Guides
Field notes from systems that are actually running.
Every guide here exists because something broke on a running system, or because the obvious answer turned out to be wrong. The write-up is the one that was missing when it was needed.
27 guides · Written from the work · No sponsored toolsGet the checklist
Every guide
Every guide, newest first.
Choose a discipline above to see only its guides.
Operations Your developer stopped replying. What to do firstAlmost nothing is actually lost, it just sits in accounts you do not control. The five things to secure today, in order, what not to do, and how to make sure it cannot happen twice. 5 min read Operations When a website should not be a WordPress siteWordPress is the right answer for most business sites. The exception is one specific shape of project, and the deciding question is whether the maintenance surface matches how often the thing actually changes. 5 min read Operations Maintenance plan or retainer: what your monthly fee actually buysYou pay someone every month and things still break. Usually you bought a plan that keeps the software current and expected someone to own the outcome. What each product covers, what a retainer month contains, what the market charges, and how to tell which one you have. 12 min read Operations Five signs you have outgrown your web vendor, and what to changeProblems queue behind tickets, suppliers blame each other and your staff retype data between tools. The five signs your web vendor no longer fits, why the arrangement is wrong rather than the people, whether you need an adviser or an engineer, and how to change without a rebuild. 12 min read Operations Who owns your systems after launch, and where each model lets goYour site launched, the invoice cleared and the people who built it moved on. Freelancer, agency, in-house hire or an engineer on retainer: where each one stops holding your system, what each really costs, and the three questions that decide which you need. 13 min read Data How to turn a calculator into a lead magnet that still ranks on GoogleA calculator answers a real money question, then asks for the visitor's details, capturing a high-intent lead. Here is how to build one that still ranks on Google: a small data layer, one honest function, a REST endpoint, a server-rendered fallback, and instant capture. 8 min read Automation Build vs buy, and how to replace a WordPress plugin without downtimeA step-by-step guide to deciding when a WordPress plugin is worth replacing, then migrating your lead pipeline to custom code with zero downtime and no lost leads. 13 min read Web presence Programmatic location pages that scale without becoming spamA practical build guide for generating hundreds of genuinely useful local service pages from a template plus data, with the guards that keep them ranking instead of getting penalised. 12 min read Infrastructure How to make a heavy WordPress site load like it’s staticA heavy, dynamic WordPress site can still load like a static one. Here is the four-layer cache and the one small purge manager that keeps it fast without ever serving a stale page. 19 min read Infrastructure Running a multi-region WordPress site from one VPSHow one origin server behind an edge CDN serves a fast, local-feeling site in many regions, with careful cache rules and a repeatable deploy, so adding a region is config, not a rebuild. 13 min read Infrastructure When your WordPress database buckles under loadA database that crashes under load is almost never a hardware problem, it is a memory arithmetic problem, and here is how I found the cause and fixed it on a real site without buying a bigger server. 10 min read Data Schema that inherits itself across a large siteHow I built a single JSON-LD schema generator that switches off every plugin's structured data, defines an Organization and WebSite base once, and lets each page type inherit it and add only its own piece, so a thousand-page site emits one coherent graph instead of several plugins each publishing a competing version of the same facts. 20 min read
Free resource
The production-readiness checklist.
Twenty-seven checks that separate a system you can sleep on from one that pages you at 2am.
The first step
Start with a conversation.
A short conversation first, to work out which of the two routes you are on and whether this is a problem BespokeForge can solve. The audit is the paid step that follows, and what it produces is yours whether or not anything comes after it.