Looking for ways to perfect an existing online resource or build a perfect one from scratch is not a crime at all. If you’re reading this post, most likely you belong to those individuals who have chosen WordPress as the ultimate platform for putting up their website on the net.
Even though ready-made WordPress themes have gained more popularity with the Internet users over the recent years, choosing an appropriate website template is just a half of your success. Of course, a well-structured layout with an array of striking features is great, but how you make it work together with the content is even more important.
So, let’s break down what is essential for building an effective WordPress website. Since we have already started discussing WordPress themes, I’d like to throw in a bunch of tips that could be extremely helpful when choosing a suitable one.
Opt for appealing, yet professional looking design
Ask yourself, what does a professional website look like? Does it have more emphasis on the content or catchy design embellishments? Most likely, something in the middle is the best idea of what it should be. First of all, it might be a good idea to look through the real estate WordPress themes that often provide a minimalist, yet stylish design which doesn’t hinder the content you want to share with your customers.
The effective design rests upon the proper choice of colors, high-quality imagery, readable fonts, a wise combination of the blank space and paragraphs of text, informative charts and graphs etc. Most designers keep this in mind creating web themes for WordPress, but it’s the ultimate user who can make it or break it.
Keep in mind that to apply the concept of effective design to the needs of your brand, you may eventually need to turn to supplementary WordPress plugins (in case the current WordPress theme has no restrictions concerning the use of non-native software).
Source: http://www.templatemonster.com/wordpress-themes/56093.html
Real Estate WordPress Theme by Templatemonster has a lot to offer in terms of professional looking design executed in reserved colors combined with statement yellow and white elements.
Use obvious, user-friendly navigation
The Internet of today is all about usability and user friendliness, that is making a website or an app easy to utilize for an average user. The latest web design trends only contribute to making site navigation rational and obvious, including hamburger menus, ghost buttons, stick-to-top menus, dropdowns into the basic package of both free and premium WordPress templates. It’s not so hard to guess that if your resource is difficult to navigate, visitors won’t linger for a long time. Follow these guides to for your website to be more effective:
- Make any page reachable in 2 clicks.
- Reveal users’ location on a website offering a sitemap/site wide search and a Breadcrumb trail (WordPress offers a number of Breadcrumb plugins at your service).
- People expect to see About and Contact pages to know who you are and how to contact you.
Once you have all of that sorted, it’s high time to proceed to build some quality content. Speaking of which, it is strongly recommended to publish some fresh content at least 2-3 times a week.
Source: https://www.designwall.com/wordpress/themes/dw-wall/
DW Wall WordPress Theme by DesignWall is a minimalist, yet impressive solution due to its thought-out and professional structure, as well as obvious website navigation placed at the top and at the left side of the page.
Keep your content relevant
Do I really have to tell you why you need to perform regular content updates? Well, in case you didn’t know, frequent updates show that your business venture is alive and kickin’, moreover, it’s good for SEO, and it helps being noticed by more people on social media. We can go on and on about it, but hopefully, you got the gist.
Design wise, you should take into consideration that the typeface and font colors must be contrasting and readable. At times, the structure of content is even more important than the overall design, that’s why it’s good to ensure that content is easy to scan/skim. Nobody wants to read an encyclopedia on the home page! Speaking of which, it’s wise to break the text into lists, use bullets, headings, subheadings, and paragraphs.
Utilize call to action buttons
If you want conversions, using call to action (CTA) buttons, preferably in combination with landing pages, is a must! Why? Because it urges people to take some real action instead of just looking around, to buy instead of window-shopping. Sometimes, everything you want to achieve is to get someone subscribed to your newsletter, yet the final goal is, of course, to compel a person to make a purchase.
What are the key features of an effective call to action button?
- “Action” words. Choose the language wisely to impact viewers’ decisions.
- Big and visible text. Make sure, your call to action buttons are noticeable and big enough. No matter how enticing and creative the text may be, it’s useless, if people don’t see it.
- Catchy design. Make the design more unique to stand out among the other CTA buttons your visitors might have seen enough of.
- Create a sense of urgency. Without it, people won’t know why they have to click a button or perform an action you’re urging them to. Make offers that are limited in time.
Call to action buttons serves as a means of introducing yourself to the people more effectively. Let the visitors learn about your products by offering free trials, inform them about the recent product arrivals and the company’s progress by impelling them to subscribe to your monthly newsletter.
Pay attention to the technical details
Basically, by technical issues, we mean several things which are equal as crucial as tending to the visual part of the website. A very important factor to consider is loading speed. Check, if your website passes Google’s Page Speed Insights with at the point of at least 85.
In order to boost the loading speed, make sure that:
- The images are optimized for the web and properly displayed.
- The homepage is not overloaded with excessive multimedia (videos, flash).
- Check, if HTML, CSS, and Javascript are minimized and in place.
In case you are using a premium WordPress theme from a reliable template provider, chances are you won’t have problems with the validity of programming code, cross-browser compatibility, and responsivity. If not, then most likely, there might be a need to run the code through the W3C’s HTML and CSS validators.
And the last, but not least, in terms of effectiveness is search engine optimization. In case you are completely in the dark about SEO, we recommend reviewing a basic tutorial on WordPress SEO optimization and review the list of SEO plugins developed specifically for this purpose.
So, do you have any other tips on how to boost the effectiveness of a WordPress based resource? What other things should be considered to make a website more productive? Please, sound off in the comments below!
