Corporate & Marketing Websites

A custom institutional website built to match the scale of your organization.

When a theme is no longer enough, we design a custom institutional site: an experience that carries your brand image, controlled performance, and a technical foundation built to last. Very achievable on the SEO side, and ideal for targeting institutional search queries early.

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Illustration Custom Institutional Website Smartshift

The problem

Your institutional image deserves more than a generic theme, but you don't want a system that's impossible to maintain.

The result

A premium custom site, fast and accessible, that your teams manage through a clear admin interface.

Benefits

A design that carries your brand image

Controlled performance and accessibility

A durable technical foundation

An admin interface tailored to your teams

Deliverables

Art direction and design system

Custom development (headless possible)

Accessibility (RGAA/WCAG) and performance

Training and documentation

Use cases

Large accounts and mid-market companies

Institutions and organizations

Brand-driven corporate sites

Projects with strict accessibility requirements

When a custom build is the right answer, and when it is not

A custom-built institutional site is not a prestige marker. It is a technical response to constraints that standard CMSs cannot handle properly. Before recommending a custom approach, we examine two questions: can WordPress or another CMS cover the need with a reasonable amount of development, and what is the 3-year maintenance cost for each option?

The real cases where custom-built is the right answer: a multi-step content approval workflow that does not exist in WordPress, a real-time integration with an ERP or PIM requiring bidirectional synchronization, advanced personalization logic based on user profiles, or a complex data architecture that the WordPress model is not designed to handle.

Technical stack: our choices and the reasoning behind them

For custom-built institutional sites, our reference stack is Next.js with strict TypeScript, Tailwind CSS for styling, and Prisma as the ORM when a relational database is needed. The choice of Next.js addresses concrete constraints: hybrid rendering (SSG for stable pages, SSR for dynamic data), superior Core Web Vitals performance, and static typing that reduces production errors.

Component	Technical choice	Primary reason
Front-end framework	Next.js 15 (App Router)	Hybrid rendering, performance, React ecosystem
Typing	TypeScript strict (no any)	Maintainability, refactoring, error detection
Styling	Tailwind CSS	Design system consistency, no component-specific CSS to maintain
Headless CMS	Sanity or Contentful depending on the need	Editorial interface decoupled from the front end
ORM / DB	Prisma + PostgreSQL	Type-safe schema, versioned migrations
Auth	NextAuth.js or Clerk	OAuth standards, MFA, session management
Deployment	Vercel or dedicated server	Zero-downtime, branch previews, global CDN

The headless CMS: separating editing from rendering

A custom-built site can integrate a headless CMS so editorial teams can update content without touching the code. Sanity, Contentful, or Strapi expose an API that the Next.js front end consumes. This architecture breaks the problem into two independent surfaces: the developer manages the code, the editor manages the content.

The benefit for the client: content updates do not require a deployment. The trade-off: the initial configuration of the content schema takes longer than with WordPress, and any change to the content structure requires a CMS schema update and potentially front-end code changes. This cost must be factored into the scoping phase.

Common integrations in institutional projects

ERP (SAP, Sage, Cegid): catalog, pricing, and inventory synchronization in real time or by batch
CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot): contact forms with automatic lead enrichment
SSO authentication: SAML 2.0 or OIDC for portals requiring corporate login
DAM (Digital Asset Management): centralized media management with rights and metadata
Automated translation: DeepL API with a human review workflow for multilingual sites
Advanced analytics: GA4, on-premise Matomo, custom dashboards

Budget, timelines, and success conditions

A custom-built institutional site takes 12 to 20 weeks depending on the complexity of the integrations and the design system. The budget ranges from 25,000 to 80,000 euros for standard projects, and can exceed that range for portals with authentication, a client area, or complex business logic.

The success conditions are well understood: a business sponsor available to validate iterations, documentation of existing information systems provided at the start of the project, and third-party API access open during the development phase. Timelines slip almost always for reasons on the client side, not the technical side.

Startup checklist for a custom project

Functional spec or prioritized list of user stories
Third-party API access in a test environment
Validated brand identity or design brief with reference examples
Identified and available technical contact on the client side
Inventory of existing content and a decision on migration
Post-launch maintenance budget defined (minimum 12 months)

What is the difference between a custom-built site and a custom WordPress site?

A custom WordPress site stays within the WordPress framework: CMS, WordPress database, hooks and filters, native media management. A custom-built site starts from a framework like Next.js with no CMS constraints: the data structure, APIs, and rendering are all designed specifically for the need. The custom build is more flexible but more expensive to maintain because there is no plugin ecosystem.

Can a custom-built institutional site be handed off to another agency?

Yes, provided the code is documented, dependencies are up to date, and the database schema is versioned. We always deliver a technical README, a documented environment variables file, and access to the Git repository. The code is the client's property. A takeover by an internal team or another agency is entirely feasible.

Is Next.js the right choice for an institutional site in 2026?

For the majority of institutional projects that require performance, SEO, and maintainability, yes. Next.js 15 with the App Router, React Server Components, and native cache management covers the needs of 90% of complex corporate sites. Exceptions include projects with very specific on-premise hosting constraints or a team already committed to a different stack.

Can an existing WordPress site be migrated to a custom-built architecture?

Yes. The migration preserves content via a WordPress export or REST API. Canonical URLs are preserved through a 301 redirect plan if the structure changes. The main point to watch is the time required to migrate content and recreate editorial features in the new headless CMS.

Questions

Before we start.

Custom-built or WordPress?

Going custom is justified when brand image, specific functionality, or accessibility requirements go beyond what a theme can deliver. Otherwise, a well-built WordPress is enough, and we'll say so.

Do you handle RGAA/WCAG accessibility?

Yes. Accessibility is addressed at the design stage and verified during QA, not added as an afterthought.

Who manages the content afterward?

You do. We deliver a clear admin interface and documentation so your teams stay independent.

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