My love for Dolly Parton started with a love for my Mimi (grandmother to non-Southerners). Before I was graced with my first chorus of “Jolene” or watch-through of Unlikely Angel, I was clipping on my Mimi’s rhinestone earrings, wobbling in her leopard print heels, stealing her frosty hot pink lipstick, and falling asleep to the feeling of her long acrylic nails stroking my arm.

It doesn’t take more than one glance to know that my Mimi loves Dolly Parton more than anyone on this planet. From the platinum blonde hair to the bedazzled, animal-printed, and fringed outfits that are somehow never repeated. This is the woman who taught me that you “never leave the house without your hair and face done;” that you can speak softly and still command a room; and to be who I am “because everyone else is taken.”

And now that I’m handing down these lessons and indoctrinating my own daughter into this glitter-encrusted, hair-teasing sisterhood, I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge how Dolly inspired generations of people with her unwavering commitment to being herself and loving others.

EEAT Before the Internet Existed

Okay, fine—here comes the required marketing tie-in.

In a time when marketers spend so much energy worrying about Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and keeping up with algorithmic shifts, it’s almost funny how a woman whose rise to fame predated the personal computer effortlessly hit every principle of EEAT (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness):

• Experience: Growing up in a one-room cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains with eleven siblings gave her absolute zero-party data on the human condition.
• Expertise: Over 3,000 written songs prove domain authority that no AI model could hallucinate.
• Authoritativeness: Decades of multi-generational, global cultural consensus.
• Trustworthiness: Unshakable consistency across seven decades.

There. We checked the SEO box. Now back to what actually matters: what we can learn from the incomparable legacy this icon leaves behind, both as a human being and as the greatest personal brand to ever walk the earth.

Lesson 1: Build a Brand So Distinctive It Can’t Be Cloned

In the days since her passing, we’ve seen perhaps the biggest, most ubiquitous outpouring of love across every imaginable demographic. People from every walk of life, political creed, background, and identity loved Dolly Parton.

Yet, she never tried to be “for everyone.”

She unabashedly wore sky-high wigs, heavy makeup, and loud, fringe-heavy fashion decades before maximalism was trendy. She famously modeled her look after the “town tramp” in Sevierville because to a young girl growing up in poverty, that was what beauty and power looked like.

Distinctive Identity + Absolute Consistency = Total Cultural Affinity

Dolly showed that when you own your visual identity and persona 100%, you don’t alienate people—you fascinate them. She built a brand that created endless positive sentiment because it was entirely unique, instantly recognizable, and never compromised.

Lesson 2: A Single Central Story, Unlimited Purposeful Manifestations

Dolly’s entire ecosystem was anchored to two core truths: she was a Christian, and she grew up poor in rural Appalachia.

Everything she built stemmed from that origin story, yet she translated it into countless distinct, high-impact initiatives:

She didn’t change her central narrative to fit different audiences. She simply let her values manifest in ways that brought real help to real people.

Lesson 3: Embrace the Contradictions (Authenticity Wins Every Time)

Most corporate brand guidelines try to sand off every edge until an entity is completely smooth, safe, and utterly boring. Dolly’s personal brand was full of glorious, human contradictions that made her utterly believable:

• She was devoutly Christian, yet openly embraced her sexuality and advocated fiercely for marginalized groups.
• She never shied away from tough subjects like poverty or reproductive rights, yet maintained warmth that bridged political divides.
• She was wildly rich and influential, yet deeply humble—always maintaining that she was “just a songwriter” and politely insisting her voice was merely “lovely,” not elite.
• She spent millions looking outrageously artificial while being the most authentic person in any room.

She never pretended to be anything she wasn’t. She told you her hair was a wig, her nails were fake, and her jokes were calculated. Because the wrapping paper was artificial, the gift inside was always 100% genuine.

Lesson 4: Evolve the Medium, Preserve the Core

From radio transcription disks and vinyl to streaming services, social media, and digital platforms, Dolly never fought new technology or changing times. She embraced them.

She leaned on trusted experts, business managers, and creative collaborators so she could stay laser-focused on her core genius: writing songs and connecting with human hearts.

Right down to her visual signatures—like the consistent motif of the butterfly that followed her from her 1974 album Love Is Like a Butterfly to her theme parks and stage costumes decades later—she understood how to signal continuity while constantly moving forward. Read more on her legacy at the Country Music Hall of Fame.

The Final Takeaway

We mourn Dolly Parton because she represented the absolute best of us. She showed us how to speak softly while holding an entire room spellbound, how to use success to lift up everyone around us, and how to look in the mirror every morning and decide to be exactly who we are—rhinestones, teased hair, and all.

To Dolly: Thank you for the music, the books, the jobs, the laughter, and the blueprint for how to live a full, loving, unapologetic life. We will always love you.

Thank you for joining me on this thinly veiled excuse to sob at our desks. But in the wise words of St. Dolly, Patron (Parton) Saint of the 9 to 5 – “I’m a workhorse that looks like a show horse.” So, dry your eyes, fix your makeup, fluff your hair, and back to work. May you create something today that she’d be proud of.

As such, we spend a good amount of time exploring modern and emerging alternative website platforms. We’re on the cutting edge over here at TC. We’re hip, as the kids say.

One platform that keeps popping up over and over is Webflow. And we’re not going to lie: it’s dazzling. (Just look at that homepage.)

Webflow just feels like a big idea: it’s basically what would happen if a more refined and controlled WordPress made a baby with a SaaS product. Look at those animations. Look at those beautiful hover behaviors. Look at those transitions. Wow.

Nothing is perfect, though, and that’s kind of the point of this article.

Webflow, despite its amazing current state, does have some issues. And we wouldn’t be so brash as to assume that the Webflow product team might read this, but in the event that someone who is considering the platform does, we hope that this evaluation provides some good insights into what some of the limitations of the platform might be.

So, without further ado: here are 10 things I hate about Webflow.

#1: No “deep” class stacking

This is the most complicated of our list of grievances, so please, bear with us.

Finsweet’s Client-First has published comprehensive documentation about Webflow development best-practices, and in it, they cover the concept of class stacking. (Don’t worry if you’re unfamiliar with Finsweet…we’ll get back to them later.) Class stacking is the practice of “stacking” CSS classes on top of HTML elements. Some amount of class stacking is required in Webflow to avoid having unbearably complex individual classes, and lots of them. Client-First covers the necessity for and proper use of class stacks (or as Finsweet calls them, “combo classes”) in the aforementioned article about combo classes:

We define the “base class” as the first class in our list of stacked combo classes in a combo class. We add a class on top of the base class to create a unique variation.

The added class that gives the unique variation uses the class prefix of is-.

The stacked combo class will only work when combined with the base class(es) before it. In the video below, understand that is-brand does not work alone. It only works as an addition to the base button class.

However, here’s the hangup: the order in which classes are stacked on an element matters, and it’s the very reason that deep class stacking isn’t possible/useful in Webflow.

