# WordPress Chicago WordPress Chicago is the Chicago-facing service of 45Squared LLC, a Midwest web studio founded in 2015. It builds WordPress and WooCommerce websites for Chicago-area small businesses, migrates sites from Wix, Squarespace and other builders to WordPress, provides managed WordPress hosting ($29 per month) and runs SEO and WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility audits. Work is delivered remotely. ## About WordPress Chicago and 45Squared URL: https://wordpresschicago.com/about/ WordPress Chicago is a service of 45Squared LLC, a Midwest web development studio founded in 2015 by Aaron VanSledright. 45Squared builds WordPress and WooCommerce sites for small businesses, hosts more than 30 sites, and works with Chicago clients remotely. Who is behind WordPress Chicago? WordPress Chicago is run by 45Squared, a web studio founded by Aaron VanSledright in 2015. We build WordPress and WooCommerce sites for small businesses, and we host and maintain more than 30 of them today. Aaron writes the guides on this site and does the work on client projects. When you send the form, the reply comes from him. Why work with a Midwest studio remotely? Working remotely lets us keep prices fair and timelines short. A downtown office adds overhead that ends up in your invoice. Video calls and a shared preview link cover everything an in-person meeting would, and nobody has to fight Kennedy Expressway traffic to get there. What do we believe about websites? We hold a few simple beliefs, and they shape every project: You should own your site. No lock-in, no platform you can’t leave. Faster is better. A lean site beats a flashy slow one. Accessible is non-negotiable. Every site is checked against WCAG 2.1 AA. No rebuild you didn’t ask for. If your site can be fixed, we fix it. Which businesses have we built for? Our work includes Wilde Thyme Foods, an online store with custom product photography for a family food brand, and Boulder Creek Golf Club, a site the club’s team keeps current themselves. Both are small, owner-run businesses, which is the kind of client we know best. You can see more of our work on the 45Squared site. ## The WordPress Chicago blog URL: https://wordpresschicago.com/blog/ The WordPress Chicago blog publishes practical guides for small business owners. Topics include choosing between WordPress, Squarespace and Wix, moving a site without losing rankings, and what a WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility audit actually checks. What do we write about? We write about the decisions small business owners actually face with their websites. Every guide aims to answer one question well. These are the topics we cover: Platforms. When WordPress makes sense, and when a simpler builder is fine. Moving sites. How to change platforms without losing search traffic. Accessibility. What WCAG 2.1 AA means in practice, and how to fix common failures. Running a site. Hosting, updates, backups and security, without the jargon. Who writes the guides? Aaron VanSledright, the founder of 45Squared, writes and updates every guide. He has built WordPress sites for small businesses since 2015 and looks after the 30+ sites 45Squared hosts today. The advice comes from that daily work, not from theory. When a guide’s advice changes, we update it and change the date at the top. Can I suggest a topic? Yes. If there’s a website question you keep running into, send it through the form below and mark it “Blog idea.” The most useful questions become guides, and we’ll send you the link when one is published. You don’t need to be a client to ask. How are the guides kept up to date? Web advice ages fast. Platforms change their prices, WordPress ships new features, and accessibility guidance evolves. We review each guide when something it covers changes, and at least once a year. The “Updated” date at the top of every guide shows when it was last checked, so you know how current the advice is. If you spot something out of date, tell us through the form and we’ll check it the same week. ## Questions Chicago business owners ask about WordPress sites URL: https://wordpresschicago.com/faq/ In short, a typical WordPress site takes about a week, a migration takes 48 hours from $1,500, hosting is $29 a month, and you own everything. 45Squared works with Chicago businesses remotely, by video call and email. Didn’t find your question? Send it through the form below. You’ll get a reply from Aaron, the founder of 45Squared, usually within one business day. There’s no sales script and no obligation. Many first questions are simple ones, like whether a site can be fixed instead of rebuilt. You can also read about how a remote project runs or see our published pricing. Q: How long does it take to build a WordPress website? A: About a week for a typical small-business site once your content is ready. Content means your page text, logo and photos. Larger sites and online stores take longer, because products, payments and shipping all need testing. You get a firm launch date in the written quote, before any work starts. Q: How much does a WordPress website cost? A: New sites get a fixed quote after a short call, because a five-page site and a 200-product store