WordPress is the best content management system for most website owners these days. It has a huge community with great plugins and themes.
There are also tons of WordPress migration services on the market for those who are eager to move to the well-known CMS. So, you can use them to move to WordPress and then proceed to build an effective site.
In this article, we will show you the step-by-step guide on how to optimize your WordPress website, which includes choosing a theme, creating a site map, structuring your pages for optimal search engine visibility, and more.
1. Simple design
Optimizing a website is about a lot more than just picking a theme and a few plugins. If you’re going to be building a website for yourself or a client, it’s imperative that the site loads quickly and that there are no barriers to accessing it.
A common WordPress UX design mistake that users make is overloading their home page and other crucial pages with loads of content and info.
Why is this bad for UX? It confuses the site visitors. It is thus crucial to have a simple yet functional design for UX.
A great example of a WordPress website with a modern and straightforward design is Ceremony Coffee Roasters, a site that sells coffee products.
Notice the use of white space with bold, colorful images. The images are the focal points. Their design is minimalistic, yet it does the job well.
2. Implement a visual hierarchy and typography
When you implement visual hierarchies and typographies, your visitors can grasp your site’s navigation structure at a glance. They will be able to easily find the info and sections they are searching for and make your site look more organized.
To do this, place each element carefully. Also, consider the size, font, and color.
An excellent tip to follow is highlighting the crucial elements of the navigation by placing them in strategic positions.
Also, implement subheadings to draw the focus of your users’ attention to essential sections all through your content.
The important elements on your site should be easy to find and be prominent from the rest of your content.
If you look at Google Drive, there are a lot of elements in its navigation. However, you can easily distinguish them.
Another example you can take is the site for former President Obama’s non-profit organization. It is a modern design that complements the foundation’s vision and mission. The designer has used large fonts, Maintree for paras, and Gotham SSM for headings.
3. Improved navigation
One of the first things that users notice on your website is the navigation menu. And the navigation menu is a main component of the Unit Interface.
It is especially important to have a mobile-responsive navigation menu if you are running an e-commerce store. Consumers expect it from you.
See that your mobile site’s navigation bar is simple. When you provide unnecessary options, the experience will become only complicated.
It is also necessary to have a site search and make it frictionless. As per stats, 68% of shoppers said they would not return to a site that offered a poor search experience.
Remember, visitors who use search usually intend to purchase or act.
In the example below, Airbnb has brilliantly highlighted the search function in their navigation menu. If you visit their homepage, the first element to load is the search bar.
And since it is prominently presented at the top of the screen, it entices visitors to interact with it.
Also, consider creating separate site navigation menus for different audiences.
For instance, The Muse has two groups of audiences- job-seekers and employers.
The first four white-colored links in the navigation bar at the top are intended for job-seekers. The fifth navigation bar redirects companies to their own section. Also, notice the use of the gray-colored link to differentiate it from the others.
4. Speed up your site
If your site takes more than 4 seconds to load, you are going to lose your visitors. And one-second delay in loading your site can reduce customer satisfaction by 16%.
Make sure that your website loads faster by using a good hosting service, installing a caching plugin, optimizing your site’s theme, coding, images, and framework.
You can use image compression plugins such as SmushIt and ShortPixel for optimizing images.
Also, get rid of plugins that you no longer use. And useContent Delivery Network (CDN) Services such as Cloudflare to increase page speed. It can expand site accessibility and decrease loading time. It will even beef up security.
5. Allow social sharing
Users will want to share your site content on their social platforms and networks. They will also love to follow you or like your posts.
So making your content easily shareable is crucial. To increase social sharing, make the icons visible and place them somewhere where the users expect them.
For instance, the header space is where you usually see the social share buttons. You can also place it near the navigation bar, in the sidebar, or at the top or bottom of a post where users expect them.
Also, consider adding social sharing buttons within your content:
When you are reading an article on a site with this feature enabled and you highlight specific sections, a social sharing bar usually pops up.
It lets readers not just share the entire article but also specific sections of the article that they like.
WordPress social media plugins such as Novashare and Social Snap can help you create social share buttons.
Wrap-Up
Optimizing your website with WordPress is necessary to get better search engine rankings. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing your organic traffic by changes to the unique content, backlinks, and website itself. There are many ways to optimize a WordPress website. You can optimize your content with keywords, make use of social media channels, optimize for specific keywords, improve load times, and more.
This article covered some of the best ways to optimize your WordPress site to get maximum traction. Follow and implement them to accrue the best results.
Author Bio:
Lucy is a creative content writer and strategist at Marketing Digest. She specializes in writing about digital marketing, technology, entrepreneurship, and education. When she is not writing or editing, she spends time reading books, cooking and traveling.