20 WordPress Website Design Tips

Despite its simplicity and ease of use, WordPress may be difficult to master if you don't use it often or are just getting started. Therefore, we asked the WordPress professionals at Prateeksha Web Design for their favourite fundamental tips and tactics for designers.

To keep your WordPress site from losing visitors, here are 20 web design hints to keep in mind.

1. Website Performance - Speed

According to studies, a website that takes more than two seconds to load typically loses approximately 50% of visitors. Therefore, to retain around half of your visitors' interest, you should optimise your WordPress.

Search engines (such as Google) give faster-loading websites a better rankings than those that take longer to load. Consequently, if you want to improve your rating in the SERPs, one of your primary goals should be to increase your site's speed.

We can solve this and improve website performance by following a few steps. For starters, please test your website for load time. The following three tools are widely used throughout the web to test the performance of a website: gtmetrix.com, Tools.Pingdom.com, and PageSpeed Insights (From Google)

Bear in mind that the speed may vary from page to page due to a variety of factors such as size of that specific page, the number of queries it produces, static (CSS, JS, and Images), or dynamic elements (PHP).

A website's homepage is typically used as a benchmark to measure load time. You may make your website run better by using the following recommendations.

1. Select a superior web host like LiquidWeb or
2. Install a Plugin for Caching. Make use of caching plugins with sophisticated methods for caching. e.g. Wp_Rocket, SuperCache etc.
3. Theme or foundation for WordPress should be lightweight. Like Kadence Theme
4. Reduce the size of the images. Use TinyPNG
5. Use Webp format for images.
6. JS and CSS files should be compressed/minified to reduce load time. Though not important you must enable zip compress at the server level.
7. Do not hesitate to use a Content Delivery Network (CDN)
8. GZIP compression should be enabled on the server to reduce file size.
9. Remove all additional unrequired data from WordPress's database
10. Remove Plugins that are not used or unrequired.
11. Limit the use of external scripts as much as possible.
12. Remove the functionality of pingbacks and trackbacks

The most important benefit of shortening the time it takes for your website to load is that it will substantially improve the experience your visitors have on your site. It makes no difference whether they are using mobile devices or laptops; the scenario is the same.

Furthermore, it will help you to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). Lowering your bandwidth usage on your hosting server and reducing site loading speeds on the client-side, as a result, may only be beneficial to you in the short and long term, respectively

2. Page Builder - Elementor or Gutenberg

If you're looking for a highly feature-rich Page Builder Plugin, check out Elementor. There are several functionalities and customization options in Elementor that make it easy to construct home and header/footer pages as well as other basic pages.

However, Gutenberg beats Elementor in terms of performance when it comes to creating blog posts. Simple and easy to use are two words that describe the Gutenberg blog editor. Uploading files and images, choosing the heading type, and formatting content are all straightforward with keyboard shortcuts on this platform, making it ideal for writers. You don't have to move between the toolbox and the editor while writing a blog post in Gutenberg.

As with any other website that necessitates a great deal of design effort, Elementor treats blogs in the same manner. Blog sites, on the other hand, are largely content-driven rather than well-designed. Gutenberg excels in this particular area of website development. It treats the blog page with the respect that it deserves.

To summarise, when it comes to blogging or building blog pages, the Gutenberg page builder is the best option. For the remainder of your website, go with Elementor because it's more feature-rich and user-friendly. This judgment may be reversed within months after its publication due to Gutenberg's quick advancement.

While the new Gutenberg block editor adds visual design choices and supports drag-and-drop editing, it is not yet a complete replacement for page builder plugins. Consequently, the inclusion of a tool will continue to help many people.

While the Gutenberg block editor is an excellent option for basic text and layouts, if you want exact control over your designs' style and spacing, you're better off using a page builder such as Elementor or Divi Builder.

3. Custom Theme

WordPress provides a plethora of themes from which to choose while building your website. Changing the style of your WordPress site does not need any content reformatting or reloading, as WordPress separates the design from the content.

Changing your website's theme gives your entire site a fresh new look. A large number of pre-made themes are available for you to select from. While this is true, not every theme is created equal. Certain themes, particularly free ones, include a large amount of unnecessary code, which causes the website to load slowly.

While making your pick, look for a WordPress theme that is optimized for speed. Even though your site will not look amazing, this does not mean that you cannot find a theme with a layout you like that is also performance-optimized.

Alternatively, you may commission a custom website design. As a consequence, you'll have a unique site design that's also optimised for speed for the best user experience.

4. High-Resolution Images

Even if you've only been on the internet for a short time, most vintage stock pictures will be familiar. Designers seek images that evoke the brand's tone by finding the most recent and highest-quality photographs. Make certain that your images properly convey your message to ensure that your message has been successfully communicated.