are very different jobs. Two prices are published. Managed hosting is $29 a month. Migrations to WordPress start at $1,500, with 30 days of support after launch. See pricing for what each includes. Q: Do I own my website? A: Yes. You own the domain, the content, the design and the WordPress install. Your admin login has full rights, not a limited editor account. If you ever leave, we hand everything over with a full backup of the files and the database. Any WordPress developer or host can take it from there. Q: Do you work with businesses in the Chicago suburbs? A: Yes. We work with businesses across the Chicago area, from Evanston and Skokie to Oak Park, Naperville and Schaumburg. Everything is done remotely by video call and email, so your location doesn’t change the price or the timeline. A shop in Schaumburg gets the same service as an office in the Loop. Q: Do we ever meet in person? A: Usually not. Kickoffs and reviews happen by video call, and the rest happens by email. You review the site on a private preview link from your own computer or phone. Most clients find this faster than scheduling office meetings, and it keeps our prices lower because there’s no office to pay for. Q: Can I edit the website myself? A: Yes. We build with the WordPress block editor, the editor built into WordPress itself. After launch we train you on the pages you’ll change most, like opening hours, menus or team bios. You don’t need to know any code. If a change is bigger than you want to tackle, managed hosting clients can simply ask us. Q: What is WordPress, exactly? A: WordPress is free, open-source software for building and running websites. It powers 40.2% of all websites, from small blogs to large news sites. Open-source means no single company owns it. Thousands of developers maintain it, and you can run it on almost any web host. That’s why a WordPress site is never tied to one company. Q: Is WordPress secure? A: WordPress is secure when it’s kept updated. Most hacked WordPress sites run old plugins or themes with known holes. With managed hosting we apply every core, plugin and theme update, then check the site still works. Each site also runs on its own server, with daily backups and uptime monitoring. Q: Will moving to WordPress hurt my Google rankings? A: Not when redirects are mapped properly. We redirect every old URL to its matching new page with a permanent (301) redirect. Search engines then pass your existing rankings to the new pages, and old links in emails or on other sites keep working. We also resubmit your sitemap so Google finds the change quickly. Q: What is WCAG 2.1 AA? A: WCAG 2.1 AA is a set of web accessibility guidelines published by the W3C, the body that sets web standards. Level AA is the level most organizations aim for. It covers things like color contrast, keyboard navigation, image descriptions and form labels. Our free audit tests your site against it and explains each failure in plain English. ## WordPress websites for Chicago small businesses URL: https://wordpresschicago.com/ WordPress Chicago is the Chicago service of 45Squared, a Midwest web studio that has built WordPress sites since 2015. We build new WordPress and WooCommerce sites in about a week, move sites to WordPress in 48 hours, and host them for $29 a month. You own everything we build. What is WordPress Chicago? WordPress Chicago is a service of 45Squared, a small web studio based in the Midwest. We build and look after WordPress websites for small businesses in Chicago and the suburbs around it. We keep the list of things we do short on purpose. We build sites, move sites, host sites, and audit sites. That’s it. Doing four things every week means we do them well. Why WordPress for a Chicago small business? WordPress is free, open-source software that runs 40.2% of all websites, according to W3Techs. That scale matters to a small business for three reasons: You’re never stuck. WordPress developers are easy to find, in Chicago and everywhere else. If we disappeared tomorrow, someone else could pick up your site. You own it. A WordPress site isn’t rented from a platform. You can move it to any host. It grows with you. Add a blog, bookings or an online store with WooCommerce, without starting over. Page builders like Wix and Squarespace are fine for a start. Many businesses outgrow them. We wrote a plain comparison in WordPress vs Squarespace and Wix. How does working with a remote studio work? Working remotely is simple, and it keeps costs down. You never pay for a downtown office. Here’s the shape of a typical project: A short video call. We learn what your business does and what the site needs to do. A fixed quote. You see the price and the date before anything starts. A build you can watch. You get a private preview link and send feedback in plain email. Launch and handover. We launch, check everything, and show you how to edit your own pages. Read more on how a project runs. What does it cost? Prices depend on the size of the site, but some are fixed. Moving a site to WordPress starts at $1,500 and includes 30 days of support after launch. Managed hosting is $29 a month, with updates, backups and monitoring included. A new site is quoted after a short call, so you know