If, for instance, you tried to go the deep stacking route—something we do in WordPress all the time—and stacked seven classes, one after another on an HTML element, it’s not possible to go delete the fourth element without deleting the three elements that come after it in the CSS class list.

If this is getting a little abstract and complicated, let’s switch to a real-world example.

Here’s a stack of classes pulled directly from the article HTML element containing the very text you’re reading right now:

This is deep class stacking at its finest.

Each of the listed classes does one thing: the grid-50 class is a global class that gives that element a width of 50% on desktop, the tablet-grid-50 class does the same thing but on the tablet viewport, the mobile-grid-100 says that at 767px and smaller, assume 100% of the viewport width, article-body is a custom class that allows us target that element specifically, and padding-top-0 is one last global class that kills the padding at the top of that element.

Furthermore, all of these classes can be removed or re-ordered with no complications whatsoever.

This is not possible in Webflow.

Here is the same set up of classes, but in Webflow:

This same approach in Webflow effectively creates one giant combo class comprising all six classes listed here. Meaning, whatever styling changes I make to this arrangement of CSS classes applies only when all six of these classes are present together, and in this order. Furthermore, you can’t eliminate a class in the middle without first eliminating the classes that come after it.

Meaning, if I wanted to go in and change the mobile-grid-100 glass to mobile-grid-50, I would have to delete padding-top-0 and article-body to get to the mobile-grid-100 class to delete it and then add the mobile-grid-50 class as a replacement.

This is not a challenge that exists when writing raw CSS (like we do in WordPress).

#2: No repeater fields in CMS libraries

When building in WordPress, we use repeater fields—or as they’re called in Carbon Fields, complex fields—literally all the time. Here’s an example of that feature in use on our own website:

The complex field allows us to render an undefined number of elements.

You see that little “+” tab next to the “3”? That means we can continue to add as many more tabs as we like without informing the website of just how many there will be. Carbon Fields doesn’t care, it will simply render as many as are activated and populated.

There is no such feature in Webflow’s CMS libraries:

It’s something that’s been asked for repeatedly by Webflow users for nearly a decade now, and yet, still has not been added yet.

#3: Can’t really use complex :nth-child pseudo-class

nth-child is a super useful CSS pseudo-class that allows us to add styling to repeated elements of a more complex HTML component. To avoid elongating the article any more than absolutely necessary, we’ll allow Mozilla to explain.

How and when are nth-child pseudo-classes used?

Here’s a great example of a simple nth-child pseudo-class being used on the WordPress website we built for Cerca at the Domain.

As it turns out, Webflow has added support for the most simple uses of nth-child pseudo-class—first, last, even, odd—which is great.

However, more complex nth-child formulas are not possible in the Webflow Designer menu.

Let’s say, for instance, that you wanted every third p element to have a light gray background color based on its position in the sequence relative to the other p elements in the component. Using the nth-child pseudo-class, you could implement something like this:

p:nth-child(3n+3) { background-color: var(--light-gray); }

The formula dictates that every third p element gets specific styling:

3*0=0, 0+3=3

3*1=3, 3+3=6

3*2=6, 6+3=9

etc.

This can be an incredibly useful and powerful instantiation of the nth-child pseudo-class.

In Webflow, to define something this complex, you would have to add custom code to the head of either the page or the global site, which means you wouldn’t be able to define nor see the styling when building. Which kind of defeats the purpose of the Designer to begin with.

Small gripe, but something we would love Webflow to do something about.

#4: Can’t have two people in “Designer” mode at one time

Pretty self-explanatory, and seems rather easy to solve: just lock/make inaccessible any pages, CMS libraries, or template files that are currently being accessed by any other user logged in via Designer. (We’re not product people, so if this isn’t as simple as we’re making it seem, please forgive us.)

#5: CMS library limits

The most basic, entry-level, paid Webflow plan doesn’t even include CMS libraries, so the limit is irrelevant there. However, the next step up—the CMS level—does include CMS library functionality, but limits your CMS entries to 2,000.

This may seem like a lot, but we could see some SEO-intensive websites exhausting that limit pretty quickly.

In addition, having a cap on the sheer number of CMS libraries you can employ can be tough if you get handsy with the incredibly useful reference and multi-reference features of the Webflow CMS libraries.

At the end of the day, Webflow has limits.

#6: You don’t really own your website

One of the things we love about WordPress is that you own your website in a way that you simply don’t for sites built on other platforms—and that includes Webflow.

Think about it: with a WordPress website, you could theoretically set up a server in your closet and host your website only for the cost of the electricity it takes to run the server. (If you have solar panels, you could theoretically host your website for free.)

Obviously, that’s not possible in Webflow. (Nor is it possible in Squarespace, Wix, Framer, Hubspot, or any other of the newer website building platforms.)

Webflow deserves a nod here for at least offering the ability to download your site. You absolutely can do that, but what gets exported is a bunch of static files. You effectively have the plain markup of your website, but unconnected to a CMS database.

But—and this leads directly into the following sub-complaint—that means you have to be on Webflow to actually use Webflow.

#6b: It’s more of a SaaS than a CMS

That’s really what it comes down to: Webflow is more of a SaaS than a true CMS (Content Management System).

Another way to put it: WordPress’ open source nature makes it more like Android, while Webflow’s locked-down platform makes it more like iOS.

7. Support suuuucks

For lower-end tiers, there is no phone or web-based support.

That’s right. If you run into trouble with your Webflow website, your only course of action is to reach out to Webflow via email and await their response (which is not always timely).

Take this from someone who’s run into problems on a Webflow website during a highly stressful launch: email-based support isn’t really support, it’s a company pen pal.

#8: Hideous (i.e. SEO-unfriendly) image filenames

Google reads filenames. Don’t take my word for it—take Google’s.

Uploading images to Webflow publishes those images in a CDN. This, in turn, butchers the exported filename by prepending it with a bunch of randomized characters.

For example, Here’s the HTML of one of the images from this very article as rendered by WordPress:

Nice and clean: “https://tiltedchair.co/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/wordpress-class-stacking.webp”. Now, that image represents one more instance of the phrase “wordpress class stacking” contained within the web page’s contents, and that word combination is relatively close to the root domain that we are ultimately trying to optimize for.

Here’s that same image uploaded to a Webflow project:

A folder name made of a bunch of nasty, randomized characters plus a whole bunch more before the original filename. Google has to sift through all of that data before it gets to the filename itself.

Small but valid complaint.

#9: Expense

Very simply, it can get expensive fast, especially when you start adding collaborators, large volumes of content, and additional sites.

#10: A lot of what makes Webflow great is furnished by companies other than Webflow

And that’s not really a dig at Webflow. If anything, it speaks to the masterful job Webflow has done setting the table—it’s just that Webflow doesn’t cook and serve the meal.

Which brings us to the next section of the article…

Enough negativity. Onto some of the good stuff:

#1: It is SO clean

I mean, just look at that interface:

It wouldn’t be hyperbole to say that Webflow has basically mastered the creation of visual controls of HTML/CSS elements. The Designer editor is very nearly perfect.

