Do you have designs on a better looking website? Think WordPress

A whopping 43% of all websites use WordPress – including this one.

The platform has long been regarded as a firm favourite among the developer community; it’s versatile, highly customisable, easy-to-use, and boasts countless plugins to meet a variety of needs.

But what isn’t talked about enough is the platform’s design appeal.

Fundamentally, designers crave creativity; they want a platform that stimulates their inherent flair and matches their creative ambition.

WordPress is that platform.

With its intuitive navigation, responsive design and high degree of personalisation, designers (and non-designers) can transform an average template into something truly memorable in a matter of clicks.

Think of the platform as a blank canvas, only there’s a never ending arsenal of supplies built within.

Easy to use

The single greatest benefit of using WordPress is how easy it is, how quickly you can get to grips with it.

Whether you’re a complete novice or an experienced designer, it doesn’t matter. The platform is as intuitive as it is flexible.

Its straightforward dashboard and dropdown menus make adding content a breeze, while bespoke design themes and a huge catalogue of plugins are at your disposal immediately to enhance your site.

But for someone who doesn’t have any experience in designing a website, a DIY approach can be a little bit overwhelming. Using the world’s most popular platform might leave you feeling like you’re out of your depth.

That’s totally normal – and WordPress has just the remedy for that.

As the world’s most used website builder, you’ll have access to a tonne of online resources aimed at helping you navigate everything from page components to SEO best practices – and they aren’t just written by experts, but from all users who were once in your position.

And because it’s such an accessible platform, if you don’t have access to the typical WordPress communities, simply type in what you’re unsure of to Google and you’re sure to find a solution to what’s bugging you.

Responsive design

The point of responsive design is to ensure that your website performs equally well on all devices. A responsive website guarantees consistency in content, automatically adapting to fit the requirements of the user’s screen.

In an age where customers can choose from desktop, mobile or tablet devices to browse the internet, the importance of this cannot be underestimated.

A responsive design means your website is:

  • Highly accessible
  • Content can be updated quickly
  • Content is streamlined and thus easier to maintain
  • Link sharing is enabled across multiple devices
  • SEO is boosted
  • Overall user experience is enhanced

With a variety of built-in themes and plugins to choose from, WordPress websites condense page content automatically, ensuring that the load time is unaffected. This ultimately translates to a lower bounce rate from users, as the page they want to access typically loads in less than three seconds.

With more and more users accessing content on mobile devices, WordPress’ extensive library of themes and plugins are built to champion responsive development, focusing on readability and usability while accommodating to screen size, browser and device.

When searching for the right theme or plugin for your website, most will include a demo so you can see first-hand how their features will benefit your users.

A lot of these themes have multiple options for one page too – so try viewing it like a user when you’re deciding on the right direction for your site.

Select the version with the functionality to match the user’s needs first; you can always change design elements later, but function is key.

Customisable at the click of a button

Over the years, WordPress has received a bad rap for being a basic platform that doesn’t allow for much design.

This couldn’t be further from the truth.

Within a few clicks, WordPress empowers users to transform a design theme into something that’s entirely tailored to their brand.

WordPress puts you at the wheel when it comes to design, whereas other website builders leave you firmly in the passenger seat and at the whims of basic templates.

For those of you who aren’t as tech savvy, the design themes you’ll choose from come with their own options panel. This means you can change colours and backgrounds, import assets from other programs, create sliders, and customise your website without having to write any code at all.

And when it comes to settling on the right layout for different pages, things couldn’t be simpler. WordPress uses a drag and drop function, so you can play around with how a certain page looks and preview the changes before pushing the content live.

User experience is the foundation of good design

The cornerstone of any successful website design is user experience.

Is your site navigation obvious? Can information be easily accessed? Do customers enjoy interacting with your brand? These are the questions that any good designer will ask themselves when trying to optimise user experience.

As we mentioned earlier, for your website to be a hit among your users, you need to think about things from their perspective.

The ultimate goal is to create harmony between what your objectives are as a business and what your users want and expect from you as a brand.

UX is central to the image your brand projects to your customers. The experience that visitors have with your site will define how they perceive you.

So where does WordPress fit into all of this?

WordPress gives designers the tools they need to create a customised and meaningful experience for users. It allows them to marry compelling content with a logical layout to foster a positive experience with users; one that’s immersive, enjoyable and underpinned by genuine connection.

Here are a few examples of many, many WordPress plugins that will help you monitor, analyse and optimise UX:

  • Hotjar: observe and analyse the way users interact with your website’s content. This plugin tracks everything from session times to page scroll length to give you an insight into how your content is performing.
  • WP Touch: with the majority of internet traffic generated by mobiles, it’s imperative your website is optimised for handheld devices. This plugin improves the responsiveness and performance of your website on mobile screens without compromising on look and feel or the load time.
  • Broken Link Checker: we’ve all experienced the frustration of clicking a link and running into a 404 error. It damages our user experience and puts us off from interacting with that brand again. This plugin helps you identify which links are broken so you can fix them quickly.
  • Yoast SEO: in the era of digital marketing every website needs a focused SEO strategy. By updating the meta description, keyword focus and supplying additional information on the content you’ve published, you can ensure on-site performance is optimised and user friendly.
  • Paldesk: to generate more leads and improve your brand’s reputation among customers, it’s important for your brand to be responsive to the needs of customers. Paldesk allows you to add a widget to your site, giving users access to a live chat function so they can get answers to the queries they have instantly.

Looking to make your website’s design standout from the competition?

We hear you. At 6B, we have a dedicated team of WordPress professionals who have helped build and design everything from small blogs to high traffic ecommerce sites.

Speak to our WordPress team today

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