WordPress makes designing and branding your website and blog easier than ever. Your webmaster can install a WordPress theme and add graphics to the site to make it custom for you. This means that your website should be more a reflection of your business than the typical template websites of yore. Now you can get an affordable, professional, beautifully branded website that is also a blog and contains a robust, full-featured content management system in the backend–all for the same price or less than a template site of a few years ago. Plus, the WordPress platform is SEO optimized. WordPress takes so much work out of the old world of website design and gives you extra time to focus on the most important aspect of your website / blogsite, and that is your content.
The first thing you do when deciding on the WordPress platform is choose a theme. This is very easy for me because I recommend a VERY SIMPLE THEME for all my clients. I’ve built incredibly fancy WordPress Websites before, but they are no better and no more visited than normal, simple sites with the traditional layout that is preferred by visitors. My opinion is this: The most important aspects of your WordPress theme are as follows:
Each page of your website needs the above features, with the exception of the Sidebar. Some pages are fine without the sidebar, depending on the purpose of the page. Some sites, depending on the purpose, may need other features, such as extended video capability, or a better blog showcase option, but most do not. The clients I generally work with are either just getting into blogging, or very light bloggers. If you’re not cranking out content like a banshee, then it is overkill to have a complicated WordPress Theme.
Adding more than what I’ve listed above is not necessary. Think of Facebook. It’s the most popular website on the planet. What is it? It is PLAIN. It is made up on columns and content with a splash of color. The design, or the beauty of the site comes in the CONTENT. What people put on the site is the focal point, not the site itself. Form follows function.
Tricking out your website with too much design is considered amateurish and tacky. Same goes for adding too many widgets. A site with too many widgets looks like it’s trying too hard, in my opinion. A site that has great content is going to get visitors regardless of the lack of pompous design. In fact, a site with no design at all, just with quality content in plain text is far superior to a tricked-out, overdone design-a-rama created by a newish web developer. At the end of the day, design for design sake is garbage. If the saying “form follows function” rings true anywhere, it does on the web.
With all that said, you have options galore for designing your website. My recommendations, however, is that you stick to a simple layout (as stated above), and concentrate more on the functionality of the site, the end result you want to achieve and your content.
My company, The Marketing Shop.com, can build any type of WordPress website–or any type of website for that matter–that you want. My staff has experience in all web technologies. Here is a site with themes I’ve built in the past… Elegant Themes. You can also peruse the web and find gillions of Free WordPress Themes to suit your fancy. There are also paid WordPress Theme Options you can try. You could also, however, just hand the job over to me and let me work my magic for you. I know what I’m doing… I’ve built 100s of websites since I started doing web marketing in 2004. Shoot me an email to dotjenna at gmail dot com.
The key is to build a site that is usable and people want to visit, bookmark and return. You want a site that has content as the focal point and conveys your brand in a seamless, professional and customized manner. A simple, easy-to-navigate, light and airy site is a winner every time.
