checklist

Claim and fully optimise your Google Business Profile
Audit your NAP consistency across all existing listings
Submit to 10-15 quality UK directories with consistent NAP
Update your website title tags to include location + service
Add LocalBusiness schema markup
Set up a system to request reviews after every job
Create location-specific pages if you serve multiple areas

None of this requires a marketing degree or an agency retainer. It requires consistency and patience. Start with the Google Business Profile and work down the list.

Jack Warner is a web developer based in Neath, South Wales, and founder of WebDev Wales. He builds websites for small businesses across Wales, with a focus on performance, SEO, and helping local businesses get found online.

What I Learned from Auditing 50 Small Business Websites in Wales

Jack Warner — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 13:03:37 +0000

Over the past year, I have audited roughly 50 small business websites across Wales. Plumbers, hairdressers, accountants, cafes, tradespeople, fitness studios, and everything in between. These were not enterprise sites or tech startups. They were the everyday local businesses that make up the backbone of Welsh towns.

I run WebDev Wales, a web development studio based in Neath, South Wales. I started doing these audits partly to help prospective clients understand what needed fixing, and partly because I was genuinely curious about the state of small business web presence in Wales.

The patterns I found were remarkably consistent. The same issues appeared over and over again, regardless of the industry, the town, or how long the business had been running.

1. Mobile experience is an afterthought (or non-existent)

Found on: 38 out of 50 sites

This was the most common issue by far. Over 60% of web traffic in Wales comes from mobile devices, yet the majority of sites I audited were clearly designed for desktop first and then poorly adapted for smaller screens.

Common problems:

Text too small to read without zooming
Buttons too close together to tap accurately
Horizontal scrolling on mobile
Navigation menus that do not work on touchscreens
Images that load at full desktop resolution on mobile (destroying load times on 4G)

The fix is not complicated. Any competent developer can build a mobile-first responsive site. But many of these sites were built 5-8 years ago when mobile was less dominant, and nobody has updated them since.

2. No meta descriptions on any page

Found on: 31 out of 50 sites

This one shocked me the most. Over 60% of the sites had zero meta descriptions set. This means Google is guessing what to show in search results, and it usually guesses wrong.

I saw search results that displayed cookie consent text, footer navigation, or random mid-sentence fragments. The business owner had no idea this was happening because they never Googled themselves.

The fix takes about 30 seconds per page and has an immediate impact on click-through rates from search.

3. Page titles that say "Home" or nothing at all

Found on: 27 out of 50 sites

Page titles are one of the strongest on-page SEO signals. A title like "Home" tells Google absolutely nothing about what your business does or where it is located.

A good title for a local business looks like:

Joe's Plumbing | Emergency Plumber in Swansea | 24/7 Call-Outs

A bad title looks like:

Home

I found sites with titles like "DefaultHomePage," "Untitled," and in one case, "Test Site - DO NOT PUBLISH." That last one had been live for two years.

4. No Google Business Profile, or an unclaimed one

Found on: 22 out of 50 sites

Nearly half the businesses either had no Google Business Profile at all, or had one that was unclaimed with outdated information. This is free real estate on Google that directly affects whether you show up in local search and Google Maps.

One business had a Google profile with the wrong phone number, wrong opening hours, and a photo of a completely different business. They had no idea because they had never claimed it.

5. SSL certificate missing or expired

Found on: 14 out of 50 sites

In 2026, there is no excuse for this. Chrome shows a full-page security warning for sites without SSL. I found 14 sites where the certificate was either missing, expired, or misconfigured. Every single one of those businesses was losing visitors who saw the "Not Secure" warning and clicked away.

Free SSL certificates are available from Let's Encrypt and most hosting providers include them at no extra cost. There is literally zero reason not to have one.

6. Load times over 5 seconds

Found on: 19 out of 50 sites

The average load time across the 50 sites was 4.2 seconds. Google recommends under 2.5 seconds. The worst offender took 11 seconds to fully load.

The usual culprits:

Unoptimised images (a 4MB hero image when 200KB would do)
Too many plugins (WordPress sites averaged 23 plugins)
Cheap shared hosting that slows to a crawl during peak hours
No caching configured
Third-party scripts and widgets loading synchronously

7. No clear call to action

Found on: 35 out of 50 sites

This was the second most common issue. The site existed, it had information about the business, but it never told the visitor what to do next. No prominent phone number. No contact form above the fold. No "Get a Quote" button. No "Book Now" link.

Many sites buried the contact page three clicks deep in the navigation. One had a contact page with just a postal address and no phone number or email.

