WordPress developer needed to build custom theme for publisher

WordPress developer needed for custom theme rebuild of I Love Manchester

We’re looking for an experienced WordPress developer to help rebuild the I Love Manchester website as a custom WordPress theme.

I Love Manchester is an independent news, events, culture and city guide platform for Greater Manchester. The live site has years of content, SEO value, advertising placements, membership functionality and a WooCommerce shop.

We are not looking for a basic brochure website, a page builder rebuild, or a custom directory/events system built from scratch.

We already have a full design pack covering the design system, header, footer, homepage, single post layout and key page layouts, including Directory/place listings and What’s On/events. We need those designs developed into a fast, stable, SEO-friendly WordPress site.

Preferred approach

Custom WordPress theme
ACF Pro / ACF flexible fields / ACF blocks
Native WordPress editor for editorial publishing
Reusable blocks/templates for landing pages
GeoDirectory for places, venues and business listings
GeoDirectory Events for events and What’s On
WooCommerce for shop
MemberPress for membership/subscriptions
Yoast SEO for SEO
Advanced Ads for advertising placements
Cloudflare and Imagify retained

Important

We want to use reputable, long-standing plugins with good support. GeoDirectory and GeoDirectory Events should be used as the core directory/events system. We do not want this built bespoke from scratch.

The developer’s role is to configure, theme and integrate the chosen plugins properly, so places, events, guides and articles work together cleanly.

For example:

Place pages should show related articles and upcoming events.
Event pages should link clearly to the relevant venue/place page.
Things to do pages should pull from GeoDirectory Events.
Directory/place pages should match the supplied I Love Manchester design system, not look like generic plugin output.
News articles should remain standard WordPress posts, with the ability to embed place and event listings where needed.

Current setup

The live site is ilovemanchester.com. We already have a cloned/staging site on the server and will share access with the chosen developer. The database has recently been cleaned.

Main areas of the website

News stories and editorial posts
Things to do and event listings
Directory of places, venues and businesses
Membership and member-only content
About us, Marketing and Advertising, Out-of-Home, Charity, Awards and other landing pages
WooCommerce shop

The work may include

Reviewing the current staging setup
Building a custom WordPress theme from the supplied designs
Setting up global styles, typography, colours and reusable components
Building templates for posts, categories, tags, authors and search results
Building landing page templates and reusable ACF blocks
Setting up ACF fields/flexible content where needed
Installing/configuring GeoDirectory and GeoDirectory Events
Styling GeoDirectory templates to match the design pack
Making sure places, events and articles link together sensibly
Making sure MemberPress, WooCommerce, Yoast SEO, Advanced Ads, Cloudflare and Imagify continue to work properly
Protecting existing URL structure and SEO value
Keeping the site fast and lightweight
Checking mobile/responsive design
Preparing a safe staging-to-live launch plan
Providing handover notes for our team

Experience needed

Strong custom WordPress theme development
ACF Pro, flexible fields or ACF blocks
Content-heavy publisher, magazine, local guide or directory websites
GeoDirectory or similar directory/event plugins
SEO, redirects and URL preservation
WooCommerce
MemberPress or other membership plugins
Advanced Ads or ad placement logic would be useful
Strong responsive front-end skills
Performance-conscious approach
Comfortable working on staging without affecting live site

Please include

Examples of similar custom WordPress sites
Examples of ACF/custom theme work
GeoDirectory/GeoDirectory Events experience
MemberPress, WooCommerce, Yoast SEO and Advanced Ads experience
How you would approach the build
Any risks you can see
Suggested first phase
Availability
Day rate or fixed-price estimate

We may start with a smaller paid phase before committing to the full rebuild. This could include reviewing the staging site and design pack, confirming the architecture, setting up GeoDirectory/GeoDirectory Events, and building one article template, one archive template, one landing page template, one reusable ACF block, one place template and one event template.

Please do not send a generic proposal. We need someone who understands the difference between a good-looking WordPress site and a proper publishing platform.