the full price before we start. See pricing for what’s included in each. Who have we built for? We’ve built sites for businesses like Wilde Thyme Foods, a family food brand that sells online, and Boulder Creek Golf Club, whose team now updates the site themselves. We host more than 30 sites today. Most belong to small, owner-run businesses, the same size as the Chicago shops and firms we work with now. Q: Do you have an office in Chicago? A: No. 45Squared is a Midwest studio, and we work with Chicago businesses remotely. Kickoffs and reviews happen by video call, and everything else happens by email. You get a private preview link, so you can check the site from your own desk. Most clients never need to meet in person, and none of them pay for our office rent. Q: How long does a new WordPress site take? A: About a week for a typical small-business site, once we have your content. That means your text, your logo and any photos you want to use. Larger sites and online stores take longer, because products, payments and shipping all need testing. Either way, we give you a firm launch date before we start work. Q: Who owns the website when it's done? A: You do. The domain, the content, the design and the WordPress install are yours from day one. We don’t lock you into our hosting or a custom platform. If you ever want to leave, we hand over a full copy of the site and the database. Any WordPress developer can pick it up from there. Q: Can you fix my existing WordPress site instead of rebuilding it? A: Often, yes. Start with a free audit, which checks search visibility and WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility. If your site is sound, we fix what’s broken rather than sell you a rebuild you didn’t ask for. If it isn’t worth saving, the audit explains why in plain English, and the choice stays yours. ## What a WCAG 2.1 AA website accessibility audit actually checks URL: https://wordpresschicago.com/blog/website-accessibility-audit-wcag-checklist/ A WCAG 2.1 AA audit checks whether people with disabilities can perceive, operate and understand your website, and whether it works with assistive technology. It tests things like image alt text, color contrast, keyboard navigation, form labels and heading structure against the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. What is WCAG 2.1 AA? WCAG stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. They’re published by the W3C, the group that sets web standards. Version 2.1 has three levels: A, AA and AAA. Level AA is the practical target for most business websites. The U.S. Department of Justice’s web accessibility guidance points to WCAG as a helpful standard. What are the four principles an audit tests? WCAG groups its rules under four principles, often shortened to POUR: Principle The question it asks Example check Perceivable Can everyone perceive the content? Images have alt text; text has enough contrast Operable Can everyone use the controls? Everything works with a keyboard Understandable Is it clear and predictable? Forms explain errors in plain words Robust Does it work with assistive technology? Code is valid and labeled for screen readers Which failures show up most on small-business sites? The same few problems appear again and again: Missing alt text on photos, logos and buttons made of images. Low color contrast, especially light gray text and text over photos. Unlabeled form fields, so a screen reader can’t say what to type. Skipped heading levels, which break the outline screen reader users navigate by. Link text like “click here”, which means nothing out of context. Menus and pop-ups that trap keyboard users. Most of these are fixed in an afternoon, not a rebuild. What can’t an automated audit catch? An automated scan is a fast first pass. It can’t judge meaning. It can tell you an image has alt text, but not whether “IMG_2041.jpg” describes it. It can’t tell whether a video’s captions are accurate, or whether error messages make sense. A good audit pairs the scan with a person’s review of the key pages. Why should a small business care? A site that some visitors can’t use loses customers. Screen reader users, people with low vision, and anyone who uses a keyboard instead of a mouse are all trying to buy from you. Accessibility work also tends to make a site cleaner and easier for everyone. Want to see where your site stands? Start with our free SEO and accessibility audit. Q: Can an automated tool find every accessibility problem? A: No. Automated tools catch many common failures, such as missing alt text, low contrast and unlabeled form fields. Judgment calls need a person. A tool can see that alt text exists, but not whether it describes the image usefully. Keyboard-only navigation also needs a human test. A good audit uses both. Q: What's the difference between WCAG levels A, AA and AAA? A: Level A covers the most basic barriers, like images with no text alternative. Level AA adds important ones like color contrast and consistent navigation, and it’s the level most organizations aim for. Level AAA is the strictest. The W3C itself notes it isn’t practical to require AAA for an entire site. Q: Does accessibility help SEO? A: Often, yes. Alt text, clear headings, descriptive