WordPress Development

Custom WordPress development in Toronto and across Ontario: accessible themes built to WCAG 2.1 AA, purpose-built plugins, hardened hosting with tested backups, migrations, and maintenance retainers — from a firm that has run WordPress for healthcare, research and government for over a decade.

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Publish, monitor, fix. The site stays accessible after the people who publish to it take over.

WordPress, engineered

WordPress runs around two in five websites, which is precisely why it is so often run badly: a theme from a marketplace, a stack of plugins nobody vetted, a shared host, and no one responsible when it breaks. We build WordPress the way we build everything else — a custom theme to WCAG 2.1 AA, plugins written for the purpose, a hardened host we configure by automation, and a retainer that keeps it patched, monitored and backed up — and we have done it for healthcare, research and government organizations for over a decade.

Accessible by construction, and kept that way

An accessible WordPress site is not a plugin. It is a theme whose blocks and patterns are accessible before an editor touches them, a media workflow that asks for alternative text, forms that name their fields and explain their errors, and a monitor that notices when the next plugin update quietly breaks something. That last part is what most agencies leave out, and it is why we built ACHECKS. If your obligation is Ontario’s, the accessibility practice covers the audit, the remediation and the conformance report; the WordPress work is where the standard gets built in rather than bolted on.

Hardened, because it has to be

WordPress is the most attacked software on the web, and most of the attacks succeed against configuration, not code. Our stack gives every site its own jail and its own PHP pool, so a compromised plugin on one site cannot read another; puts nginx in front with rate-limited logins, security headers and HTTP/3; and backs everything up on a schedule with restores that have been rehearsed. We published the whole configuration as a guide, because a client should be able to see what they are paying for.

What we build and run

The whole lifecycle, by the same team — because a site is only as good as its third year

Custom themes, accessible by construction

Themes built on the block editor to WCAG 2.1 AA, with custom blocks and patterns your editors can use without breaking the standard. We have written about what the default themes get right and where a custom theme has to go further.

Purpose-built plugins

When a plugin does not exist, or the one that exists brings a thousand lines you do not need, we write the one you do — clean architecture, tested, documented, and maintainable by someone other than us.

Hardened hosting

One chroot jail per site, a dedicated PHP-FPM pool, nginx with HTTP/3 in front, rate-limited logins, security headers, and backups that are verified and restore-tested. Our LEMP hardening guide is the stack we run.

Migrations and rebuilds

From another CMS, another host, or an older WordPress that has become unmaintainable. Content mapped, URLs preserved with a one-hop redirect map, and nothing lost that search engines already knew.

Maintenance retainers

Core, plugin and PHP updates applied on a schedule with a staging rehearsal; security patching within a day; uptime monitoring; and a person who answers when something is wrong.

Accessibility, kept

Editors publish; sites regress. ACHECKS monitors every page continuously and tells your team, line by line, when something slips — so the site you launched accessible stays that way.

How a build runs

  1. Discover

    Content, audiences, the journeys that matter, and the constraints — accessibility obligations, bilingual content, procurement rules. A scope you can price and a plan you can defend.

  2. Design and build

    Design in the browser on the real content. Theme, blocks and plugins built and reviewed in a repository, on a staging site you can see from the first fortnight.

  3. Harden and migrate

    The hosting stack configured by automation, the content migrated with its URLs, the redirect map verified, the accessibility audit run before launch rather than after.

  4. Launch and keep

    A cutover that is boring on purpose, then the retainer: updates, monitoring, backups you have seen restored, and the next feature when you need it.

Who we build for

Public-sector and broader public-sector bodies

Ministries, agencies, hospitals and institutions with an accessibility obligation, a procurement process and a content team that is not a development team. We are an Ontario Vendor of Record.

Healthcare, research and education

Organizations whose sites carry clinical tools, research and course material — content where structure carries meaning and downtime has consequences. We have run sites for the Centre for Effective Practice and HEQCO.

Businesses that outgrew their site

Organizations whose WordPress has accumulated a decade of plugins, three agencies and no documentation, and who need it rebuilt by people who will still be here in year three.

In our clients' words

Imran from Cantan Group was a pleasure to work with in building our WordPress website. He was always responsive to issues and project needs, demonstrating deep knowledge by diving into the code and providing customizations to optimize our site. He was also consistently available for meetings, even on short notice, and remained professional throughout. Thank you, Cantan Group!
Hamilton Family Health Team
Working with Imran and the Cantan Group has been an absolute pleasure. His knowledge and experience has helped move us forward and solve problems we didn't even know we had. Highly recommended.
Quaison Nangle — IT Services Lead, Centre for Effective Practice
The Cantan Group, particularly Imran Somji, provides excellent, attentive SEO and web security service to us, through ONDRI. I would highly recommend them to others looking for practical expertise and attention to detail.
Ruth Kruger — Strategist - Communications & Stakeholder Relations, ONDRI

All client reviews

Questions we're asked

Do you use page builders?

No. We build on WordPress’s own block editor with custom blocks and patterns, because page builders are where accessibility, performance and maintainability go to die. Your editors get a fast, accessible site they can actually edit; your developers get code they can read.

Can you take over an existing site?

Yes. We start with a technical and accessibility audit, tell you honestly whether the site is worth keeping, and either put it on a maintenance retainer or plan a rebuild that keeps its content and its search standing.

Do you host, or do we?

Either. We run a hardened stack of our own design and we will run yours on it, or we configure the same stack on your infrastructure and hand it over documented. What we will not do is put a site we care about on a shared host with a control panel.

How do you price a build?

A fixed fee for a scoped build, after discovery, and a monthly retainer for maintenance sized to the site. The variables are the number of templates and custom blocks, the migration, and the depth of accessibility work. We would rather quote a smaller scope you can extend than a large one you have to trust.

Is the site accessible when you deliver it?

Yes, and we say so with evidence: the launch audit, tested with assistive technology, and an Accessibility Conformance Report if you need one. Keeping it accessible after the editors take over is what monitoring is for.

Do you build bilingual sites?

Yes, with proper language handling: separate, complete language trees, reciprocal language links, and translated interface strings — not machine-translated pages behind a switcher. This site is bilingual the same way.
Contact us

Have a hard problem and a budget?

Tell us what's driving it. You'll talk to the people who do the work.

A sentence or two is plenty: the problem, the system, the deadline.