#2: Finsweet

Finsweet is Webflow on steroids, basically. From Components to Attributes to its Client-First CSS framework, Finsweet has created Webflow-extending features and functions that are basically indispensable at this point. There isn’t a single Webflow project we’ve worked on where we haven’t used Finsweet for one thing or another.

#3: Relume

Relume is another performance-enhancing drug for Webflow projects that has also quickly made its offerings invaluable. From sitemaps to wireframes to the Relume components library, Relume is a Webflow companion we just couldn’t do without.

The Webflow present is bright. The future is even brighter.

Like any good product, Webflow is always getting better. Which leads this author to believe that the current version of Webflow is probably the weakest one, and it’s still amazing.

I’ll look forward to revisiting this article in a couple of years to see where the platform ended up.

My guess is, it’ll be somewhere really great.

On one hand, you’ve got the comfort of working with a team in your own backyard. On the other, there’s a promise of cost savings (sometimes a LOT of savings) if you offshore the project.

Before you swipe that corporate card, let’s break down the real pros and cons of each option, so you don’t end up with a website that looks like it was built in 2007.

The Case for a U.S.-Based Agency

Pros: The Good Stuff

1. Seamless Communication & Collaboration
No weird time zones, no waking up at 5 a.m. to hop on a Zoom call. A U.S.-based agency works when you work, which means faster responses, smoother project management, and fewer email chains lost in translation.
Visual Idea: An image of two people discussing a website project over a laptop in a well-lit office, representing smooth collaboration.
2. They Get Your Audience
Your U.S. customers expect a certain level of UX, brand voice, and functionality that an American agency naturally understands. They also know compliance rules (hello, ADA and GDPR) that keep you from getting a nasty lawsuit.
3. Face-to-Face Meetings (If You’re Into That)
Sometimes, it’s just easier to meet in person, whiteboard out ideas, and make sure they understand your brand vision before a single line of code is written.
4. Higher Accountability & Legal Protection
If things go sideways, U.S.-based agencies are easier to hold accountable. Contracts are more enforceable, and there’s less risk of an agency ghosting you mid-project.

Cons: The Not-So-Good Stuff

1. Costs Can Be Brutal
Expect to pay anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000+ for a solid website. If you’re looking for premium branding and design, get ready to dip into that marketing budget.
2. Longer Turnaround Times
Because of structured workflows and multiple client projects, U.S. agencies may take longer—especially if you want pixel-perfect, UX-driven work.
3. No 24/7 Availability
Your website doesn’t sleep, but most U.S. agencies do. Unless you’re paying for an extended support package, you won’t get midnight bug fixes or instant updates.

The Case for an Indian-Based Agency

Pros: The Good Stuff

1. Major Cost Savings
An Indian agency can deliver a website for 50-70% less than a U.S. agency. We’re talking $3,000 to $25,000 for a high-quality site. If budget is your #1 priority, this is a serious advantage.
2. Faster Development Turnaround
With larger teams and around-the-clock workflows, many offshore agencies deliver projects faster than U.S. firms—especially if it’s a development-heavy site.
3. 24/7 Support
Since India is 10+ hours ahead of the U.S., you could send requests at night and wake up to progress. Some agencies even offer round-the-clock monitoring for peace of mind.
4. Strong Tech Expertise
India is a global leader in software development, meaning you’ll find plenty of agencies skilled in WordPress, Shopify, custom web apps, and even AI-driven website builds.

Cons: The Not-So-Good Stuff

1. Communication Can Be Tricky
The time zone gap means delayed feedback loops. If you need daily check-ins and rapid-fire revisions, this could get frustrating fast.
2. Varying Quality Levels
There are incredible agencies in India, and there are… let’s just say, some sketchy ones. You’ll need to vet portfolios, check reviews, and ask for a paid test project before committing.
3. Less Familiarity with U.S. Market Expectations
Some offshore agencies don’t fully grasp American branding, UX preferences, and SEO standards, which can result in a website that feels… off.
4. Potential Hidden Costs
Some offshore agencies quote rock-bottom prices, but then charge extra for revisions, support, or additional features. Read the fine print.

So, Which One’s Right for You?

Here’s the deal:
Go with a U.S. agency if you need high-end design, strong branding, seamless collaboration, and local expertise. If your brand thrives on premium storytelling and user experience, it’s worth the investment.
Go with an Indian agency if you’re on a budget, need a development-heavy site, and don’t mind some communication hurdles. You can get great work—just do your homework on who you’re hiring.
Hybrid Approach? Some companies use a U.S. agency for strategy and design, then outsource development offshore to save money. Best of both worlds? Maybe.

Whatever you choose, don’t just look at the price tag. Think about your brand’s needs, workflow preferences, and long-term website goals. Your website isn’t just a digital brochure—it’s your most important marketing asset. Choose wisely.
Need a second opinion before signing that agency contract? Hit me up—We’ve seen enough website disasters to know what to avoid.

Those who have had the pleasure of sitting through a discovery or web visioneering meeting with Tilted Chair’s Creative/Interactive Director Jamie Rodriguez are probably tired of hearing it, but the truth is, WordPress is made great—and terrible—by its plugin library.

Plugins are powerful

They can help make really complex functionality possible within the WordPress environment.

At the same time, novice WordPress warriors go plugin-crazy downloading a new plugin for every simple piece of functionality desired. And, every added plugin represents a potential security or functionality vulnerability.

Not to mention, the more plugins you add, the more upgrade promos you have to deal with, which many times result in the top of your WordPress dashboard looking like this:

Now, you could clean that mess up…by adding another plugin! Aye yi yi…

Instead, one of the measures of an elegant and professional WordPress website build is just how few plugins must be used to achieve desired functionality. Or as we in Tilted Chair’s interactive department like to say: plugins only as a last resort.

Author pages

One commonly requested piece of functionality is author pages, i.e., a dedicated archive page for each blog author. This objective often leads users to download and install a WordPress plugin just to accomplish this simple task, something like this. (And no offense is intended to the creators of said plugin; it has excellent reviews, and seems to offer some advanced functionality, which many WordPress website owners might find useful.)

Those—like us here at Tilted Chair—who are loathe to install yet another plugin, boy do we have some good news for you: author pages are native to WordPress, right out of the box!

Template hierarchy

By default, author pages are automatically generated by the built-in files that already exist in most WordPress websites.

Referring to the WordPress documentation, you’ll see a template called archive.php. Nearly all WordPress installations include this template in their file structure natively. However, as you can see, the archive.php template is only fourth in the author template hierarchy.

Meaning, if one were to add any one of the other three templates in addition to the archive.php file, WordPress would never get to the archive.php file, instead opting to render any one of the three templates that precede the archive.php file hierarchically.

Which template to choose

That depends.

If you’re already using the archive.php file for other purposes—say, for instance, to render blog posts in a specific tag or category taxonomy—then our advice would be to create an author.php file in addition to the archive.php file.

This would leave the archive.php file to render taxonomical archives, while allowing the author.php file to render just author archives.