If you want someone to call you, make your phone number visible on every page. If you want them to fill out a form, put it where they can see it without scrolling.

What does this mean for small businesses in Wales?

The gap between a "good enough" website and an actually effective website is not as big as most people think. The issues I found are not expensive to fix. Most of them can be addressed in a day or two of work.

Here is my rough priority list for any small business in Wales that wants to improve their site:

Fix your page titles and meta descriptions (free, immediate impact)
Claim and complete your Google Business Profile (free, major local SEO benefit)
Check your SSL certificate (free or nearly free)
Optimise your images (free, significant speed improvement)
Add a clear call to action on every page (free, directly increases enquiries)
Test your site on mobile (and fix what does not work)
Consider whether your site needs rebuilding (if it is over 5 years old, it probably does)

At WebDev Wales, we build small business websites on Next.js starting at 675 GBP. That gets you a fast, mobile-first, SEO-optimised site with all of the above handled from day one. But even if you never hire us, fixing the items on this list will make a measurable difference to your business.

The bar for small business websites in Wales is, frankly, quite low. Which means any business that puts in even a modest effort stands out immediately.

Local SEO Basics Every Small Business Website Needs

Jack Warner — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 15:42:26 +0000

Every small business wants to "rank on Google." But most don't know what that actually involves, or how simple the foundations really are.

I build websites for small businesses at WebDev Wales, and local SEO is baked into every site we deliver. Here are the basics that make the biggest difference.

Google Business Profile is non-negotiable

If you do nothing else, claim and complete your Google Business Profile. This is what shows up in the map pack when someone searches "web developer near me" or "plumber in Neath."

Fill in every field. Add photos. Post updates weekly. Respond to every review. This single step drives more local traffic than anything else.

Your NAP must be consistent everywhere

NAP stands for Name, Address, Phone number. It must be identical across your website, Google Business Profile, social media, and every directory listing.

Even small differences matter. "St" vs "Street," missing postcodes, old phone numbers. Google cross-references these, and inconsistencies hurt your rankings.

Title tags and meta descriptions matter

Every page on your site should have a unique title tag that includes your location and service. Not "Home" or "About Us," but "Web Design Services in Neath, South Wales | WebDev Wales."

Meta descriptions don't directly affect rankings, but they affect click-through rates from search results. Write them like mini adverts for each page.

Schema markup tells Google what you are

Structured data (schema markup) helps Google understand your business type, location, services, and reviews. LocalBusiness schema is essential for any service-area business.

Most WordPress themes don't add this automatically. If your developer hasn't mentioned schema, ask them about it.

Page speed is a ranking factor

Google has confirmed that Core Web Vitals affect rankings. A slow site won't outrank a fast one, all else being equal.

Compress images, minimise JavaScript, use a CDN. Or better yet, build on a framework like Next.js that handles most of this automatically.

Content that answers local questions

Write content that answers the questions your customers actually search for. "How much does a website cost in Wales?" or "Best web developer in Neath" are real searches with real intent.

A simple FAQ page addressing common questions can drive significant organic traffic over time.

The bottom line

Local SEO isn't complicated, but it does require attention to detail and consistency. Get the foundations right and you'll outrank competitors who spent five times more on their website but ignored SEO entirely.

How to Choose a Web Developer Without Getting Burned

Jack Warner — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 14:36:35 +0000

Hiring a web developer is one of the most important decisions a small business makes. It's also one of the easiest to get wrong.

I've been on both sides of this. I run WebDev Wales, building websites for small businesses in South Wales. But before that, I watched businesses around me get burned by developers who overpromised, underdelivered, or disappeared entirely.

Here's what I've learned about what to look for and what to avoid.

The red flags

"I'll build it in WordPress with a premium theme"

This isn't automatically a red flag, but it becomes one when the developer presents it as custom work and charges custom prices. If someone quotes you thousands for a WordPress site using a pre-built theme like Astra or Divi, you're paying for assembly, not development.

Ask directly: "Are you building this from scratch or using a theme?" Both are valid approaches, but the price should reflect which one you're getting.

No portfolio or only showing template demos

Every developer should be able to show you live websites they've actually built for real clients. Not mockups. Not template demos. Real, functioning websites with real businesses behind them.

If they can't provide at least three examples of work they've done, that's a problem. If the examples they show all look suspiciously similar, they're probably reskinning the same template.

Vague pricing with no breakdown

"It'll cost between two and five thousand" is not a quote. A proper quote breaks down what you're getting: how many pages, what functionality, what's included in the hosting, what happens after launch.

If a developer can't give you a clear, itemised quote after discussing your requirements, they either don't understand your project or they're planning to add costs later.

