DESIGNING A WORDPRESS Different parts and processes make some WordPress create way more reliable, more straightforward, and more effective. But the odd point is that, as it turns out, putting a great WordPress site collectively isn’t that difficult once you know and experience one of the working processes.
So what I need to show you today is one of those processes – the approach you can take to create a great WordPress site from top to bottom and in a way that your clients will love.
Step #1: Steal! DESIGNING A WORDPRESS
Yep, steal as intake stuff.
How material, I suggest plans.
Word. Don’t always steal the results of anyone’s work, including code, graphics, brand identity, names, stuff like that.
Repeat. This is about stealing ideas only. And even though you force is kind of “I don’t know” about this, let me say that stealing ideas is the most common design use of them all.
Step #2: Lay the groundwork first DESIGNING A WORDPRESS
So step #2 regularly gets sure that you understand what the customer needs to complete with their site.
(Or what you want to succeed with the site if you’re creating it for yourself. The advice involves just as much if you’re your client.)
Once you understand what you need to achieve (which should be just one main idea and not 5-10 many things, by the way), then you can proceed to create the whole site around it.
Step #3: Get the right set of tools DESIGNING A WORDPRESS
I suppose you’re not hither for the public, so let’s leave the necessary tools out of this talk (like Dropbox, Google Drive, Photoshop, etc.).
Instead, I need to show you a different set – tools that are not that well understood yet, but they still deliver big time (!) and make every WordPress designer’s life easier.
Step #4: To design or to modify – that is the question
There are two main ways of building a WordPress site: You can either take a ready-made theme and modify it here and there (you can also change the PSD files – most pieces come with those), or you can build the actual structure from the ground up.
To cut the discussion short, we’re fans of the former. If you take an existing theme or a theme framework, you get a lot of functionality out of the box. And that’s functionality that’s been tested by other people and proven to work correctly.
Apart from that, you often get support, and even if there’s no support, you at least get a community forum of some kind. In other words, there’s always someone you can ask for help in the case of any difficulties. Not the position when creating your design from scratch.
Step #5: Get some non-obvious plugins on it
The central purpose we’re working for in this example is to make a site created fast and in a way that customers are completely in love with it.
So the plugins we want have to be starting us towards this goal.
Repeat, I’m working to save you all the simple plugins you now know, like WordPress SEO. Instead, let’s focus on the less obvious ones, yet still crucial for your clients.
Step #6: Help with content creation
If it’s your site that you’re creating, then this step is rather obvious. On the opposite hand, if it’s a site for a client, you should still step in and give your help with designing the original content and maybe even providing some ongoing deal around it.
Leaving the client back right after they pay you for the site is a simple mistake among designers. And it has a meaningful influence on your future earnings.
In the worst-case scenario, if the client leaves with their site because they couldn’t think out what to write about and publish it, they will sure as hell not get back for more of your services.
Your service to act!
Outside of all the steps explained above, I’d say that the last one has the most significant impact on your client’s level of comfort in the long run.
I expect, even if you mess up the site, to stay in touch and do everything you can do to fix it, provide tips, information, and so on, then the client is still expected to come back.