link text and fast, well-structured pages help search engines understand a site, just as they help people. Accessible sites also tend to be easier to use on phones. Accessibility isn’t a ranking shortcut, but most fixes improve both at once, so the work rarely goes to waste. ## WordPress vs Squarespace vs Wix for a Chicago small business URL: https://wordpresschicago.com/blog/wordpress-vs-squarespace-wix-chicago/ Squarespace and Wix are the easiest way to launch a simple site quickly. WordPress is the better choice when you want to own your site, grow it with a blog or store, and never be locked into one company. Many Chicago businesses start on a builder and move to WordPress when they outgrow it. What’s the real difference between them? The real difference is ownership. Squarespace and Wix are hosted website builders. You rent your site from the company, and it only runs on their platform. WordPress is open-source software. Your site is a set of files and a database you can take to any host. Everything else, from cost to flexibility, follows from that one difference. How do they compare side by side? WordPress Squarespace Wix Who owns the site You Rented from the platform Rented from the platform Can you move hosts Yes, anywhere No No Ease of first launch Moderate Easy Easy Design flexibility Very high Medium Medium to high Online store WooCommerce, owned by you Built in Built in Who handles updates You or your host The platform The platform Share of all websites 40.2% Small Small When is Squarespace or Wix the right call? A builder is often the right choice in these cases: You’re just starting and need a clean site this weekend. The site is a few pages that rarely change, like a portfolio or a single-location shop. You have no budget for setup and prefer one predictable monthly fee. There’s no shame in starting on a builder. Plenty of good Chicago businesses do. When is WordPress the better choice? WordPress usually wins once a business wants to grow its site: You’re publishing regularly, like a blog, recipes, case studies or news. You need features a builder doesn’t have, such as advanced bookings, memberships or a CRM connection. You’re competing for busy local searches where speed and technical SEO make the difference. You want to own your site and never face a forced redesign or price change you can’t escape. What do builders cost over time? A builder’s monthly fee looks small, but it rises as you add a store, remove branding or need more features. Store apps and add-ons are often billed separately. With WordPress you pay for hosting and any paid plugins you choose, and you can change host at any time. Over several years, the difference is usually less about price and more about control. How do you switch without losing customers? Plan the move and map every old URL to its new page with a permanent redirect. That keeps your Google rankings and every old link working. We cover the steps in moving your site to WordPress, which takes 48 hours from $1,500. Q: Is Squarespace or Wix bad for SEO? A: No. Both can rank for a small local business, and plenty of Chicago shops do well on them. They give you less control over page speed, structured data and other technical details. That starts to matter as you compete for busier Chicago search terms, where small advantages decide who reaches the first page. Q: Is WordPress harder to use? A: Editing pages in modern WordPress is about as easy as a builder, thanks to the block editor. The harder part is upkeep. Core, plugins and themes need regular updates, and someone has to keep backups. That’s why many small businesses pay for managed hosting and simply never think about it again. Q: Can I move from Wix to WordPress later? A: Yes. Moves from Wix to WordPress are common, and starting on Wix doesn’t lock you in forever. The key is to plan a permanent redirect for every old URL, so you keep your search rankings and old links keep working. Move your domain to a registrar you control, too. A typical small site moves in about 48 hours. ## What WordPress work costs with 45Squared URL: https://wordpresschicago.com/pricing/ Managed WordPress hosting from 45Squared is $29 a month. Moving a site to WordPress starts at $1,500 and includes 30 days of support. The SEO and accessibility audit is free. New websites and WooCommerce stores get a fixed quote after a short call, because their size varies. What are the published prices? Service Price What’s included Managed WordPress hosting $29 per month Own server, global CDN, SSL, daily backups, uptime monitoring, every update applied Migration to WordPress From $1,500 Content moved, redirects mapped, domain switched, 30 days of support SEO and accessibility audit Free Automated crawl, plain-English report by email New WordPress website Fixed quote Design, build, SEO setup, accessibility checks, training WooCommerce store Fixed quote Catalog, checkout, shipping and pickup, launch testing How does a fixed quote work? A fixed quote is a single price for an agreed scope of work. We learn what you need on a short video call. Then we send a written quote listing the pages, features and launch date. If the scope doesn’t change, the price doesn’t either. What drives the price