Your WordPress Site Loads in 4.2 Seconds. Your Competitors Load in 0.8.
If you're a growth marketer watching bounce rates climb while dev says 'just cache harder,' you've hit the headless decision point.
Your WordPress backend doesn't change. Your frontend becomes a Next.js application that hits 95+ on Lighthouse. Editors keep their workflow. Performance stops being a problem.
Your content team logs into wp-admin exactly as they do now. Your developers pull that content through REST or WPGraphQL and render it with Next.js Server Components, cached at 100+ edge locations. The WordPress database, ACF fields, user roles, plugin ecosystem -- all untouched. What dies: the PHP theme layer that keeps your Lighthouse mobile score between 40 and 55, the attack surface of wp-login exposed to the public internet, and the single point of failure where one bad plugin update kills editorial access and visitor experience in the same stroke. Incremental Static Regeneration pre-renders pages on-demand and revalidates them in the background, so your traffic spikes hit a CDN, not your origin server.
Your Current Site May Be a Liability
Common gaps we find in nearly every audit.
What Your Website Could Look Like
Custom-designed for your industry. No templates. No stock photos.
How We Build This Right
Every safeguard, built in from Day 1.
WPGraphQL Integration
We wire up WPGraphQL to expose posts, pages, custom post types, ACF fields, and Yoast metadata as efficient GraphQL queries. No over-fetching, no wasted bandwidth.
Incremental Static Regeneration
Pages get statically generated at build time and revalidated in the background on a configurable interval. Visitors always hit a cached edge response while the content stays current behind the scenes.
Draft Preview for Editors
Next.js Draft Mode intercepts preview clicks from wp-admin and renders unpublished content through the production frontend. Editors see exactly what visitors will see -- no surprises, no "it looked different in preview."
SEO Metadata Pipeline
Yoast and Rank Math data flows through the API into Next.js generateMetadata. Titles, descriptions, Open Graph tags, canonical URLs, JSON-LD structured data -- all handled automatically.
Attack Surface Reduction
Your WordPress instance sits behind a firewall with no public theme rendering. Only the API endpoint is exposed, which cuts out most of the common WordPress exploit vectors.
On-Publish Revalidation
A lightweight webhook fires the moment an editor hits Publish. That triggers on-demand ISR, so updated content goes live in seconds -- no full rebuild required.
What We Build
Purpose-built features for your industry.
Escape Lighthouse mobile scores trapped between 40 and 55 despite every caching plugin you've installed
Ship Lighthouse 95+ on mobile with Server Components that eliminate client-side JavaScript overhead and trim Time to Interactive
Eliminate the single point of failure where one plugin update crashes both your editorial interface and your public site
Serve static and ISR pages from 100+ edge nodes so your site stays live even if the WordPress origin goes down entirely
Stop forcing frontend developers to write PHP templates when React talent is cheaper and easier to hire
Map ACF Pro custom fields and repeater blocks to typed TypeScript interfaces for predictable, compile-time-safe rendering
Close the attack surface of wp-login, XML-RPC, and plugin vulnerabilities exposed to the public internet
Run WordPress media library images through automatic WebP/AVIF conversion, lazy loading, and responsive srcsets via Next.js Image
Break free from page builders and shortcodes that lock your content inside non-portable rendering engines
Generate dynamic XML sitemaps and RSS feeds at build time from your content graph and auto-submit them to Search Console
End the cycle where traffic spikes strain your server, inflate hosting costs, and slow the site for everyone
Expose WPML or Polylang locale data via the API and route it through Next.js i18n with intact hreflang tags for every language
Built on a Modern, Secure Stack
Our Development Process
From discovery to launch. Quality at every step.
WordPress Audit & API Setup
Week 1We start with an audit of your existing WordPress instance -- plugins, custom post types, ACF fields, SEO configuration. We install WPGraphQL, expose all content types, and lock down the public-facing PHP layer.
Next.js Frontend Build
Weeks 2–3Then we scaffold the Next.js app with App Router, map every WordPress template to a React component, and configure ISR with tuned revalidation intervals. Draft Mode preview gets wired up for your editors at this stage.
SEO & Performance Tuning
Week 4Yoast and Rank Math metadata gets piped into generateMetadata. We optimize images, implement structured data, configure sitemap generation, and keep iterating until every Lighthouse category is clearing 95.
Editor Training & QA
Week 5Your content team then tests the full editorial workflow end to end -- draft, preview, publish, revalidate. We work through every edge case: custom fields, scheduled posts, revision history, multi-author workflows.
Deploy & Monitor
Week 6Finally, we deploy to Vercel with production caching, configure on-publish webhooks, set up uptime monitoring for both the WordPress API and the Next.js frontend, and stay on for 30 days of post-launch support.
Ready to discuss your your wordpress site loads in 4.2 seconds. your competitors load in 0.8. project?
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Explore related industries
200+ employee company? Complex multi-tenant, auction, or multi-location requirement? We have a dedicated enterprise capability track.
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We'll audit your WordPress site and deliver a migration quote within 24 hours.
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something together.
Whether it's a migration, a new build, or an SEO challenge — the Social Animal team would love to hear from you.