They don't ask about your business

A developer who jumps straight to talking about technology without understanding your business is building for themselves, not for you. Before any technical discussion, they should ask:

What does your business do?
Who are your customers?
What do you want your website to achieve?
How do people currently find you?
What's working and what isn't with your current site?

If they don't ask these questions, they'll build something that looks nice but doesn't actually help your business grow.

No mention of SEO

If a developer builds you a beautiful website that nobody can find on Google, they've failed. Basic SEO should be built into every project from the start:

Proper page titles and meta descriptions
Fast loading speeds
Mobile responsiveness
Clean URL structure
Image alt text

These aren't extras. They're fundamentals. If your developer treats SEO as an optional add-on, find someone else.

The green flags

They show you real results, not just designs

The best developers talk about what their websites achieved, not just how they look. Did enquiries increase? Did the business start ranking for local search terms? Did bounce rate drop?

Design matters, but results matter more. A slightly less flashy site that generates leads beats a stunning site that nobody visits.

They explain things without jargon

If your developer can't explain their approach in plain language, they either don't understand it themselves or they're trying to confuse you into paying more.

Good developers translate technical concepts into business terms. Instead of "we'll implement lazy loading for above-the-fold content optimisation," they'll say "we'll make your site load faster so visitors don't leave before it appears."

They talk about what happens after launch

A website isn't a one-off project. It needs maintenance, updates, and occasional changes. Before you hire anyone, understand:

Who hosts the website and what does it cost?
What happens if something breaks at 10pm on a Friday?
How do you make content changes?
What's the ongoing cost after the initial build?
Do you own the code and domain, or are you locked into their platform?

Developers who avoid these questions are setting you up for a surprise later.

They have a clear process

Professional developers follow a structured process: discovery, design, development, review, launch. They'll set timelines, show you progress, and ask for your feedback at each stage.

If someone says "I'll have it ready in a couple of weeks" with no further detail, expect delays.

Questions to ask before hiring

Here's a checklist you can use when talking to potential developers:

Can you show me three live websites you've built for similar businesses?
Will this be built from scratch or using a template/theme?
Can you give me an itemised quote with a clear breakdown?
What's included in terms of SEO?
How will the site perform on mobile?
What's the expected PageSpeed score?
Who owns the domain, hosting, and code after launch?
What's the ongoing maintenance cost?
What's your process and timeline?
What happens if I want changes after launch?

Any developer worth hiring will answer all of these confidently and clearly. If they get defensive or evasive, that tells you everything.

The honest truth about pricing

In the UK in 2026, here's roughly what different levels of website cost:

DIY website builder (Wix, Squarespace): Free to £20/month. Fine for a hobby, limited for a real business.
WordPress with a premium theme: £500 to £1,500. You get a functional site quickly. Limited customisation.
Custom-built website: £2,000 to £10,000+. Built specifically for your business. Better performance, better SEO, more flexibility.

The cheapest option isn't always the worst, and the most expensive isn't always the best. What matters is that the price matches what you're actually getting, and that you understand the trade-offs.

Final thought

The developer you hire will shape how your business appears to every potential customer who finds you online. Take the time to ask the right questions, check their previous work, and make sure they understand your business before they start building.

A good developer is an investment. A bad one is a very expensive mistake.

Jack Warner is the founder of WebDev Wales, a web development studio based in South Wales. He builds modern, fast websites for small and medium businesses using Next.js and specialises in helping Welsh businesses establish a strong online presence.

5 Website Mistakes I See in 90% of Small Business Sites

Jack Warner — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 14:35:20 +0000

I've audited hundreds of small business websites over the past four years. Plumbers, cafes, accountants, tradespeople, salons. The same problems come up again and again.

These aren't obscure technical issues. They're basic things that directly cost businesses customers and money. And most business owners have no idea they exist.

I run WebDev Wales, a web development studio in South Wales. Here are the five mistakes I find on almost every small business site I look at.

1. No meta description

This is the single most common issue. Roughly 60% of the small business sites I audit have no meta description set at all.

The meta description is the summary text that appears under your website's name in Google search results. Without one, Google guesses what to show. It usually grabs a random sentence from your page, and that sentence is almost never the thing that would convince someone to click.

Here's what a search result looks like without a meta description:

Joe's Plumbing - Home
www.joesplumbing.co.uk
Cookie policy. We use cookies to improve your experience.
By continuing to use our site you agree to...

Versus with one:

Joe's Plumbing - Emergency Plumber in Cardiff
www.joesplumbing.co.uk
24/7 emergency plumber serving Cardiff and the Vale.
No call-out charge, free quotes. Call 07xxx...