of a new site? Four things move the price more than anything else: Number of unique page layouts. Ten service pages that share one layout cost less than ten different designs. Content. If we write or rework your copy, that’s more work than placing text you provide. Features. Bookings, memberships, multiple languages or a store add build and testing time. Integrations. Connecting to a CRM, point-of-sale or scheduling tool. How is 45Squared different from a big agency? A large Chicago agency carries account managers, a downtown lease and a sales team, and its prices reflect that. We’re a small studio. The person on your kickoff call is the person who builds your site. That keeps the price down and the answers quick. Q: Why don't you publish a price for a new website? A: Because a five-page site for a consultant and a thirty-page site for a clinic are different jobs. The number of layouts, the amount of writing and the features all change the work. A fixed quote after a short call is fairer than a wide price range that fits nobody. You see the exact number before you commit to anything. Q: Do I have to use your hosting? A: No. You can host the site anywhere WordPress runs, and we’ll hand it over ready to install. Many clients choose our hosting because updates, daily backups and uptime monitoring are included for $29 a month. Others already have a host they like. Either way it’s your call, and it doesn’t change the build price. Q: Are there hidden fees? A: No. Your written quote lists what’s included, down to the pages and features. If you later ask for something outside it, we quote that change first. Work only starts when you approve it in writing. Hosting is a flat $29 a month, with no setup fee and no charge for applying updates. ## Privacy policy URL: https://wordpresschicago.com/privacy/ Who runs this site, and when does this policy change? This website is operated by 45Squared LLC (“we”, “us”). WordPress Chicago is one of its services. Questions about this policy can be sent through the project form with “Privacy” in the message. If we change this policy, we’ll update the date on this page. This policy covers this website only. It doesn’t cover other websites we link to, which have their own policies. What do we collect? When you send the project form, we collect what you type: your name, email, current website, the service you need, your budget and your message. We also record the page you sent it from, the time, and the website that referred you, if any. When you view pages, we count the visit without cookies. We record the page, the referring website and a daily visitor count. To count unique visitors, we create a one-way code from your IP address and browser that changes every day and is deleted within 48 hours. We don’t store your IP address. How do we use your information, and how long do we keep it? We use your request to reply to you about your project and, if you become a client, to deliver the work. Your request is stored in our own customer records at 45Squared. We don’t share it with other companies, and we don’t sell it. We don’t use advertising cookies or third-party trackers on this site. We keep project requests for up to 3 years so we can follow up and measure how this site performs. Visit counts are kept as totals and don’t identify you. What are your choices? Form submissions travel over an encrypted HTTPS connection and are stored in access-controlled systems run by 45Squared. Only the people who handle your request can see it. You can ask us to delete your request at any time. Send a request through the form with “Delete my data” in the message, and include the email you used. ## WordPress services for Chicago businesses URL: https://wordpresschicago.com/services/ WordPress Chicago offers five services. We design new WordPress sites, build WooCommerce stores, move sites to WordPress from other platforms, host and maintain WordPress sites for $29 a month, and run free SEO and WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility audits. Which service do I need? Most Chicago businesses fit one of these situations. Find yours in the table. Your situation Start with Typical timeline No website, or one you’re embarrassed by New WordPress website About a week On Wix, Squarespace, GoDaddy or Weebly and outgrowing it Migration to WordPress 48 hours You want to sell products online WooCommerce store Quoted per project You have a WordPress site but no one looks after it Managed hosting Same week You’re not sure what’s wrong with your site Free SEO and accessibility audit About a minute If you’re not sure, send the form below and say so. We’ll point you to the right one. What’s included with every project? Every project, big or small, comes with the same basics: Mobile-first design that works on a phone on the Blue Line. Technical SEO setup, including titles, sitemaps and structured data. Accessibility checks against WCAG 2.1 AA before launch. Full ownership. Your domain, your content, your admin login. Plain-English training so you can edit your own pages. Can one studio handle everything? Yes. We design, build, host and maintain, so there’s one team to call when something needs changing. That matters most after launch. A site that nobody updates slowly breaks. With managed hosting, we apply every core, plugin and theme update and check that the site still works. What don’t we do? We don’t do paid ads management, social media posting or logo design. We’d rather tell you that up front than do it badly. If you need those, we’re happy to work alongside the people who do. We can give your ad agency or designer the access they need, and we make sure their tracking codes and brand files are set up correctly on the site. ## Free SEO and WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility audit URL: https://wordpresschicago.com/website-accessibility-audit/ A website accessibility audit tests a site against WCAG 2.1 AA, the accessibility standard most widely used for websites. 