Building a custom WordPress website is a great way to express yourself creatively while adding another stream of revenue to your income or boosting the performance of an existing business.

That said, there are almost 2 billion websites in existence across the web, so it’s important to know what you’re doing before you start if you want to create a successful site. Regardless of your chosen niche, you’re going to have a lot of competition!

To help you in this endeavor, we’ve created a complete guide to designing the ultimate WordPress website. By following these steps, your website will have a healthy following in no time. 

Keep reading to learn more!

Choose a Web Host

Before you can begin building your website, you need to choose a web hosting service, as WordPress is simply a content management system, it doesn’t host websites.

As long as your chosen service meets the minimum hosting requirements set by WordPress, you can use any web hosting provider you like. That said, WordPress recommends the use of one of the following: Bluehost, DreamHost, and SiteGround.

When you’ve chosen your company, you’ll need to pick a plan. This will depend on the level of resources your site will require. If you’re unsure, go smaller rather than larger. You can always upgrade down the road if you need to.

Pick a Theme

Once you have your WordPress and hosting accounts and thus have access to the backend of your website, you’re ready to start building. The first step you’ll need to take is to pick a theme. There are thousands upon thousands of themes to choose from, and it’s an important decision, so take your time making it.

Start by narrowing down the selection of themes by the type of website you have. If you’re building an e-commerce website, the theme you need will be much different than someone running a blog.

Pro tip: always browse the live demos of potential themes. Your finished website probably won’t be exactly like the demo, but you can get a good idea of how that specific theme looks and functions.

Install Your Plugins

When making a custom WordPress website, your theme is just the jumping-off point. You’ll make tweaks here and there to make the theme suit your style and install plugins to enhance both your experience and your users’. 

Now, like themes, there are a wide variety of plugins to choose from, and you don’t want to overdo it. You can do a lot with your site without them, you can even create a WordPress redirect page without plugin.

Bogging your site down with too many plugins can negatively affect its speed and even put your security at risk.

Instead, only install plugins that you think will truly benefit you and your users. And when making your selections, remember that plugins are only vetted for security, not quality. Check out the reviews of each plugin before you download it.

The two plugins you absolutely have to have are an SEO plugin and an analytics plugin.

Benefits of an SEO Plugin

Without a solid SEO strategy, you can’t hope to have a successful website. That said, SEO can be a bit overwhelming when you’re first starting out, so a plugin to help optimize your site can be a lifesaver.

Yoast SEO, for example, will analyze your keywords and content and give you a report at the end of each post, making suggestions for improvement. This SEO plugin also helps with more technical processes such as managing sitemaps and robots.txt files.

Benefits of an Analytics Plugin

In order to track the performance and growth of your website, you need access to analytics. WordPress offers certain performance metrics, but they’re often inaccurate, not to mention they aren’t detailed enough to be very helpful.

Your best bet is to install a Google Analytics plugin. This plugin will give you insight into how visitors use your site, which posts and pages are most popular, and how long the average user spends on each.

The best part about this plugin is that you’ll be able to see all of this information right from your dashboard! You won’t have to switch between websites and services to get the full picture.

Keep Your Site Safe

After all the time and hard work it took to build your own WordPress website, the last thing you want to happen is for it to fall into the hands of hackers and bugs. Because WordPress is such a popular platform, it’s a common target for hackers.

One of the best, and simplest, things you can do for your website is to keep it updated. Whenever a new version of WordPress or your specific theme comes out, download it immediately. It can be helpful to give WordPress permission to install them automatically.

You also need to get an SSL certificate. This is included free with most hosting services, all you have to do is opt-in. An SSL certificate will encrypt all of the information on your site, including your and your users’ data.

In addition, take care to make frequent backups of your site. If something happens to your website, you’ll be able to download the latest backup instead of starting over from the beginning.

Start Building Your Custom WordPress Website Today

Building a custom WordPress website can feel complicated, but by knowing the basics, you can focus less on the initial setup and more on the creative (and fun) aspect of web design.

Use this guide to get your site started, then get to work customizing a WordPress template to make it your own. Before you know it, you’ll have a beautiful, thriving website that you can be proud of.

For more web design tips and tricks, take a look at our blog!

The internet is one of the most powerful tools business owners have at their disposal. It makes getting your company in front of prospective clients and customers easier and gives you a way to market your brand to a wider audience.

Believe it or not, more than 65 percent of people believe that the internet is the best place to find information about companies and businesses.

To make the most of this tool, you’ll need a great website in place. Though it’s possible to design the site on your own, doing so isn’t always the best idea.

Here are a few key benefits of investing in professional web design for your company’s website.

1. Professional Web Design Inspires Confidence

One of the biggest challenges for any business is inspiring customer loyalty and confidence in your brand. When you’re new to the industry, you need to create an image that makes your company look professional, knowledgeable, and better than the competition.

If your website is overly simple or uses a theme that countless other businesses already use, customers won’t be as likely to work with you.

Why? Because your brand doesn’t stand out as a trustworthy provider. Instead, you blend in with others and fail to communicate just how unique your company is.

