WordPress Designer.

If you want a website that works hard, the best thing to do is avoid overdesign.

WordPress design is a stage of the project that everyone wants to get to – seeing what the shiny new site is going to look like is often seen as the most important part of the project, but it’s far too often treated as cake decoration.

Design is not going to answer the visitors’ questions; it’s going to confirm, in less than 300ms, that the website the visitor is looking at is:

• Professional
• Appropriate

Professional means that it doesn’t look sh*t. Appropriate means that it feels right for the type of service the visitor is looking for.

You can have your site designed however you like, but f*ck the two above points up and you’re putting lipstick on a pig.

There’s no quicker way to end up with a webshite.

Free and freemium themes can have you up and running in no time with a WordPress site that ‘looks’ great – the problem here is that many clients don’t understand that they are paying £1000s for something someone downloaded and coloured in.

If you are looking to commission an agency or freelancer to design and build a new WordPress site, make sure you are getting something designed rather than the creative simply picking a free theme and claiming they designed it.

This may sound daft, but I’ve spoken to so many clients who thought an agency had designed their site, only to have to tell them that it’s just a theme.

You don’t want your site to be some cookie-cutter job that looks pretty much the same as everyone else’s.

Themes and frameworks such as Avada and Genesis make it easy for rookie WordPress developers to install something that looks great.

The only thing is, it looks like 55,000 other sites on the internet.

Nothing is wrong with that, but don’t pay a premium. Always check the cost of the design stages of your WordPress project and what you will get for your money.

Bespoke is the best.

Branding is more important than ever, so if your brand is important to you, you need a unique design for your site.

Any WordPress project should have a design stage where you are shown sketches, visuals and design for your site before it suddenly appears online.

The design process for websites is much the same as for printed material, but there’s more to consider in terms of information architecture, user experience, responsiveness and so on.

At the very least, you should expect to see some initial concept designs (that don’t look like every other website the designer has produced).

The design stage of a WordPress project is often something people want to get to quickly.

It’s often the most anticipated part of the project, and everyone wants to see what their shiny new site is going to look like.

The WordPress design is important, but it’s just one part of the process.

The design of your WordPress site should be guided by research and planning before you dive into the creative work.

Everything about your website design needs to be visitor-focused. This means:

• Everything should be there for a reason
• You should look at all creativity from your visitor’s perspective
• Don’t obsess over ‘interactive’ aspects of your site unless that improves UX or conversions
• Don’t make it personal
• Trust your designers – they know what they are doing

Some clients I work with become too focused on that thing ‘that just has to be in the design’. Often, this can be a personal preference that has little to do with visitors or the site’s performance.

This is fair enough, creativity is subjective, but let’s make decisions on data, best practices, and the visitor rather than if you want a picture of your cat on the website.

Please don’t overdesign your website; that is not what your visitors want.

Trusting your designer can be difficult.

This is your brand, your website, and you’ll have your own ideas about what things should look like.

Your input is crucial to the project, but some of the best website designs come about because clients let the designers do what they do best.

It’s important to choose a WordPress designer who can do more than just make things look nice.

They should ask you questions about your business, the outcomes of the site and a whole heap of non-design-related stuff to help them put together the best design work for you.