The fix takes 30 seconds per page. It's the highest-impact, lowest-effort SEO improvement you can make.

How to check yours: Right-click your homepage, click "View Page Source", and search for meta name="description". If it's missing or empty, that's your problem.

2. Page titles that say nothing

After meta descriptions, page titles are the next biggest issue. I regularly see:

"Home" (tells Google nothing)
"Welcome" (tells Google nothing)
The domain name with no context (e.g. "joesplumbing.co.uk")
"DefaultHomePage" (yes, really)
The WordPress theme name

Your page title is the blue clickable text in search results. It's the first thing people see. It needs to include what you do and where you do it.

A good page title for a local business looks like:

Joe's Plumbing | Emergency Plumber in Cardiff, South Wales

It tells Google what the business does, where it operates, and gives the searcher a reason to click. Every page on your site needs a unique, descriptive title.

3. No mobile optimisation (or fake mobile optimisation)

Google has used mobile-first indexing since 2019. That means Google primarily looks at the mobile version of your site when deciding how to rank it.

Some sites I audit have no mobile responsiveness at all. The desktop layout just shrinks down and you have to pinch and zoom to read anything. Those sites are effectively invisible to Google.

But the more common problem is fake mobile optimisation. The site technically responds to smaller screens, but the experience is terrible:

Text too small to read without zooming
Buttons too close together to tap accurately
Images that overflow the screen
Navigation menus that don't work on touch devices
Contact forms with tiny input fields

Google's Core Web Vitals now measure real user experience. If your mobile visitors are struggling, Google knows about it, and your rankings suffer.

How to check yours: Open your site on your phone right now. Try to navigate to your contact page and fill out the form using just your thumb. If it's frustrating, it's costing you customers.

4. Slow loading speed

The average small business WordPress site I audit scores between 40 and 60 on Google PageSpeed Insights (out of 100). Some score in the teens.

The usual culprits:

Too many plugins. I've seen WordPress installs with 30+ plugins. Each one adds JavaScript and CSS that your browser has to download and process before the page renders.
Unoptimised images. A 4MB hero image that could be 200KB with proper compression. This alone can add 3-4 seconds to load time on mobile.
Cheap shared hosting. The £3/month hosting plan that seemed like a bargain is serving your pages from an overloaded server with a 2-second Time to First Byte.
No caching. Every visit rebuilds the page from scratch instead of serving a cached version.

Research consistently shows that 53% of mobile users abandon sites that take longer than 3 seconds to load. For a local business, every abandoned visit is a potential customer gone to a competitor.

How to check yours: Go to PageSpeed Insights, enter your URL, and look at the mobile score. Anything below 70 needs work. Below 50 is actively hurting you.

5. No clear call to action

This one isn't technical, but it's just as damaging. I visit small business websites where I genuinely cannot figure out what they want me to do next.

There's no prominent phone number. The contact page is buried three clicks deep. There's no "Get a Quote" or "Book Now" button. The homepage is a wall of text about the company's history with no direction for the visitor.

Your website exists to generate leads. Every page should have a clear, visible next step:

A phone number in the header (clickable on mobile)
A prominent "Get in Touch" or "Request a Quote" button
A simple contact form (name, email, message, nothing more)
Your location and service area clearly stated

I've seen businesses double their enquiry rate just by adding a sticky phone number to the mobile header. No redesign needed. Just making it obvious how to get in touch.

The common thread

All five of these mistakes share something in common: the business owner doesn't know they exist. Nobody told them their meta description was missing. Nobody told them their site scores 35 on PageSpeed. Nobody told them their page title says "Home".

If you run a small business, spend 10 minutes checking these five things on your own site. If you find problems, most of them are fixable in an afternoon with a decent web developer.

And if you're a developer building sites for small businesses, make these five things a non-negotiable part of every project. Your clients are counting on you to get the basics right.

Why We Build Every Client Site with Next.js Instead of WordPress

Jack Warner — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 14:30:52 +0000

Four years ago, I made a decision that most web developers thought was mad: I stopped building WordPress sites entirely. Every client site from that point forward would be built with Next.js. No exceptions.

I run WebDev Wales, a small web development studio in South Wales. My clients are local businesses - plumbers, restaurants, accountants, tradespeople. The kind of people who used to be the bread and butter of every WordPress developer.

Here's what happened and why I'd make the same choice again.

The breaking point

I was maintaining about fifteen WordPress sites when the tipping point came. Three of them got compromised in the same week through a vulnerability in a popular contact form plugin. I spent two full days cleaning malware, restoring backups, and explaining to clients why their website was showing pharmaceutical ads.