Here’s a link to a Tilted Chair-created author page, and here’s what that page ends up looking like:

Code for the author.php file

We’re not going to give you the whole file, but here are the relevant pieces:

Author name

php get_the_author_meta( 'display_name' );

This php command pulls whatever is selected from the “Display name publicly as…” dropdown selector in the author’s WordPress user profile:

Author bio

php get_the_author_meta( 'description' );

This command renders whatever text is populated in the “Biographical Info” text area in the author’s WordPress user profile:

Author avatar

This is another commonly requested element, and it’s just as easy as the others. Here’s the code:

echo get_avatar( get_the_author_meta( 'ID' ) , 96 );

There are other fields and data that can be pulled from an author’s profile, but these are definitely two of the big ones. The complete list of values can be found in the WordPress Codex.

Linking to the WordPress author page

Couldn’t be simpler:

php echo get_the_author_link();

That’s right: this one line generates both the markup (HTML), link destination, and link label. God bless you, WordPress.

So there ya go: you can have your author page and eat it, too.

Save the plugins for the toaster!

Well, how much time do you have? (If you have 10-12 minutes, depending on how fast you read, we have an answer.)

When it comes to hiring an agency or freelancer to boost your company’s visibility, some costs feel pretty straightforward. But when you’re hiring someone to build your website, things can get a bit more convoluted, with all sorts of factors to consider and price ranges that aren’t always easy to navigate.

Never fret: Tilted Chair has approximately 500 WordPress website installs under its belt, so, you’re in good hands. All that experience has equipped us with the data and knowledge to compile exactly who and what it takes to get your company’s corner of the World Wide Web to an ideal and impactful state that matches your aspirations for your brand and—perhaps more importantly—helps set you and your business up to market more efficiently.

DISCLAIMER: This pricing approach doesn’t apply to e-commerce websites. While many of the budgeting principles remain the same, because the primary conversion instance on an e-commerce website is a sale, the considerations change rather dramatically. What follows should be considered a great way to budget for a brand or marketing website with no e-commerce component.

The Who

Before we get into the nitty-gritty, it’s important to acknowledge that no one person can do it all, and you shouldn’t hire anyone who says they can. (Well, you’re free to hire them, just don’t believe them.) Different specialists focus on various parts of the process, so here’s a quick look at who’s involved in the planning, design, and development of a WordPress website:

• Content Strategist: The content strategist leads the development of the site’s information architecture. They handle the creation of the sitemap and wireframes (with the help of Relume, of course), ensuring the content flows just right. They should be well-versed in understanding user behavior, they should have experience developing user personas, and they should generally be knowledgeable about how to connect business objectives with information structures and hierarchies to maximize the odds of successful outcomes.
• (At least one) Web Designer: Web designers are the visual experts who bring your site to life, working on layouts, color schemes, typography, and all the other visual elements. Many times they’re called UI designers (especially when working on digital products rather than website designs), but at Tilted Chair, the web designers are tasked with interpreting the wireframes handed down by the content strategist and articulating what those screens should look like visually, while also taking cues from a broader brand strategy, definitions, standards, and uses document. (Which you definitely have ironed-out and documented, right? RIGHT?!) At Tilted Chair, web designers work almost exclusively in Figma.
• Web Content Copywriter: These wordsmiths create the messaging, ensuring it aligns with your brand voice and gets your point across. They should also be well-acquainted with personas, including how to answer common objections posed by the various stakeholder personas. They should be adept at headline writing—very important for making pages “scannable”—and, they get bonus points if they have at least a working knowledge of SEO concepts, including how to craft copy with descending headers, keyword density, and general copy length.
• WordPress Developers: Usually, 2-3 developers handle the front-end and back-end coding to make sure everything works properly. At Tilted Chair, co-founder Jamie Rodriguez leads the development of the front-end system, starting with a base CSS framework which has been painstakingly refined over 14 years of working on WordPress websites. In addition to the front-end developer, Tilted Chair employs a back-end specialist who helps with PHP and javascript assets which pair the front-end with the WordPress back-end. Together, this crack team of website devs bring the static Figma files to life in the form a WordPress website.
• Project Manager: This is the coordinator of it all, keeping everything on track and ensuring deadlines are met. The project manager should have excellent written and verbal communications skills paired with a penchant for organization.

When you buy a professional WordPress website design and development process, these are the people—and skills—you’re paying for.

The What

Now that you know who’s usually working behind the scenes, let’s talk about how much it’s going to cost.

Website costs can vary for every project, depending on how complex the job is and the level of expertise required to make it land. So, what exactly makes up a fair price in our opinion?

Let’s break it down.

Key Considerations

When building a WordPress website, several factors contribute to the overall cost. Below is a breakdown of key considerations and their associated costs. We’ve shared details from two previous projects below to give you a clear idea of how different scenarios can lead to varying costs.

Number of Pages

The number of pages on your website directly impacts both design and development time. Each page may need to be customized with its own structure, content, and functionality. It’s not rocket science, but it does take time. More pages = more work = higher costs.

Brand Systemization

Every client’s brand is in a different condition—some are super well-defined and others, well…not so much.

Understandably, website projects that work with rudimentary brand systems take more time to develop visuals because there’s more exploration required. Assets tend to not be as well-organized and easy to work with. So, clients with better-organized and documented brands are rewarded with lower associated costs. (We use a 5-point scale for this piece, with 5 being “super well-systematized.” Our long-time client Atlassian would represent a perfect 5 here, with any client starting from scratch being a 1 on the other end.)

*It should also be noted that, if a brand truly is starting from scratch, it often times makes more sense to perform a dedicated brand development exercise before ever even starting on a website project, because frankly, we’re not ready for web yet if the brand is truly nascent. Luckily for you, brand development and design just happens to be one of our other specialties! And of course, after our branding phase is done, we’d plop a 5 into the data field for this line item.

Unique Template Types

Each unique template (like homepage, product listings, or contact pages) requires custom design and development. More unique templates mean more work and higher costs for the design and development teams.

(Note: Standard pages like “Terms of Service” or “Privacy Policy” are excluded unless they require custom layouts.)

Blog Posts

If your website includes a blog, the number of blog posts will affect migration complexity and setup costs. If the posts are not already in WordPress, additional costs will apply for migration.

Custom Post Types (CPT)

Custom post types are used for managing unique content structures, such as events, team members, and FAQs. More custom post types mean more development resources are needed, especially in cases where additional CPTs require dedicated pages and are expected to be used as landing pages in their own right.

Custom Spot Graphics

Custom graphics, like banners, icons, or illustrations, are essential for a visually engaging website. More unique graphics will increase design costs.

We’ve found that it’s common for tech companies to require a great deal of time during the spot graphic design phase simply because most technology companies have myriad interfaces that need to be incorporated into graphic compositions. More products or solutions = more spot graphics.

Technology Integrations

Websites often need integrations with third-party tools (like CRM systems, email marketing, etc.). Each integration represents additional structural complexity, and thus, must be accounted for.

