WordPress is a standard platform used to build websites. We use WordPress to build and create and stunning websites for blogging, landing pages, portfolios and e-commerce stores. For those who don’t know, WordPress is a content management system that stands out from the crowd. It is a free, open-source web building platform, but you will need to pay for a domain name and hosting. We’ve been using WordPress for many years and recommend it highly to our customers. Approximately 40% of the world’s websites use WordPress and there are many good reasons for it.
Themes
There are literally thousands of themes in WordPress. These are basically templates that you use to build your website. They affect the look and feel of your site. If you’re a designer or photographer you would use a theme that showcases your work. If you’re a food blogger or fashion blogger you would use a theme that showcases your blogs. There are free and paid themes you can use. Keep in mind the paid themes usually offer better code and support than the unpaid ones.
Here are some paid themes we would recommend you use:
- Divi
- Elegant Themes
- ThemeIsle
SEO Friendly
WordPress is SEO friendly. There are plug-ins for SEO, such as Yoast and Rank Math. SEO is critical to your site because it helps your rankings on the internet, so users can find your website.
Plug-ins
WordPress is expandable. You can extend WordPress capabilities for any number of features from security to animation and literally everything in between with a host of plug-ins, some being free.
There is literally a plug-in for everything in WordPress. There are plug-ins to help with animation, security, image carousels and so many more. However, try not to use too many plugins as they can affect the loading time and speed of your site.
Some WordPress plugins we recommend are:
- WP Forms – WPForms Lite plugin is completely free. If you want to get extra features, you can pay for an upgraded license of WPForms. The Pro version is a perfect Typeform alternative and can be upgraded at very reasonable pricing to unlock more functionality.
- Smush – Lazy Load Images, Optimize & Compress Images. Optimize images, turn on lazy load, resize, compress & improve your Google Page Speed with the incredibly powerful and 100% free.
-
Slider, Gallery, and Carousel by MetaSlider – Responsive WordPress Slideshows. With MetaSlider you can create a powerful, SEO-optimized slider, slideshow, carousel, or gallery in minutes with the world’s #1 responsive WordPress slider plugin. MetaSlider is the best choice for image, photo, video (YouTube and Vimeo), layer, html, WooCommerce, and post feed sliders! There is a free and a paid pro version.
- Yoast SEO – Since 2008 Yoast SEO has helped millions of websites worldwide to rank higher in search engines. Yoast SEO Free contains everything that you need to manage your SEO, and the Yoast SEO Premium plugin and its extensions unlock even more tools and functionality.
- Elementor Pro – you can use this to build some amazingly stunning websites. There is a free version, but the pro version enables you to do almost anything with your website. It is worth the fee.Just to give you some background on Elementor. It is a Page builder, which is a way of designing inside of WordPress that is much simpler than what is included in the WordPress framework. These page builders often include blocks or a visual way of designing the pages. Newer builders like Elementor Pro even allow full site control for things like headers and footers.We recommend Elementor Pro because Elementor has 1+ million users and it provides groundbreaking features and solid updates. It is one of the best WordPress plugins on the market that allows full site design. For more information on Elementor Pro please click here.
Animation
You can also use some cool animation in WordPress with the right themes and plug-ins. Some of the animations are even free to use. If you want something more specialized, you can purchase animations in the marketplace. We have some animations on our site just to show you what you can do. For more information on animation see Lottiefiles.com. There are free and paid animations on lottiefiles. You can even get custom animations if you wish. With Elementor Pro plugin you can animate your website fairly easily. For more information on Elementor Pro animation click here.
Tutorials Galore
One of the main benefits of using WordPress is there are many tutorials and videos available. There are videos on YouTube if you want to learn and create a website yourself, or just want to know how to blog, or make updates to your site.
On the WordPress.org you can find a multitude of free learning, including online tutorials and documentation.
Support
There is a lot of support for WordPress. You can get support for the plugins and theme you are using. There is also community support, which enables you to interact with individuals to share information. For example, there is a WordPress Facebook group.
There is also a WordPress.org support forum. This forum is available to help solve problems with WordPress as well as any themes or plugins hosted on WordPress. These forums are free for all users of WordPress to help improve the quality of WordPress.
Easy to Outsource Work
You will have a smoother workflow with WordPress because it’s easier to outsource work. Since WordPress is an industry standard, it’s fairly easy to find support if you need it.
Conclusion
We cannot say enough good things about WordPress. That’s why we’ve been using it for more than a decade. Just when we thought we had seen and done it all with WordPress, it just keeps getting better and its capabilities continue to grow.
If you want to know about an author website we recommend you read our post on Why you Need an Author Website.
If you would like to find out more about getting a website built for you, just drop us a line. We would happy to answer your questions. You can email us at [email protected]