WordPress Theme Redesign & Rebuild for Established Fraud Prevention News Site

About the Project Our website is a leading publication covering eCommerce fraud prevention, chargebacks, and payments. The site runs on WordPress using the WP News theme with WPBakery Page Builder, and it's time for a refresh. We're looking for an experienced WordPress developer (or developer/designer) to replace our current theme with a new, modern design that aligns with the branding we use across our other properties. We will provide brand guidelines — logo, color palette, typography, and reference examples from our existing branded materials. You'll design the new layouts from those guidelines and implement them on WordPress. This is a redesign of an active, content-rich site — not a new build. Preserving existing functionality, content, and SEO equity is just as important as the new look. Scope of Work 1. Design - Design new layouts based on our brand guidelines: homepage, article/post page, category/archive pages, resource pages, and standard pages (about, contact, advertise) - Fully responsive (mobile, tablet, desktop) - Design review/approval checkpoint before implementation begins 2. Implementation - Replace the current WP News theme with the new design - Propose your recommended approach — fully custom theme, child theme, or adapting a well-supported modern theme — and explain the trade-offs in your application - Migrate all existing content (several years of articles, pages, media) into the new theme with no data loss - Rebuild existing page layouts currently built with WPBakery (or migrate away from it if you recommend that — tell us your approach) 3. Functionality to Preserve The new theme must maintain all current site functionality, including: - Articles/news with categories, tags, and author pages - Resources section: reports and downloadable content, webinars, podcasts, vendor directory, job board, training/certifications listings - Newsletter signup and subscription integrations - Site search - Advertising placements/sponsor sections (banner zones must be preserved or improved) - Social media integration - Contact and article-contribution forms 4. SEO & Performance - Preserve URL structure and permalinks (or implement proper 301 redirects if any change) - Maintain metadata, structured data, and SEO plugin configuration - Improve Core Web Vitals / page speed over the current site No drop in search indexing — this is a hard requirement 5. QA & Launch - Staging environment for development and review - Cross-browser and mobile QA - Coordinated launch with rollback plan - Post-launch support window for bug fixes (please state what you include) - What We'll Provide - Brand guidelines: logo files, colors, fonts, and examples of our branding from other properties - WordPress admin and hosting access (staging) - A point of contact for prompt feedback and approvals -Full inventory of plugins and integrations at kickoff Timeline Target of approximately 4–6 weeks from kickoff to launch. Please confirm feasibility in your application or propose an alternative timeline with reasoning. Ideal Candidate Strong portfolio of WordPress news/magazine/publisher sites — please include links Experience replacing or migrating themes on live, content-heavy sites without SEO or data loss Solid design sensibility, or a designer on your team, to translate brand guidelines into polished layouts Experience with WPBakery (and migrating away from it) is a plus Familiarity with performance optimization and Core Web Vitals Clear communicator in English, comfortable with async updates To Apply, Please Include 2–3 links to publisher/news WordPress sites you've designed or rebuilt, with a note on what you did Your recommended technical approach (custom theme vs. adapting an existing theme, and what to do about WPBakery) and why How you would protect SEO and existing content during the theme swap Your proposed timeline and milestone breakdown What your post-launch support includes Applications that don't address these points will not be considered. Please start your proposal with the word "Journal" so we know you've read the full description.