By investing in professional website design, you’ll immediately inspire confidence in both current and prospective customers. Remember, your website is your best chance to make a great first impression. A professional website design will do just that.

2. It Keeps Your Company Competitive

Like it or not, the internet opens businesses up to more competition both locally and across the country. This means your website needs to always look its best and attract the type of attention you want your business to get.

When you handle your own website design, you’ll find it harder to keep up with your most successful competitors.

They’ve likely invested in professional design and take the time to make updates to their websites often. When you’re on your own, keeping up with those changes or implementing them first won’t be easy.

Professional design experts can create a website that rivals your competitors’ and makes it easy for you to maintain your edge over time.

3. Great Designs Save You Money in the Long Run

Believe it or not, working with a web design company can often save you money compared to managing everything on your own. Think of it this way: when you design a website without a professional designer, you’ll sacrifice your time to the process.

At best, it will take a few days to get everything up and running. At worst, it can take months of trial and error to get things right.

That’s time you’re not able to spend doing your job and earning the money you need to keep the business afloat.

With the help of a professional web design company, the site will be up and running fast. You’ll be able to focus on keeping the business running smoothly and efficiently without sacrificing the quality of your website.

4. Pros Can Optimize Your Site for Search Engines

Search engines work to help people searching online find businesses and service providers that meet their needs. A well-designed website is the best way to attract positive attention from those search engines.

It needs to be responsive, have features that search engines can read, and content that shows the search engines what the business is all about. The more optimized it is, the more traffic the site will get and the more business you’ll receive.

Unfortunately, optimizing websites for search engines while also making a good impression on prospective customers isn’t as simple as you might think. Trying to handle it yourself is the easiest way to send your site to the bottom of the search engine’s result page.

Professionals can optimize the site quickly so it’s ready for both customers and search engines as soon as it goes live.

5. Mobile Responsiveness Is a Must

More people rely on mobile devices to connect to the internet than any other method. In fact, by 2025, an estimated 72 percent of people will use only their mobile devices to access the internet.

Unfortunately, many standard website designs get built for computers, not tablets and smartphones. This means the websites won’t look as good and may not display information correctly.

When you work with a professional, mobile-responsive designs are much easier to put in place. In fact, many designers include the service as part of their normal website build.

This saves you from having to create two distinct website designs. Even better, it spares you from learning the nuances of transitioning from standard computer layouts to mobile-friendly versions.

6. Future Updates Will Be Easy to Make

Those free website design templates are incredibly simple and basic. This is great if you’re designing the site on your own. However, they make future updates incredibly tough to implement.

One of the key advantages of a website built by a professional is that they’re designed with future updates in mind. Making changes to the layout, content, and even the color scheme is easy and fast.

Many business owners will find those changes easy to implement themselves. However, if you need help, your website designer will be able to make the necessary updates for you.

See These Professional Web Design Benefits for Yourself

Though it’s possible to build a website on your own, it’s not always in the best interest of your business. Investing in professional web design is one of the best things you can do.

Once the site is live, you’ll see these benefits almost immediately.

Just remember to take your time and find a design expert that you trust. Look at examples of their previous work and don’t hesitate to ask for references to see what other clients thought of their services.

For more helpful tips to make taking your business online as simple as possible, check out our latest posts.

Having bad credit interferes with your ability to get loans and can have other negative consequences. If you’re unsure if you have bad credit, you might have some questions about good credit vs bad credit.

What is good credit? What is bad credit? If these are questions you have, you’re in the right place.

Here is an explanation of the differences between good credit and bad credit. This guide can also help you learn the factors that determine your credit score.

Most Companies Use Similar Models

When it comes to good credit vs. bad credit, most companies use similar models. The models range from 300 to 850, which 850 representing perfect credit. Few people have perfect credit, but many people have good credit.

Scores that fall under 670 fall into the categories of fair or poor. With a score under 670, you might qualify for loans, or you might not. It depends on the lender and the loan type.

If you have a score of over 670, lenders might view you as a person with a good score. Good credit scores make getting loans easier, while bad credit scores create challenges with getting loans.

If you have a score of 800 or above, lenders view you as a person with perfect credit. Getting a loan is a breeze for a person with a score this high.

Why Good Credit vs Bad Credit Matters

Now that you can see the differences in credit scores and their labels, you might wonder why this matters. Why does credit play such a significant role in the loan process?

The primary reason that lenders care about credit scores is that they closely relate to a person’s creditworthiness. People with excellent credit scores work hard to have these scores. They are reliable, and lenders can trust them.

When a person’s credit score is poor, it represents significant risks to the lender. A person with a low score might have trouble repaying money they borrow, and lenders consider this when reviewing loan applications.

The good news is that you can borrow money even with a poor credit score. You might have to start by taking a no-credit score loan, such as a payday loan, but at least it offers a way to borrow money.

When borrowing money, it might help to review your options before taking one. Compare the choices you have, and pick the best one.

