Notes from the 72-hour trenches.

The clock starts at kickoff. A tight brief is how 72 hours stays 72 hours. Here is what to send, and what to skip.

A cheap site you cannot export is not cheap. Here is how to tell who owns the files, the database, and the lock on the door.

Same WordPress site. One calendar is 72 hours. The other is six weeks of decks. Here is what you actually buy in each window.

DIY themes, freelancers, agencies, and a published flat rate. What a WordPress website actually costs in 2026, and what you own when you are done.

Theme shops sell a demo. Visitors judge the demo in 50 milliseconds. Here is the research on first impressions, page weight, and when a template is still the right buy.

Google’s docs, not a plugin score. Titles, sitemaps, robots vs noindex, Core Web Vitals, and the three launch settings that still brick new WordPress sites.

The live pipeline: 50% deposit, 30-minute brief, one kickoff, a full preview in 24–72 hours, and a 48-hour feedback rule. Plus the hours we already used on shipped sites.

A plugin does not rank you. Rank Math still wins on Oxygen and Breakdance trees, free redirects, and the schema we actually use. Yoast still scores the default WordPress editor unless Elementor is in the mix.