That same month, a client called asking why their site was slow. Their WordPress install had 34 plugins. Thirty-four. Most of them were doing things that could be handled with a few lines of CSS or a small script. The site was making over 90 HTTP requests on page load and scoring 23 on PageSpeed Insights.

I realised I was spending more time managing WordPress problems than actually building things.

What changed when we switched

The first Next.js client site I built was for a local cafe. Static pages, a menu, contact details, opening hours. Nothing complex. But the results were striking:

PageSpeed score went from ~40 (their old WordPress site) to 98
Time to First Byte dropped from 1.8 seconds to under 200ms
Zero security patches needed in 12 months
Hosting cost dropped from around £10/month to effectively free on Vercel's free tier

For a small business, those numbers translate directly into real outcomes. Faster sites mean lower bounce rates. Better Core Web Vitals mean better Google rankings. And not having to worry about plugin updates means the site just works, month after month.

"But what about the CMS?"

This is the first question every developer asks. Small business clients need to update content. WordPress gives them a familiar admin panel. How do you handle that with Next.js?

The honest answer is: most small business clients rarely update their website. I tracked this across my client base and found that the average small business makes meaningful content changes about twice a year. The rest of the time, the admin panel just sits there being a security risk.

For the clients who do need regular updates, I use a headless CMS. Sanity and Contentful both work well. The client gets a clean, simple editing interface without any of the WordPress complexity. No plugin conflicts, no update notifications, no "your PHP version is out of date" warnings.

For the majority who update infrequently, they just email me. It takes me five minutes to push a content change and it's live instantly.

The performance reality

I've now built over thirty client sites with Next.js. Here's what the performance data looks like across the board:

Average PageSpeed score: 94 (mobile)
Average Time to First Byte: 180ms
Average Largest Contentful Paint: 1.2 seconds
Security incidents: zero

Compare that to the WordPress sites I used to maintain, where the average PageSpeed score sat around 55 and I was dealing with at least one security issue per quarter.

Static generation is the key. Most small business websites are fundamentally static content. There's no reason for a server to dynamically build the same "About Us" page thousands of times. Next.js generates the HTML at build time and serves it from a CDN. The result is a site that loads almost instantly from anywhere in the world.

What I lost

I want to be honest about the trade-offs because this isn't all upside.

The plugin ecosystem. WordPress has a plugin for everything. Need a booking system? Plugin. Need a gallery? Plugin. Need an events calendar? Plugin. With Next.js, I either build these features from scratch or integrate third-party services via APIs. This takes more development time upfront.

Client self-service. Some clients genuinely want to manage every aspect of their site themselves. WordPress lets them do that (for better or worse). My Next.js setup requires more developer involvement for structural changes.

The talent pool. If a client ever wants to move away from me, finding a WordPress developer is trivial. Finding someone comfortable with Next.js and React is harder, especially outside of major cities.

Initial build time. A basic WordPress site with a premium theme can be up in a day. A comparable Next.js site takes me 3-5 days. I've built enough components now that I have a solid library to draw from, but it's still more work upfront.

Why it's worth it anyway

Despite those trade-offs, the long-term economics work out better for both me and my clients.

My clients pay less for hosting, spend nothing on premium plugins, never deal with security scares, and have sites that genuinely perform well in search results. Their total cost of ownership over three years is significantly lower than a comparable WordPress setup once you factor in plugin licenses, managed hosting, and emergency security fixes.

For me, I spend almost zero time on maintenance. No more "WordPress has an update available" notifications across fifteen sites. No more plugin compatibility issues after updates. No more database optimisation. That time goes directly into building new features and taking on new clients.

Who this works for (and who it doesn't)

I wouldn't recommend this approach for every developer or every client.

It works well when:

Your clients are small businesses with relatively static websites
Performance and SEO matter (which is almost always)
You want to minimise ongoing maintenance
You're comfortable with React and modern JavaScript

It doesn't work well when:

Your client needs heavy e-commerce (Shopify or WooCommerce are still better for this)
Your client insists on managing everything themselves without developer support
You need to hand off the project to a team that only knows WordPress
Budget is extremely tight and the client needs something live tomorrow

The bottom line

Switching to Next.js for all client work was the best technical decision I've made as a developer. It forced me to write better code, think more carefully about what features clients actually need, and build sites that genuinely serve their purpose rather than being bloated with unused functionality.

If you're a developer who's tired of fighting WordPress and you primarily build for small businesses, it's worth trying Next.js for your next project. Start with a simple brochure site. See how it feels. You might not go back.