45Squared’s free audit also checks technical SEO. It crawls your site in about a minute and emails the findings in plain English, with no call and no obligation. What does the audit check? The audit covers two areas that small-business sites often get wrong: Search visibility. Page titles, descriptions, headings, broken links, sitemaps, structured data, and whether search engines can read your pages. Accessibility. Missing image descriptions, low color contrast, unlabeled form fields, keyboard problems and other WCAG failures. Why does accessibility matter for a business site? Many of your customers browse with a screen reader, a keyboard instead of a mouse, or the page zoomed to 200 percent. A site they can’t use is a sale you lose. The U.S. Department of Justice also publishes guidance on web accessibility under the ADA. It points businesses to WCAG as the practical standard. Accessibility work tends to help everyone. Clear headings, readable contrast and labeled forms make a site easier for every visitor, and easier for search engines to understand. What are the most common failures? Issue What it looks like Typical fix Missing alt text Images a screen reader can’t describe Add short descriptions Low contrast Light gray text on white Darken text colors Unlabeled form fields A screen reader says “edit text” Add proper labels Keyboard traps Can’t tab out of a menu or pop-up Fix focus handling Vague link text Five links that all say “click here” Name where the link goes What happens after the audit? You get a plain-English report by email. Each problem comes with the page it’s on and why it matters. Fix it yourself, hand it to your current developer, or ask us to quote the fixes. Re-running the audit later shows what improved. Read what a WCAG 2.1 AA audit checks for a deeper walk-through. Q: Is the audit really free? A: Yes. The automated audit is free and comes with no sales call. You enter your web address, and the report arrives by email in plain English. It lists search and accessibility problems in order of importance. If you want help fixing what it finds, you can ask for a quote, but you don’t have to. Q: Will an audit make my site legally compliant? A: No audit can promise that. An audit shows where your site falls short of WCAG 2.1 AA so you can fix it. Automated tools also can’t catch every issue, so some checks still need a person. For legal questions about your own business, talk to a lawyer. The audit is a practical starting point, not legal advice. Q: Do you fix the problems too? A: Yes, if you want. Many fixes are quick, like missing alt text, unlabeled form fields or low color contrast. Others, like keyboard navigation in a custom menu, take longer. We quote the fixes at a fixed price, and then re-run the audit after the work so you can see the result. ## Move your site to WordPress in 48 hours URL: https://wordpresschicago.com/website-migration/ A website migration moves your pages, images, blog posts and URLs from a builder like Wix or Squarespace onto WordPress. 45Squared completes most migrations in 48 hours, starting at $1,500, with full redirect mapping so you keep your search rankings, plus 30 days of support after launch. Which platforms can you move from? We move sites from the builders small businesses outgrow most often: Moving from What moves across Common reason to leave Wix Pages, images, blog posts Speed and SEO limits Squarespace Pages, images, blog posts Design limits, monthly fees GoDaddy Website Builder Pages, images Few features, hard to grow Weebly Pages, images, blog posts Few new features Shopify Products and orders Monthly fees and app costs If your platform isn’t here, ask. Most can be moved. Why does a 48-hour move matter? A slow migration is a risky one. When a move drags on for weeks, content changes on the old site and gets lost, and nobody is sure which site is current. A short, planned window means one clean switch. Your customers never see a half-finished site. What does keeping redirects intact mean? A redirect is an instruction that sends anyone visiting an old URL to the new one. When a builder site moves, its URLs usually change. Without redirects, Google sees hundreds of missing pages, and customers following old links hit errors. We map each old URL to its new page, one by one. What does $1,500 include? The starting price covers a typical small-business site: design rebuilt on WordPress, content moved, redirects mapped, the domain switched, and 30 days of