The Top Factors That Affect Credit Scores

After learning your credit score, you might be interested in finding ways to improve it. One of the best tips for building credit scores is to learn the factors that affect them.

One factor is your payment history. Making on-time payments helps you build your score. Another factor is the credit utilization rate, which refers to how much credit you use compared to the amount you have access to on your credit cards.

Learn More About Credit Scores

Getting approved for a loan depends on your credit score. Now that you know the differences between good credit vs bad credit, are you ready to apply for a loan? If not, you might want to find ways to improve your score first.

If you enjoyed learning about credit scores, you might enjoy other helpful articles on our blog!

Web design for an automotive website is a tad challenging. On the one hand, you don’t want it to seem like any other automotive website, but on the other hand, you may not be such a creative. You can always create a dull and tasteless website, but it won’t do much to attract prospective customers.

The automotive business is more than just about selling cars. Some automotive enterprises sell parts, while others specialize in repairs, bodywork, or accessories. Regardless of your website niche, proper web design could be just what you need to take your website to the next level.

However, for most business owners who only know a smattering of IT, getting the best automotive web design is easier said than done. Fortunately, you don’t have to be a computer guru to have the best design for your automotive business.  That’s because you’ll most likely outsource the web design to a third-party company.

For the greatest effect, you’ll have to be very involved in the web design process. Your input will be crucial in creating a web design that appeals to your specific demographic. This post will highlight a few incredible designs you should consider for your automotive site.

1. Minimalism 

Minimalism is a great approach for an automotive site, especially if you’ve clamped down on the site’s objective. Minimalism stays away from the rather aggressive outlook of most automotive sites and instead adopts a more collected approach. This design is great for marketing family cars or attracting a rather chic demographic.

A minimalist design is not only pleasant to look at, but also makes for a seamless website. With only the basics in place, loading times will be lightning fast. If you’re for the minimalist design, you could try eliminating the following.

Sidebars – Only old-fashioned websites still have sidebars in this new decade. Start by getting rid of the sidebars for a smoother and better-looking website.

Menu items – This isn’t to say that you should eliminate the menu in its entirety. All this means is that you should whittle down your menu to only the essentials.

Stock photos – Similarly, you don’t want excess stock photos muddying up your website. Only use a few relevant photos.

Doing so will help you inch closer to a minimalist design for your website. However, before you embrace such a design, make sure you have your automotive site’s objective on lock. It’s way easier to come up with a minimalist design if you do so.

2. Consider the One-Page Design

The one-page design is just as the name suggests. Every web page consists of a single page containing all the information that you keep scrolling down. It’s the opposite of the fold design, where all relevant information is at the top of the page.

The fold is a great design, but not many users will scroll to the next page since everything they need is at the top of the first page. However,  with the one-page design, visitors are more likely to scroll down to the bottom of the page. When Newegg adopted the one-page design, it led to a 30% increase in conversion.

Instead of the user going through several pages, confine them to a single page. You’d be surprised how something so little could boost your numbers, especially for automotive ecommerce.

3. Don’t Neglect Your Mobile Site

Folks spend, on average, about three hours and fifteen minutes on their phones every day. That’s why you should never overlook mobile devices during your web designing. In fact, designing for mobile devices is a great place to start your web design.

Having an incredible mobile design is a great way to capture a huge demographic of mobile users. Plus, Google announced the mobile-first index for search engine rankings. That means Google will prioritize sites with mobile websites in their SERP ranking.

However, you need a smooth and seamless mobile site to rank high on search engine results pages. So pay as much attention to your mobile site as you would to your desktop site.

4. Be Sharp With Your Content Formatting

Content is what sells your website and, by extension, your products, and services. As such, it’s essential to be sharp on how you format your content. Remember, ultimately, your site content is what your visitors come to see when they visit your automotive site. 

You’d think content formatting would be a walk in the park for anyone who has ever used a word processor. However, web content formatting isn’t like your word processor formatting. For proper web formatting, you’ll have to place yourself in the shoes of your visitors.

The mistake most people make with web content is oversaturating their sites. While you want to give your visitors all that you can, overdoing it is a no-no. Most users find oversaturated content a bit overwhelming.

For precise content formatting, make sure you use the following.

Headings – Headings are a great way to structure your website and make it easier for your web users to read through your content. They are great anchor points for scanning through the website and focusing on the main points.

Paragraphs – paragraphs hep break down your content into small readable chunks and are also great for visual appeal.  Don’t have a large blob of text, instead break it down into paragraphs.

Tweak your fonts – Get a little creative with your fonts to stand out from the pack. However, don’t do anything unorthodox, or it will look plain weird.

Work with your web designer for the best content formatting options. Also, do your best to switch it up once in a while to avoid having a stale website.

You Need a Standout Automotive Website

Having an amazing automotive website may be just what you need to take your automotive business to the next level. With the above tips, doing so should be a walk in the park. Remember, you’re never too good for professional help, especially if you’re in a very competitive niche.

Automotive sites aren’t our only area of specialization. For more informative reads, be sure to check out the other pieces on the site.