But if your firm already has a library of aesthetically appealing and high-quality photos, those should be utilized instead of a stock photo. Incorporating a non-stock photograph of your organisation or service will help your site look more professional. You're sure to have never seen your company's image before if you compare it to a stock photo.

5. Good Design

There are a plethora of websites where you may get website templates or themes and customise them to your liking. The greatest designs and creative material may be found on websites that display them. Various businesses, like real estate, construction, and corporations, have their theme sites.

Choose a decent and professional design for yourself. When it comes to building a brand, design is very critical to success. Great design goes a long way in helping to establish a company's image and drive sales.

6. Page Width

The material you wish to display will determine your Page width. Pages can be Boxed or Full Width depending on your preferences. A sidebar menu will appear if you pick Full Width and have a lot of material.

If your page contains less material, adjust the page width to 1140px or 1300px, as appropriate. Always verify that the site is responsive to ensure that the information appears appropriately.

7. Unique Content

The value of being unique cannot be overstated. Google despises duplicated or plagiarised material. Google prefers unique content. Google rewards new material by ranking the website higher.

The term "Unique Content" refers to search engine optimization (SEO). This signifies that the substance is one-of-a-kind and has not been reproduced anywhere else on the planet. Unique content is critical for search rankings, as search engines place a premium on unique material and can punish websites that publish duplicate content.

While duplicate material can harm a website's search engine results, original content can help boost them. Indeed, it is necessary for achieving a high position in organic search results. Textbroker, for example, offers unique content writing services that assist businesses in creating high-quality, search-engine-optimized material.

8. Easy-to-Use, Mobile-Friendly Navigation

Most websites have a navigation menu at the top. The most typical navigation menu spans the top and includes links to "About Us," "Products," and "Contact." In many cases, these navigation menus contain sub-navigation menus that display when you hover your mouse over each link in the main navigation menu.

The most effective navigation is simple and uncluttered. Your navigational menu should lead users to the desired location, but it should also load fast and operate on mobile devices. Additionally, you should avoid overwhelming the user with too many choices as they navigate through your navigation.

However, certain companies, such as an online shop, require a high volume of navigational information, as there are often several product categories with sub-menus. The ideal practice is to arrange it such that it is easily viewable on both desktop and mobile.

9. Unique and Creative Icons

Icons contribute significantly to the presentation of information and the creation of an appealing design. A good design would constantly incorporate attractive and colourful symbols into the content.

For a digital brand, you or your designer must strike a balance between producing something aesthetically innovative and engaging and expressing everything necessary. To set the tone for your users' experience and allow them to absorb your brand's identity and ethos, icons and pictures go hand in hand with each other.

To make a digital design more visually appealing, you may use icons. If you're presenting a lot of information, infographics are a great way to split it up into a more digestible and interesting style. If you want to be successful, you'll need to think strategically.

10. Fonts and Typography

There are additional typeface options for your website with custom font packs like Google Fonts, but they are more expensive. When you use a custom font, your site will take longer to load because of the extra space they take up.

WordPress-powered sites that make extensive use of custom fonts have a 6 percent page weight increase. Custom fonts can be disabled to save 6 percent on page space and loading time.

11. Colours

When designing a website, selecting the appropriate colours is critical to the success of your endeavour. Your most potent weapon for eliciting an emotional response from your target audience may be the use of different colours. Your website's colours can be used to elicit emotional responses from visitors or to compel them to take action as a result of a call to action.

It has been shown that colour helps humans process and store pictures more quickly than monochromatic (black and white) visuals, which may assist improve brand awareness and inspire users on your website to take action. Color schemes have the potential to influence subconscious judgement, therefore your palette should not be at odds with your company's mission.

12. Add a favicon to your site

In the browser's address bar or on the tab itself, a favicon shows next to the URL as a little symbol (depending on your browser). There are many ways to make your or your client's website more unique, and this one may seem small.

13. Blog Section

A well-written blog that provides value to your readers and consumers establishes your authority as a knowledgeable source. You are more than simply a company offering a service or product when you write blogs about issues your readers will find both fascinating and helpful. It tells them that you care about disseminating important knowledge in your sector.

Blogging as a business is an excellent method to engage your audience directly. The comment area is a standard on most blogs. Encourage readers to provide feedback and ideas on your blogs. Make a direct question and pay attention to what your audience has to say. Remember that you'll never know when someone may come up with a brilliant concept for your company. Responding to their inquiries demonstrates your interest in their thoughts and humanises the business for them.

14. NAP

NAP (Name, Address, and Phone Number) is an abbreviation for Name, Address, and Phone Number. When deciding which businesses to promote for geo-targeted queries, search engines like Google use NAP when evaluating how highly a business will rank in local organic search results. To improve their local search ranks, what should companies do with their NAP?