support. Larger sites and stores are quoted after we see them. You get a fixed price before anything starts. The migration itself takes about 48 hours, and your old site stays live until the new one is ready. Q: Will I lose my Google rankings if I move to WordPress? A: Not if the move is done properly. The risk comes from broken URLs. We map a permanent (301) redirect for every old page, so search engines and old links find the new ones. We also keep your page titles and descriptions, submit a new sitemap, and watch for errors in the weeks after launch. Q: Can you move my online store from Shopify? A: Yes. Products, customers and past orders can be moved to WooCommerce, the store plugin for WordPress. Store migrations are quoted separately, because they vary more than brochure sites. A shop with 20 products and one with 2,000 products are different jobs. We test checkout, taxes and shipping before the switch. Q: Do I keep my domain name? A: Yes. Your domain stays yours. We point it at the new site on switch-over day, so visitors never see a gap. If the domain is registered through your old builder, like Wix or Squarespace, we help you transfer it to a registrar you control. Your business email keeps working throughout. ## WooCommerce online stores for Chicago businesses URL: https://wordpresschicago.com/woocommerce-development/ WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin that turns a WordPress site into an online store. It handles products, carts, checkout, payments, shipping and local pickup. 45Squared builds WooCommerce stores for small businesses and quotes each store at a fixed price after reviewing the catalog. What is WooCommerce? WooCommerce is the standard store plugin for WordPress, built by the company behind WordPress.com. It adds products, a cart and checkout to your existing site, so your store and your website are one thing, not two. There’s no separate platform login and no second monthly bill. Your products live in the same WordPress admin as your pages and blog posts. When is WooCommerce the right choice? WooCommerce fits well in these cases: You want your store and content in one place, like recipes next to the products they use. You want to own your store and move it to any host. You sell a manageable catalog, from a few products to a few thousand. You want local pickup and shipping side by side. It’s a weaker fit if you need a complex marketplace with many sellers. We’ll tell you if that’s you. What does a store build include? Part of the build What we do Catalog Products, categories, variations like size and color Checkout Payment setup, tax settings and order emails Shipping and pickup Rates, zones and local pickup options Design Product pages built to sell on phones Launch checks Test orders, receipts and inventory before going live Have you built stores before? Yes. We built the online store for Wilde Thyme Foods, a family-owned food brand that sells direct to its customers, including its product photography. Each store is quoted at a fixed price, because catalogs vary so much. We test every payment method, tax rule and shipping option before launch. Q: Is WooCommerce free? A: The core plugin is free and open-source. You pay for hosting, payment processing fees on each sale, and any paid extensions your store needs, such as special shipping rules or subscriptions. Many small stores need no paid extensions at all. We list every recurring cost in the quote, so nothing surprises you after launch. Q: Can customers pick up orders at my Chicago shop? A: Yes. WooCommerce supports local pickup alongside shipping, so customers choose at checkout. You can offer pickup at one location or several, add pickup instructions, and skip shipping charges for those orders. It suits Chicago shops whose customers live nearby and would rather collect an order in person than wait for a delivery to arrive. Q: Can you connect my store to my point-of-sale system? A: Often, yes. Many point-of-sale systems offer WooCommerce connections that sync stock and products, so a sale in the shop updates the website. Square has an official WooCommerce extension, for example. Tell us which system you use, and we’ll check exactly what the connection can do before we quote the work. ## Managed WordPress hosting and maintenance for $29 a month URL: https://wordpresschicago.com/wordpress-hosting-maintenance/ Managed WordPress hosting from 45Squared costs $29 a month. Your site runs on its own server, not a shared box with hundreds of neighbors. It includes a global CDN, SSL, daily backups and uptime monitoring. We apply every core, plugin and theme update, then check the site still works. What is managed WordPress hosting? Managed WordPress hosting is hosting where someone else looks after the site, not just the server. Regular hosting gives you space and wishes you luck. Managed hosting includes the updates, backups, security and monitoring that keep a WordPress site healthy. With 45Squared, that costs $29 a month, and each site runs on its own server. What’s included for $29 a month? Included What it means for you Own server Your site doesn’t share resources with hundreds of others Global CDN Pages load fast for visitors wherever they are SSL certificate The padlock