Advanced Features (like maps, custom website animations, etc.)

If your website requires maps or location pins (e.g., for store locations or events), Rive or GSAP animations, or more sophisticated javascript/jQuery features, this will require additional development and API integrations.

The Total

For those with their calculators out, you might be looking at some totals that look like this:

Why price a WordPress website build this way?

Why not just estimate hours across all of the various roles/disciplines mentioned above?

Great question.

The answer is, after 15 years and nearly 500 WordPress websites built, we’ve found that structuring the pricing of the WordPress website project in alignment without how the project itself is structured makes the most sense.

For example, charging based on the number of post types corresponds directly to the time and effort it takes to set up custom posts types within the WordPress environment. Charging based on spot graphics matches perfectly with how we set up our Figma files for graphics delivery. The time required to execute on each of the project roles and phases is embedded in the cost of each of those line items. (Time which we have data-backed ways of justifying.)

A well-crafted website comes with a price, and that’s a good thing.

If we had a dollar for every time we popped open a WordPress installation and saw this…

…we’d have a lot of dollars. To design and develop in WordPress is simple, but to design and develop in WordPress professionally is a whole other ball of beeswax.

Our process for building world-class WordPress websites—and the cost associated with it—reflects the quality and work that goes into it. Understanding the details behind its potential costs can help you make an informed decision for your business.

By recognizing factors like page count, custom designs, and integrations, you’ll be able to better assess the value of the work. This clarity lets you prioritize what matters most for your site and ensures you get the best return.

Here’s to building a site that works as hard as you do!

So, how can your small or medium-sized business scale its personality into a big brand? Let’s break it down.

Why Brand Personality Matters

Your brand personality is more than a logo or color palette. It’s the way your business speaks, acts, and makes people feel. It’s what turns casual customers into lifelong advocates.
For small and medium businesses (SMBs), having a strong personality isn’t just important—it’s essential. With limited budgets and resources, personality becomes your competitive advantage. A compelling personality helps you:

• Stand out in crowded markets.
• Create emotional connections with customers.
• Build trust and loyalty over time.

5 Steps to Scaling Your Brand Personality

1. Define Your Archetype
Every great brand has a clear identity. Are you the Hero, inspiring people to push their limits? Or the Creator, helping customers express themselves? Understanding your archetype lays the foundation for a consistent and authentic personality.

2. Know Your Audience Inside Out
The best brands aren’t just relatable; they’re relevant. Take time to understand your audience’s values, aspirations, and pain points. What problems are you solving for them? What kind of personality would they want to “befriend”?

3. Consistency is Key
As you grow, your brand will touch more platforms and people. Consistency across these touchpoints—social media, packaging, customer service, etc.—reinforces your personality. Develop a tone of voice guide and visual identity toolkit to keep things aligned.

4. Evolve Without Losing Your Core
Growth often means change, but it’s important to stay true to your roots. As you introduce new products or expand into new markets, ask yourself: Does this align with my brand’s core values? Would my audience recognize this as “me”?

5. Partner with the Right Experts
Branding isn’t a DIY project when you’re looking to scale. Agencies like Tilted Chair specialize in helping SMBs craft personalities that grow with them. From storytelling to design, partnering with experts ensures you avoid costly missteps.

Case Study: Small Business to Big Brand

Take Warby Parker, for example. Starting as an online-only eyewear retailer, they scaled their personality as a fun, approachable, and socially conscious brand. Their clever marketing campaigns, commitment to affordable prices, and “buy a pair, give a pair” program made them an industry leader while staying true to their roots.
Or consider Chobani. They entered the yogurt market with an artisanal feel and a focus on health. As they scaled, they kept that personality intact, adding creative flavors, heartwarming advertising, and a commitment to community impact.

Pitfalls to Avoid When Scaling Your Personality

1. Trying to Be Everything to Everyone
When scaling, it’s tempting to appeal to a broader audience. But watering down your personality makes you forgettable. Instead, double down on what makes you unique.

2. Ignoring Your Current Customers
Your early customers are your biggest advocates. Don’t alienate them by chasing new markets or trends. Involve them in your growth journey—they’ll help amplify your voice.

3. Neglecting Internal Alignment
Your team is the face of your brand. Ensure they understand and embody your personality in every interaction. From customer service reps to social media managers, everyone should sing the same tune.

From Small to Mighty: Your Next Steps

Scaling your brand personality is both an art and a science. It requires a deep understanding of your identity, audience, and goals. And while the journey may seem daunting, the rewards are well worth it: stronger customer loyalty, greater visibility, and a brand that stands the test of time.

At Tilted Chair, we’ve spent 15 years helping businesses like yours grow into bold, unforgettable brands. Ready to take the leap? Let’s talk about how we can help you scale your personality—and your business—to the next level.

The Rise of Archetypes in Branding

First, a quick refresher: archetypes are universal characters or personas that tap into shared human experiences. Think of the Hero (Nike), the Caregiver (Johnson & Johnson), or the Rebel (Harley-Davidson). These archetypes have roots in Jungian psychology and storytelling but have found their sweet spot in branding by giving companies a consistent, relatable personality.
In a market oversaturated with choices, today’s consumers are looking for more than just products or services. They crave connection, purpose, and identity. Archetypes provide a shortcut to that connection by evoking emotion and creating instant recognition.

Why CMOs Are Betting on Archetypes

1. They Create Emotional Resonance

Emotionally charged brands outperform the competition, period. Archetypes tap into deep-seated emotions, fostering trust and loyalty. When customers feel like a brand “gets them,” they stick around.

2. Consistency Across Channels

One of the biggest challenges for marketers is maintaining a cohesive brand voice across platforms. Archetypes act as a blueprint, ensuring every Instagram post, email campaign, or TV spot aligns with the brand’s core personality.

3. They Simplify Decision-Making

For CMOs juggling multiple campaigns, archetypes reduce the guesswork. They guide everything from messaging to design choices, streamlining processes and saving time.

4. A Competitive Edge in Crowded Markets

In saturated spaces, archetypes help brands carve out a distinct identity. They allow businesses to stand for something more profound than their product features, making them memorable and, more importantly, irreplaceable.

Case in Point: Brands Getting It Right

Let’s look at a few success stories:

Dove (The Caregiver): Dove has built an empire by championing real beauty and self-care. Their ads don’t sell soap; they inspire confidence.

Tesla (The Magician): Tesla’s archetype evokes wonder, innovation, and the promise of a better future. Every touchpoint, from their sleek car designs to Elon Musk’s tweets, reinforces this persona.

Old Spice (The Jester): A complete rebrand using the Jester archetype transformed Old Spice into a cultural icon. Their quirky humor brought them back into relevance with younger audiences.

How to Start Building an Archetype-Driven Brand

Curious about where to begin? Follow these steps to identify and integrate an archetype into your branding strategy:

1. Know Your Audience:

What emotions drive their decisions? Which archetypes resonate with their values and aspirations?