To begin, check to see if your NAP is right on your website and elsewhere on the internet. Experts believe that Google and other search engines cross-reference your NAP information across several websites as proof that you are a legitimate business. So, for example, a "built for SEO spam site" (that is, one not affiliated with a legitimate business) is unlikely to disclose its actual location anywhere on the Internet, much less on sites like local directories, Yelp, or the Internet Yellow Pages. If you can build up a large number of "local citations" using consistent NAP information, that's a huge plus.

15. Accessibility

This will allow individuals with disabilities to have an enjoyable online experience and have easy access to the information you provide by making your website accessible. You're making the site more user-friendly for everyone by following accessibility guidelines. The following points should be taken into account while developing digital content:

1. Utilize other means to distinguish between various objects in addition to color-coding.
2. Whenever possible, the Alt text should be included in the markup/code for images to indicate what the image is about (perhaps as a caption or descriptive summaries built right into a neighbouring paragraph)
3. Access to a mouse and keyboard, as well as voice-control technologies, should be made available.
4. Transcripts for podcasts should be available.
5. It is mandatory to provide in-sync captioning for videos on your website if you have any.
6. On a website, there should be a means to navigate around the navigation bar.
7. You should think about 508 testing to make sure your site complies.

16. Mobile Responsive

Web design that responds to the size of the user's device is known as responsive web design (RWD). Unlike traditional, static websites, responsive websites vary their layout based on the size of the screen being used to view them.

Responsive web design is important since it provides a better surfing experience. It aids in expanding consumer and client reach via mobile devices (tablets & smartphones). A desktop (or laptop) browser, a tablet browser, and the mobile phone browser all operate fine with your website.

When you have a responsive design, you can be sure that your website will look great no matter what device someone is using. In addition, it's the most dependable.

As a bonus, having your site mobile-friendly can help you focus your content so that just the most important information is displayed to visitors on their mobile devices.

Because it's mobile-friendly, a responsive site design has gotten an algorithmic boost from Google. A mobile-friendly website will appear higher in search results than a one that is not.

17. Dropdown Menu

Drop-down menus are crucial for creating a clean design layout that allows for easy and obvious navigation around a website. It is important to be able to navigate around a website successfully. Visitors should be impressed with your blog, and they should remain on your site to check out all the delights you have available for them to peruse. One of the most efficient methods of doing this is to give excellent navigation that is straightforward to follow over the entirety of your website. Drop Down Menus are a simple and effective method of accomplishing this.

18. Plugins should be used sparingly.

Too many plugins slow down the loading speed and mobile experience of a WordPress site. Additionally, plugins might conflict with one another and produce additional problems. You should remove any plugins that you are not using and spend as much time as possible researching plugins that you wish to utilise. Other plugins are typically necessary to improve the security, search engine optimization, image optimization, and navigation of a website.

19. User Experience Testing should be carried out.

Are you aware of the places of friction on your WordPress website? What pages do you want users to be able to access from your home page?

Every website has a navigational path that users may follow. The material that appears "above the fold" is what the majority of visitors pay attention to first. In the center of the page, there is usually a navigation bar, a header picture, and a call-to-action button.&

Anyone who visits your website after seeing the primary header picture will have to scroll down, and while this is essential, you want to highlight your most important call to action as well as your most significant product in the area above the fold.

Consider whether there are any lost chances or places of friction that will cause a visitor to stop dead in their tracks. Do you, for example, have a mobile form that requires several entries and takes an eternity to complete on your phone?

Customers are unlikely to fill your form unless they believe they will receive anything of instant value in return for doing so.

To begin your test, visit your website from a desktop computer and a mobile device, respectively. What catches your attention the most? Do all of the pages load in a reasonable amount of time? Does every image appear to be loading? Is it possible to go to where you want to go when you click on a call-to-action button?

20. OnPage SEO.

Increasing your site's visibility in search engines like Google is primarily reliant on on-page SEO, which is a cornerstone of any efficient WordPress website design. It's a general word for a collection of tactics used to boost a website's exposure in search results by adapting its content and structure to the demands of crawlers. To begin, concentrate on incorporating your goal keywords into the title, header, and text of your website. This helps search engines recognise the significance of your content and also helps customers quickly grasp the topic matter of your website. Each page's title and meta description meta tags, which appear in search results and can significantly effect click-through rates, should be descriptive. Carefully crafted meta tags provide quick descriptions of your content and entice users to explore your site.

Furthermore, it is critical that your media files be optimised. Images should be compressed to optimise load times, and descriptive file names and alt tags should be utilised to help both search engines and visually impaired site users. Well-structured URLs with descriptive slugs are also beneficial to successful SEO. Internal linking between pages may improve the user experience as well as assist visitors and search engines explore your site's material more simply. A well-structured website not only aids in search engine optimisation, but it also makes it easier for users to navigate. It's not only about optimising your pages for search engines; it's also about making your site more valuable to humans. On-page SEO tools, which are a cornerstone of any smart WordPress website design strategy, work together to improve your website's search engine rankings and produce more organic visits.