WordPress Tips

Web design means much more than aesthetic considerations. When planning your website’s design with your WordPress website developer, you need to take several factors into consideration, including navigation, branding, and ease of use.

If you focus on each element, you will have a website that’s a pleasure to look at and a pleasure to use. That last element is essential because usability is a deciding factor when it comes to keeping visitors engaged and coming back to your site.

Let’s take a look at some of NOYO Web Development’s best tips for WordPress design, in addition to best practices for you to keep in mind the next time you’re working on a new project or updating your site.

What Are WordPress Web Design Best Practices?

Each website is unique in its functionality and design. Still, there are key best practices that can help you work with your WordPress developer to create a site that looks and functions better than most other sites online. These practices apply to all types of projects, and keeping them front and forward will help deliver the best website for your business.

• User experience. The user experience encompasses everything visitors do on your website and helps to determine how positive their interactions are. Design plays a significant role in helping you create websites that are a pleasure to use.
• Visual layout and branding. Your site’s layout should be designed to lead users to the content they want to see. Throughout, you can also use branding elements to create a coherent style.
• Ease of use. Ideally, visitors should never feel at a loss when it comes to how to interact with your website or find what they’re looking for. That’s something you can accomplish by understanding who your audience is, and designing with their needs in mind.

These are all high-level concepts that are easy to understand. However, it takes a skillful WordPress website developer to put them into practice. With that in mind, let’s move on to some actionable tips you can use to elevate your WordPress site’s design.

WordPress Website Layout Best Practices

Websites need to be aesthetically pleasing. However, it’s also important to think of your site’s layout as an element you can use to increase accessibility. Some techniques that can help you achieve that include:

• Contrast. You can use color and contrast to further highlight critical elements, such as Calls to Action (CTAs) and individual sections.
• Typography and Font. Text is the primary way through which we interact with the web, so your choice of fonts is critical for a strong user experience. The easier the fonts are to read, the better the experience will typically be.
• Symmetry. The more symmetrical your website’s layout is, the better it will look across a broad variety of devices, regardless of their size.
• Negative space. Proper use of negative space can make your website feel less cluttered, and helps you highlight the elements or content you want to lead users towards.

These features are the fundamentals of accessible website layout design. Let’s look at a few others.

Clean and Concise Menus

Navigation menus shouldn’t be hard to navigate. As a rule of thumb, you want to minimize the number of elements on your menu, so everything is as easy to find as possible. The only exception to that rule is if you’re operating a highly complex website, such as a large online store. In that case, a ‘mega’ menu can provide enough value to justify its bigger footprint.

Clean and Concise Descriptions

Although it’s important to keep your navigation menu concise, don’t short-change clarity. Ideally, visitors should know precisely where each link will lead them at a quick glance. With most menus, each link should be only one or two words at most. For example, including an About or About Us link conveys the message clearly. Other common menu items include Shop, Contact Us, and so on.

Include a Search Bar

Unless your website is one page, it makes sense to include a search bar. It’s an element that doesn’t take up much space, and it adds a huge amount of functionality to your website:

NOYO Web Development has decades of combined experience with creating WordPress websites. Contact us today for a free consultation and to learn how we can help your business with an aesthetically pleasing and highly functional website.