2. Define Your Brand’s Core Purpose:

Beyond products and services, what does your brand stand for?

3. Commit to Consistency:

Archetypes are only effective when used consistently across all touchpoints.

4. Work with Experts:

Agencies like Tilted Chair specialize in uncovering and implementing the perfect archetype for your brand.

2025: The Year of Emotional Branding

As the marketing landscape continues to evolve, CMOs are shifting focus from transactional to relational branding. Archetypes provide the tools to create meaningful connections that transcend price wars and fleeting trends.
If you’re ready to take your brand from forgettable to unforgettable, there’s no better time to embrace archetypes. Because in 2025, the brands that win aren’t just selling products — they’re telling stories, forging relationships, and leaving lasting impressions.
Ready to find your archetype? Let’s start a conversation.

Here are Tilted Chair’s bold predictions for how branding will evolve in 2025 and beyond, including some controversial paths you might not expect.

1. Radical Transparency Will Be Non-Negotiable

Consumers are demanding brands lay it all out—flaws, failures, and all. Future-forward brands will:
Publish real-time data on their environmental impact, diversity metrics, and ethical sourcing.
Openly address past controversies or missteps in branding.
Allow customers to hold them accountable in public forums like social media.
This hyper-transparency might rattle some companies, but it’s a surefire way to build trust with savvy, skeptical audiences.

2. Micro-Niching Will Outshine Mass Appeal

Instead of casting a wide net, brands will focus on hyper-specific, even bizarre niches. Expect brands targeting audiences like:
Cat lovers who are also into punk rock.
Vegan tech enthusiasts with a passion for retro gaming.
Adventure-seeking grandparents looking for extreme sports gear.
By zeroing in on these micro-tribes, brands can create cult followings that feel intensely personal and exclusive.

3. AI-Generated Influencers Will Dominate Social Media

While human influencers still hold sway, 2025 will see a surge in AI-generated personalities. These hyper-realistic digital influencers will:
Customize their personas to perfectly reflect brand archetypes.
Never tire, flub a line, or stray from the brand’s narrative.
Spark debates about authenticity and whether human connection is being compromised.
The line between reality and simulation will blur, and not everyone will be comfortable with it.

4. Dark-Mode Branding Will Take Over

With the rise of dark mode on devices, brands will shift their visual identities to align with this preference. Expect to see:
Sleek, minimalistic designs in muted tones or neon-on-black palettes.
Logos optimized for both light and dark backgrounds.
A pivot from traditional bright and airy branding to something moodier, edgier, and more provocative.

5. “De-Influencing” Will Become a Brand Strategy

As consumers grow weary of constant “buy this now” messages, de-influencing will rise as a counter-movement. Brands will:
Encourage minimalism and mindful consumption.
Release campaigns urging customers to “buy less, but buy better.”
Risk alienating shareholders in the short term but win long-term loyalty from ethically driven audiences.

6. Psychedelic Branding for the Mindful Generation

With the growing acceptance of psychedelics in wellness and therapy, brands will lean into trippy, mind-expanding visuals and messaging. Think:

• Swirling, vibrant color palettes inspired by altered states.
• Campaigns emphasizing mindfulness, introspection, and emotional healing.
• Partnerships with wellness startups that explore the intersection of science and spirituality.

This approach will appeal to younger generations embracing mental health and self-discovery but may alienate more traditional audiences.

7. Meme-First Branding Will Shake Up Traditional Strategies

Memes aren’t just for fun anymore—they’re a powerful branding tool. In 2025, brands will build entire campaigns around viral humor. This means:
Launching meme-based advertising that feels organic and absurd.
Engaging in playful “brand feuds” that entertain audiences and drive visibility.
Risking backlash if humor misses the mark or alienates certain groups.

What These Predictions Mean for Your Brand

While not all of these trends will resonate with every company, they highlight the bold and unconventional directions branding may take. To stay ahead, brands must be ready to experiment, adapt, and, yes, even polarize.

At Tilted Chair, we’ve spent 15 years at the forefront of branding, helping companies turn audacious ideas into impactful strategies. Are you ready to embrace the future of branding—quirks, controversies, and all? Let’s start a conversation.

1. A Clear Value Proposition—Like Nike’s “Just Do It”

If Trump’s campaign had a tagline, it could have been something like, “I’ll fix it.” The message was simple and aimed directly at voters’ biggest pain points: the economy, safety, and national pride. Much like Nike’s “Just Do It,” which invites customers to achieve greatness in a few simple words, Trump’s message was clear, motivating, and easy to remember. Instead of weighing people down with policy jargon, he cut right to the chase, letting voters know exactly what they’d get with him.

Imagine the campaign team brainstorming: “How about ‘We’ll enact comprehensive economic and geopolitical reform initiatives?’” *Nah.* They kept it tight and relatable. Nike’s been doing it for decades, and it turns out, so did Trump.

2. Direct Audience Engagement—Taking a Page from Wendy’s Twitter Playbook

Wendy’s Twitter account has set the gold standard for direct, often humorous engagement with customers. They’ve created memorable moments with fans by roasting competitors, poking fun, and building a reputation as the sassy fast-food brand we didn’t know we needed. Trump’s direct communication on platforms like Twitter was similar—unfiltered, relentless, and always targeted right at his audience.

Whether they loved him or hated him, voters couldn’t ignore him, and that’s often half the battle in marketing. Like Wendy’s, Trump kept his messages quick, punchy, and often a little spicy. There was no “let’s wait and see” in his communication strategy; instead, he was straight in, hashtag and all.

3. Emotionally Charged Messaging—As Refreshing as a “Share a Coke”

Trump’s campaign tapped deep emotions—discontent with the economy, anxiety over safety, and hope for a better future. His ability to stoke these feelings made his base incredibly loyal and engaged. Remember Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign, where they personalized bottles with people’s names? That was less about the Coke and more about connecting friends and family through shared moments.

Trump’s messaging resonated similarly, creating a connection with his audience that went beyond policies. Like Coke’s campaign, he didn’t just present himself as a candidate—he became part of people’s identities, hopes, and dreams.

4. Addressing Specific Audience Needs—Dove’s “Real Beauty” Meets Political Campaigns

Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign revolutionized beauty advertising by addressing specific concerns and insecurities. Instead of idealized models, Dove showcased real people, speaking to women’s desire to feel valued and accepted just as they are. Trump, too, addressed distinct voter concerns, from economic worries to issues on immigration.

By appealing to each group’s unique priorities, he created a coalition that crossed demographic and social lines. Much like Dove, he didn’t make voters conform to a single message but tailored his approach to meet them where they were.

5. Us vs. Them—Harley-Davidson’s Rebel Identity Gets Political

“Riders Wanted.” Harley-Davidson’s rebel identity has attracted loyal followers who see themselves as outside the mainstream. Similarly, Trump created a distinct “us vs. them” narrative, positioning himself and his supporters as the champions of “real Americans” versus the so-called elites. This strong identity—like that of Harley riders—encouraged a sense of belonging and a common cause.

