Are you about to start building a WordPress website?

WordPress is an amazing tool to help you build a great-looking and functional website. But that doesn’t mean you can be lazy with your WordPress development. To get the best results you need to be smart with your WordPress design, and play to its strengths.

Read on for our guide on 7 important factors to consider when designing a WordPress website.

1. Choose a Domain Name

You need to work out what domain name your website will have. It needs to be easy to read, uncomplicated, and have a good flow.

When you’re picking your domain name, make sure to check you’ve written in well, with no errors. You want a name that you can adjust and develop along with your business. One that fits your brand image. But it needs to be easy to remember.

A web development company can help you find the right domain name to fit with your business site. If you’re uncertain, hiring their expertise will get you the best results.

2. Pick Your WordPress Theme

One of the biggest benefits of WordPress is access to themes. WordPress themes cater to a variety of different websites. The theme you pick should work for the type of website you have, and the content it contains.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to shoehorn your site into the theme you choose. Each one has tons of customization options to make your website unique and your own.

You also want to make sure the theme you choose runs well on all devices. Some WordPress themes can slow down loading times, which will only frustrate users.

With customers waiting less than 10 seconds for a page to load, you can’t afford any delay. Even Google ranks faster loading websites higher in its search pages!

3. Know How Theme, Core & Plugin Updates Work

It can be difficult to keep up with the amount of WordPress Theme, Core, and Plugin updates. Especially if you’re not in the habit of logging into the website dashboard much.

You won’t get much (if any) notice when an update comes out. Without them though, you can miss new features and bug patches. You may also expose your site to security risks too.

When you pick your host, make sure they let you run updates via the WordPress dashboard. In an ideal world, you won’t have to connect through FTP either. With this, updating will be quick and easy.

If you can, it’s better to pick a managed WordPress hosting provider. You can check if they offer automatic updates. Not only will this save you time and effort, but it also’s peace of mind your site is always up-to-date.

4. Build For SEO

In this digital world, you want to use SEO (Search Engine Optimization). It’s how you’re going to rank higher on search engines and keep driving traffic and leads.

Picking an SEO-optimized theme will make optimizing your site easier. So make sure your theme allows you to do this. No matter how pretty and sleek your site is, it’s useless if no one can find it.

For those who are unfamiliar with it, you optimize your web content to appear as high up as you can. It makes use of relevant keywords your customers are likely to search for.

It’s a lot more complicated and involved than that though. For the best results, you need to put in keyword research. You want keywords or phrases your audience will use, but that isn’t high-competition.

5. Optimize For Social Media

WordPress lets you use plugins that make it easier for you to share your website on social media. Even if you don’t like Twitter or Facebook, you should consider using these.

It’s one of the first places people look when they want to contact a company. It’s also one of the first places they’ll go to share content or products/services they enjoy. Consider it free advertising!

Some social media plugins to consider are Subscribe to Comments and Share Bar. Give them a look and see which might work best for your needs. If you’re not sure, it’s always best to call in a website designer to get that stylish, functional site of your dreams.

6. Quality Before Quantity

Quality should come before quantity, for a WordPress site (and for SEO and blogging in general). You don’t have to publish something new every day and you don’t need to shove all the bells and whistles on one page.

If you do, you run the risk of coming across as cluttered and amateurish. Publishing content once a week or once a month is the way to go. It gives you time to focus on producing a quality piece and promoting it well.

Google doesn’t tolerate sites that push out high volumes of bad articles. Neither should you. Think about the sort of content you’d prefer to read when you’re browsing the internet for help.

Focus on quality pieces that bring value to your reader (practical or entertainment). They should gather attention and backlinks, and set you apart from the competition. Let them boost your authority, and raise the value of your website.

7. Focus on Link Building

As we stated above, link building will boost your brand authority on the internet. You must put time and effort into setting up appropriate conditions. This is where you link your content with other authority sources.

Your content should be industry-relevant and high-quality. It should provide a helpful, engaging experience for users; it should serve a purpose for them.

Then use your social media platforms to promote this content and spread it. This can be enough to get you some useful links. But you should also network and build relationships with other companies. Exchange links with them, they link to you and you link to them in some of your content.

People and other companies will start to think you’re an industry authority. You’re someone to trust, who provides material that’s useful and provides a service. It can increase content sharing rates, and in turn, drive up traffic and leads.

Designing a WordPress Website That Works

Anyone can put together a quick WordPress website. But designing a WordPress website that shows off the best of your business isn’t so easy. By following these 7 tips, you should be well on your way to making a great site.

If you want your website to be the best it can be, then contact us today at Surfaced Media. We can help your business succeed by creating a website that resonates with your target audience. Remember, your website deserves to be outstanding, not out standing with the rest of the herd.