in the browser, renewed automatically Daily backups A copy of your site every day, ready to restore Uptime monitoring We know when the site goes down, often before you do Every update applied WordPress core, plugins and themes, checked after each update Why do updates matter so much? Most hacked WordPress sites weren’t attacked cleverly. They ran an old plugin with a known hole. WordPress’s own hardening guide puts keeping software updated near the top of the list. The hard part isn’t clicking “update.” It’s checking that nothing broke afterward, which is the part we do. Can you host a site you didn’t build? Yes. If your site runs WordPress, we can move it onto our hosting. We review it first. If it has problems, like abandoned plugins or a theme that’s no longer updated, we’ll tell you before we take it on. The move itself is quick, and your site stays online while we do it. Who is it for? It’s for Chicago businesses that want a site that just works, without thinking about it. That’s restaurants, shops, clinics, trades and professional firms. If you’d rather spend Monday morning on your business than on plugin updates, it’s for you. It also suits anyone whose site was built by someone who has since moved on. Q: Is my site really on its own server? A: Yes. Each managed site gets its own server rather than sharing one with hundreds of other sites. A neighbor’s traffic spike or security problem can’t take yours down. It also means your site’s speed depends only on your own traffic. A global CDN serves images and files from locations close to your visitors. Q: What happens if an update breaks something? A: We check the site after every round of updates. If something breaks, we roll it back from the daily backup, so the site is working again quickly. Then we find the cause, usually a plugin that conflicts with the new version, and fix it before we try the update again. You don’t have to report it. Q: Can I leave whenever I want? A: Yes. It’s your site, and hosting is month to month. If you’d rather host it yourself or elsewhere, we hand it over cleanly with a full backup of the files and database. We can also help your new host set it up. There’s no exit fee and no notice period beyond the current month. ## WordPress website design for Chicago small businesses URL: https://wordpresschicago.com/wordpress-website-design-chicago/ WordPress website design is planning, designing and building a site on WordPress so your team can edit it without a developer. For a typical Chicago small business, 45Squared builds a new WordPress site in about a week once the content is ready, and you own the finished site. What does a new WordPress site include? A new site from us includes everything a small business needs to launch well: Design matched to your brand, built for phones first. Core pages: home, services, about, contact, and any others you need. A contact form that actually reaches your inbox. SEO basics: page titles, descriptions, a sitemap and structured data. Accessibility: checked against WCAG 2.1 AA before launch. Speed: optimized images and no plugin bloat. Training so you can edit your own pages. How long does it take? About a week for a typical small-business site once we have your content. The content is usually what sets the pace, not the build. Stage Typical time Kickoff video call 30 to 45 minutes Design and build 3 to 5 working days Your review and changes 1 to 2 days Launch and checks Same day What makes a Chicago small-business site work? A Chicago customer usually finds you on a phone, in a hurry, comparing you with two competitors. Your site has a few seconds. These are the things that win that moment: Say what you do and where in the first screen. “Plumber in Rogers Park” beats “Excellence since 1998.” Make contact one tap away. A visible form or button on every page. Show proof. Real photos, real reviews, real examples of your work. Load fast on mobile data. Slow pages lose visitors before they read a word. Why not a template site? A template site gets you online, but it looks like everyone else’s. It’s often built on a heavy theme that slows the site down. We start from a lean theme and design around your business. The result is faster and easier to edit, and it’s clearly yours. Q: Do you use a page builder or custom code? A: We use the WordPress block editor and a lean theme, so pages load fast and you can edit them yourself. We avoid heavy page builders that slow sites down and tie you to a paid license. Custom code is kept small and documented, so any WordPress developer can work on it later. Q: What do I need to provide? A: Your logo, your text or notes we can turn into text, and photos if you have them. Access to your domain helps too, so launch day goes smoothly. If you don’t have copy, tell us early and we’ll plan for it in the quote. Missing content is the most common reason a one-week build slips. Q: Can I update the site myself after launch? A: Yes. We train you on the pages you’ll edit most, like services, hours and news, on a short video call after launch. Most clients are comfortable after one session. The block editor works like a simple document editor, so there’s no code to learn. We also leave you a short how-to for the common tasks.