And just as you’ll see die-hard Harley owners with tattoos and customized bikes, Trump’s followers wore hats, waved flags, and joined a movement. It’s the power of a shared identity—and Trump tapped into it masterfully.

6. Emphasis on Stability and Trust—IBM’s Classic “Think” Messaging

In times of uncertainty, people gravitate toward brands that promise stability. IBM’s long-standing “Think” slogan exemplifies this—reliable, forward-thinking, and safe. Trump’s promise to stabilize the economy and restore traditional values offered voters a similar sense of security. His emphasis on economic growth and stability spoke to those seeking a steady hand during turbulent times.

Like IBM’s promise to “Think” (and, implicitly, “We’ve got you”), Trump’s message implied, “I’ve got this under control.” It was a reassuring promise in uncertain times—exactly what IBM has done for businesses for decades.

7. Consistent Messaging—Geico’s “15 Minutes Could Save You 15%”

Trump’s campaign hammered home the same themes repeatedly, whether it was the economy, immigration, or national pride. The result? A cohesive, memorable brand that stuck with voters. Think of Geico’s “15 Minutes Could Save You 15%.” That message has been around so long, you could probably recite it in your sleep.

Consistency builds familiarity, and familiarity builds trust. By the time Election Day rolled around, everyone knew what Trump stood for. In the end, it was the persistent, drumbeat repetition of these core messages that helped him stick in voters’ minds.

In a nutshell, Trump’s campaign in 2024 was a classic case of smart marketing principles applied to politics. By using clear, consistent, and targeted messaging, he was able to capture attention, build loyalty, and drive engagement. He took some of the world’s best branding lessons, put them into political terms, and—like any good marketer—kept his message straightforward, memorable, and impossible to ignore.

Love it or hate it, his campaign was a masterclass in how brand loyalty can turn into voter loyalty. And hey, if nothing else, it’s proof that sometimes winning is as much about the strategy as it is about the product.

Below, we’ll break down five key traits that make the most memorable brands truly unforgettable. We’ve paired each one with a real-world example to show how brands bring these principles to life—and how you can, too.

1. A Clear Purpose and Mission: Look to Patagonia

Every brand needs a reason for existing, and (spoiler alert) it should go beyond making money. Great brands stand for something bigger. Patagonia, for instance, isn’t just in the business of making outdoor gear—they’re here to “save our home planet.” That mission guides every decision they make, from the materials they choose to the causes they champion. Customers who value environmental responsibility connect deeply with Patagonia’s purpose, knowing their dollars support a brand committed to positive change.

Takeaway: Define your brand’s purpose. It will guide your decision-making, attract like-minded customers, and make your mission more than just a marketing tagline. A brand with a clear purpose is one customers are more likely to trust and champion.

2. Consistency: Coca-Cola Shows Us How It’s Done

If there’s one thing customers love, it’s consistency. Great brands don’t have to reinvent themselves constantly. Instead, they stay true to a core identity that remains instantly recognizable across decades. Coca-Cola, with its iconic red and white branding and timeless message of happiness and refreshment, has mastered the art of consistency. From billboards to Super Bowl commercials, Coca-Cola’s branding and messaging rarely stray from its core promise. This familiarity builds trust and makes the brand feel like a dependable old friend.

Takeaway: Be consistent in your brand’s visuals, tone, and message. Familiarity doesn’t just breed trust; it’s also what makes a brand feel like a safe choice when customers are bombarded with options.

3. Authenticity: Ben & Jerry’s Keeps It Real

Today’s consumers crave brands that are genuine and honest. Ben & Jerry’s is a prime example of this. Known for their activism and values, they’re outspoken about their support for social justice, climate action, and fair trade—all of which are deeply rooted in their brand DNA. And they don’t just talk the talk; they put their money where their mouth is. This authenticity isn’t just a marketing angle; it’s integral to who they are, and it resonates with customers who value transparency.

Takeaway: Authenticity isn’t just a buzzword; it’s essential. Your brand should reflect its true values and live them in both marketing and actions. When people know you’re genuine, they’re more likely to support and advocate for you.

4. Adaptability: Nike Evolves with the Times

To stay relevant in an ever-changing world, a brand has to be adaptable. Just look at Nike. They’ve kept up with the pace of change, evolving their products and messaging to reflect new cultural values and consumer needs. From tackling social justice in their ad campaigns to embracing digital innovation with personalized fitness apps, Nike stays ahead by adapting while keeping their core “Just Do It” ethos intact.

Takeaway: Stay true to your brand’s core identity, but be willing to evolve with cultural shifts and new technologies. Brands that adapt without losing their essence create excitement and relevance, engaging customers across generations.

5. Emotional Resonance: Apple Taps into the Heart

People remember how you make them feel. That’s why great brands connect on an emotional level, fostering loyalty that goes far beyond a product’s function. Apple has mastered this approach by positioning its products as symbols of creativity, individuality, and innovation. With campaigns that appeal to our inner artists and a community of die-hard fans, Apple isn’t just selling technology—they’re selling a vision of the future and a sense of belonging.

Takeaway: Think about the emotions you want your brand to evoke. Whether it’s nostalgia, excitement, or inspiration, brands that create strong emotional connections earn loyalty and advocacy.

Wrapping It Up: Building a Great Brand Starts Here

Building a brand that sticks doesn’t happen by accident. By focusing on a clear mission, maintaining consistency, embracing authenticity, staying adaptable, and tapping into emotions, you’re creating a brand people won’t just recognize—they’ll remember and trust. Whether you’re building from scratch or breathing new life into an established brand, these five pillars are the backbone of greatness.

So, grab a coffee (or maybe a Coca-Cola?), give us a call for your free consultation, and start building a brand that’s ready to become iconic.

The web wars between WordPress creator and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg and the WordPress-unaffiliated web hosting provider WP Engine escalated to new heights this weekend, as Matt and WordPress.org commandeered WP Engine’s plugin Advanced Custom Fields (also known as ACF) and renamed it “Secure Custom Fields.”

The takeover removed the ability of users of ACF’s free version from updating their plugin via the normal WordPress.org interface.

This was an unprecedented move, and is in direct conflict with WordPress.org’s open source origins/nature. It’s being perceived as an entirely retaliatory response on the part of Mullenweg & WordPress to strike back at WP Engine after the web host sent Automattic a cease-and-desist letter last week.

The tl;dr version of this whole thing: it’s a mess.

It should be noted that ACF Pro users were unaffected by the conflict.

Does Tilted Chair build with ACF?

No.

Tilted Chair does and always has preferred to build in WordPress using Carbon Fields. We absolutely love Carbon Fields: we’ve used it to build and launch satire blogs like CFB News Now, and we’ve used it to deploy presidential campaigns, like Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 campaign website.

Why?

