5 Ways to Simplify WordPress
My name is Will, and I’m the web developer here at JJUMPP. One of the most daunting but enjoyable parts of running a small business is creating a website. There seems like a million options for creating a page! It’s hard to know where to start. I’m going to share 5 tips today that can help you create a great website. I recommend using WordPress. Not only is it simple to use, but thousands of businesses use it. What’s more, if you get stuck, there are countless tutorials you can look to for help. Here we go.
Pick a Good WordPress Theme.
Picking a good theme for your website can make all the difference. Whether you’re creating your first blog post, or building out a vast company website, deciding which theme you use can either save or cost you hundreds of hours of work. Through my research of WordPress themes, I’ve found a few useful ones for different projects you might be working on.
- Divi — One of the best themes on the market, Divi is great for creating one page websites. Divi has a nice drag and drop builder that anyone can learn in order to build the one page website you desire. It comes with many built in features that aid you in your creation. I have personally used the Divi theme on a few websites and enjoy its simplicity.
- Zillah — Zillah is a great WordPress theme specifically designed for bloggers. It has a useful drag and drop feature as well as a responsive design. This theme helps you design and develop your blog out quickly so that you can get back to writing your next post.
- Avada — If you’re looking to build out a large multi-page website, Avada would be an excellent choice. This is my favorite theme on the market today. I have used it on multiple projects and love the built in features that it offers. It is highly customizable and perfect for working on large build-outs.
Utilize Plugins
More plugins for WordPress than you can count exist on the market today. All of these can be used to help simplify your WordPress experience. I have used a wide variety of plugins from Contact Form 7 to GeoTargeting Pro to WP Smush. For our blog, we make sure to use Yoast which provides a nice checklist for developing an SEO friendly post. I’ve learned there is a plugin for everything you want to accomplish. Take the time to do some research and find the right plugins for you.
Use a File Manager
Filezilla has been a great help to me in building out WordPress sites. I use Filezilla mostly for manually installing WordPress and my chosen themes that I use. It is also very helpful because it allows you to download files from the server, edit them, and then upload them back onto the server without ever touching Terminal. The setup is a little tricky but once you are connected, it’s easy to have complete control over your files on the server. This may sound more complicated than uploading files through Wordpress or your web hosting account but for me it is the simplest way to manage files without having to deal with file size limitations. I use it every day to access and edit CSS and PHP files that make my websites look great.
Organize your tasks
Task management is important when building a website. Too many tasks can overwhelm a web developer. At JJUMPP, we use a task manager called Asana. Asana allows us to map out our tasks and give us goals on when we should complete them. Asana also helps me view what the rest of my team is working on and be able to collaborate with them on those projects. Here are a few things that I plan out as tasks:
- Schedule which day you will finish a certain web page on.
- Plan time to talk to the web designer about his vision for the website.
- Organize a time to do a site review with other members in your marketing team to make sure that everything is working and that all the content is up to date.
If I forget to talk to the designer, or if I show my marketing team too many small updates, I end up programming too little or too much. Keep your tasks orderly, and your team members informed.
Build with order
This has probably been the hardest thing for me to learn. When I built my first website, I remember bouncing around building things out here and there. This caused the site to look jumbled and incohesive. Building out a web page in order is important for organization and for creating a smooth website. Even today, people will ask me to build a different section than the one that I am working on because they are eager to see what it looks like. There’s nothing wrong with telling them you’re not to that point yet. Remember to build with order and your websites will be completed in an organized and timely matter.
There are many different ways to simplify WordPress, and we want to hear from you! Let us know what you have used in order to organize your website construction. We hope that these 5 suggestions can help you build an effective site for your business.