We prefer Carbon Fields for a number of reasons:

• Carbon Fields isn’t a plugin. It can be installed via WordPress’s plugin interface (but even then, it’s still not a plugin in the traditional sense), but Tilted Chair prefers to install via npm, Yarn, or Composer.
• As such, Carbon Fields doesn’t require nor ever receive plugin updates.
• It’s totally free. (Not freemium, FREE. All advanced features are available to everyone, totally free.)
• We know and have an open line of communications with the Carbon Fields creators over at HTMLBurger.
• Its syntax is remarkably logical and elegant.

Can we help convert your site from ACF to Carbon Fields?

Yes! We can

If you and your business have been impacted by the WordPress/WP Engine spat, and you want to realize some stability within the WordPress platform via Carbon Fields, contact us right away.

CSS is one thing that—when configured improperly—can get disorganized fast.

At Tilted Chair, we’re turning the corner on 500 WordPress websites in almost 15 years of business. Over that time, we’ve developed a great system for organizing and editing CSS that keeps things nice and tidy—and fast.

What is CSS?

“CSS” stands for “Cascading Style Sheets.” The key word here is cascading.

This essentially means that CSS selectors that appear later in a stylesheet override selectors that precede them. This is very important: if there are conflicting CSS directives, the one that appears last in the file is the one that will render. (There’s an important exception here: if the property “!important” appends the first CSS directive, that one will still prevail. The conflicting directive—even though it appears later in the stylesheet—will be ignored.)

The wrong ways to add/edit CSS in WordPress

The curious WordPress users have probably found two ways of adding/editing CSS that might seem reasonable. But there are good reasons that they are not.

Appearance > Customize > Additional CSS

While enticing, this option does nothing but plop the CSS into the <head></head> of the website. This is effectively inline styling of web elements, which defeats the purpose of using external CSS stylesheets completely. This also simply adds heft to your CSS, because it doesn’t eliminate the CSS that’s present in the theme’s stylesheets. It writes over those CSS directives, creating unnecessary conflicts.

Lastly, adding CSS here doesn’t allow for the styling to be divided into more manageable and logical sections. (More on that later.)

Appearance > Theme File Editor > Stylesheet

When building a vanilla HTML/CSS website (one not integrated into WordPress), this is customarily where the CSS would be added/edited. But notice when you open this file for the first time in WordPress, you get a warning that there’s no need to edit CSS here:

You have to click “I understand” to bypass this warning and edit the default style.css file.

For a lot of the same reasons that adding/editing CSS in the Additional CSS interface above is a bad idea, it’s a bad idea to do so here as well: it’s not divisible into smaller/logical groups of CSS, it adds to the aggregate size of CSS data rendered on the site, it creates CSS redundancies, etc.

The right way to add, edit, and organize CSS in WordPress

Which brings us to the right way to organize, configure, and generate CSS in WordPress. (Or at least, our way of doing it.)

Step 1: dividing our CSS into more logical/manageable chunks

Either through SFTP or through a plugin like WP File Manager, we create a bunch of stylesheets that allow us to organize our CSS data in a more logical and manageable way. Here are the files we create when building websites:

• color.css
• buttons.css
• flex-box.css
• forms.css
• layout.css
• padding.css
• reset.css
• style.css
• typography.css
• zos.css

To better organize things, we put these into an “assets” folder, where we also put other global assets (like images, fonts, and javascript files).

The content of each of these is pretty logical/obvious:

• Color: contains global selectors related to color
• Buttons: contains global styling of buttons throughout the site
• Flex-Box: contains semantic selectors that pertain to the alignment of elements using the flex-box CSS technology
• Forms: gives us a dedicated place to style up the form elements throughout the site
• Layout: contains the percentage-based base layout system (based on the trusty and bulletproof Unsemantic framework) which allow us to layout markup elements in a predictable and semantic way
• Padding: contains global classes that can be used to add padding to elements throughout the site
• Reset: contains some important reset styling which creates a predictable style baseline across browsers
• Style: the one file that can be used to target specific/one-of-a-kind elements throughout the website; importantly, these CSS selectors should be able to override more generic/global selectors found elsewhere throughout the CSS structure
• Typography: defines the styling of type, including the loading of custom (not-third party) fonts, style of different typographic elements (like headings, list items, paragraphs, block quotes, etc.)
• ZOS: contains animate-on-scroll CSS animations that can be used throughout the site

Your options here are unlimited. If you can imagine other ways to better organize your styling, go for it. The point is to divide your stylesheets into logical, predictable chunks so that finding and editing styling is as easy as possible.

Step 2: enqueuing stylesheets via functions.php

The functions.php file is like the godfather of your WordPress website. It is a massively powerful, theme-specific file that gives you a place to extend the site’s functionality.

Of course, with great power comes great responsibility. So, edit carefully! Because you can—and will—take down your entire website if you do this wrong*.

*Important note: if you’re using a WordPress theme that requires updating, you don’t want to edit the main functions.php file, because those changes will be overwritten as soon as the theme updates. Instead, use a child theme to write custom extensions. At Tilted Chair, we build custom/tailored websites that don’t rely on updates, so this isn’t an issue for us. But for those who bought or customized using a theme or a builder (like Beaver Builder, Divi, or Elementor), this is a very important note.

With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s take a look at how we render those stylesheets in WordPress.

Open the functions.php file, return to create a new line, and drop the following into the file:

What’s going on here? We’re using the WordPress enqueue scripts function to call those custom stylesheets into the <head></head> of the website.

Bonus: the third action here (“wp_dequeue_style…”) deactivates any other legacy/latent stylesheets that might still be hanging around from our base/default WordPress theme. It also eliminates any unnecessary/superfluous CSS that our new CSS would overwrite anyway. This reduces the amount of CSS that gets read, and eliminates any potential CSS conflicts that might have otherwise occurred.

Boom!

Open your hand and pat yourself on the back, because you just enqueued (a fun word, too) CSS in a WordPress website the correct (or at least, the Tilted Chair) way.

One problem…

Having too many CSS stylesheets can have adverse effects on your site’s performance with regards to SEO.

Don’t worry!

This is where our CSS organization structure pays dividends, because it gives us the best of both worlds.

One other feature of the Tilted Chair approach to developing websites is that we build with minimal reliance on plugins. One of those, however, that we’ve found to be essential and that always seems to make the cut is WP Fastest Cache.

Why do we love it? Well, for a couple of reasons. WP Fastest Cache allows you to:

1. Combine CSS into a single file
2. Minify CSS

As you can now see, the Tilted Chair way of adding and organizing CSS in a WordPress website lets us have it all: for building/editing, our site’s styling is broken out into smaller, more accessible chunks that are easy to find, understand, and alter.

At the same time, that styling is then re-combined and minified into one teeny, tiny stylesheet with minimal impact on our site’s performance.

The result is that the site’s CSS is among the smallest pieces of our site’s entire data weight:

Once all of this is properly configured, think about how much easier it’s going to be to go back and add new styles to the system. Need to add a background color + text color combination? Head on over to color.css. Need to add a new font size for a particular media query? Go to typography.css. Need to fine-tune a form element? Locate the forms.css stylesheet.

The possibilities are endless, and when done right, the disorganization of styling is not.

Looking for a partner to help you get organized?