Michigan WordPress websites, especially blogs, come in an array of designs and appearances. In this sea of competition, you’ll want to stand out and grab the attention of your target audience so they’ll engage with your website and eventually, avail of your services.

How do you make your web pages appealing? The answer is great web design. If you’re a beginner to this practice, Hierographx has shared some best practices and tips to help you get started. Keep reading to learn more! 

Design With User Experience in Mind

Some of the most fundamental tenets of website design are called user interface (UI) and user experience (UX). UX/UI refers to practices in design that add value to a user’s experience. These concepts apply to various products, most especially websites.

You’ll want to apply UX/UI concepts when designing pages so that your visitors have an effortless and instinctive experience as they navigate your website. Here are some things you can try:

• Using negative or white space

• Engaging and unique call-to-action buttons

• Contrasting colors for actionable text, buttons, and other elements

• Creating a mobile-friendly layout

• Adding accessibility features that allow people with disabilities to access your website

• Including images, themes, and other visual elements that guide users as they navigate your pages.

Keep Your Branding Message Consistent 

Another key idea for memorable web design is having a consistent and coherent branding message across all your pages. For the uninitiated, branding message is the way you communicate your company and its unique value proposition via verbal and nonverbal cues. The verbal cues on website pages have more to do with the content. On the other hand, nonverbal cues refer to recurring colorways, logos, fonts, and other elements that people associate with your brand.

When designing your website, you need to ensure that these nonverbal cues are repeated and always in the periphery of your visitor. This exposure helps you make a solid and lasting impression on your target audience.

Choosing a Relevant Theme for Blogs

Since your theme will dictate the overall look of your website, you might have a bit of difficulty finding the best theme for your WordPress blog. Here are some tips to remember:

1. Plan the features you want ahead of time: Knowing what kind of functionalities you want on your blog will help you find a theme with such features. WordPress has a Themes Repository that has a features filter, allowing you to find themes with the functionalities you want.

2. Keep your branding in mind: Don’t choose a theme that will clash with your branding message. For example, if your blog is about law and has a more serious tone, don’t choose a theme with whimsical colorways or graphics. Select one that fits your industry or preferred tone.

3. Pick a secure theme with a high-quality code base: You need to choose a theme that runs fast and won’t encounter issues in the long run. If you pick one that frequently malfunctions, the theme could harm user experience and affect search engine optimization (SEO). 

Essential Plugins That Every Blogger Should Have

One of the best features of WordPress is the huge number of plugins you can integrate into your website. These programs have additional features and functionalities that improve web design, user experience, SEO, and more. Here are the essentials for Michigan WordPress websites. 

• WPForms: WPForms is one of the most popular form generators for WordPress. With this program, you can create attractive forms with designs you can easily integrate into your branding.

• Smash Balloon: If you want to include Instagram posts, YouTube videos, and other media in your blog post, plugins like Smash Balloon are especially useful. You won’t need to do any coding either. One advantage of Smash Balloon is the many widgets available that work well with an array of themes and designs. 

• WordPress Dashboard: This built-in image editor allows you to modify images already on your website. The WordPress Dashboard is great for more basic changes, like aspect ratio, rotation, and cropping.

• TablePress: If your blog posts need to feature data on tables, the TablePress plugin is the perfect program. This software creates and manages gorgeous tables with a spreadsheet-like interface for easy input of data.

Importance of Promoting Your Blog

Let’s move on a bit from web design and see what to do next after publishing your website. This time, you need to focus on promoting your blog. Don’t let your effort go unnoticed by making sure to market your website. To reach your target audience, you can post on social media pages, link your articles to forums like Reddit or Quora, and work with other individuals or organizations.

Promoting your brand is more than just showing off your great design. For small businesses, this practice is one way to increase engagement and conversions if SEO efforts are not providing immediate results.

Blog Outreach for Link Building

In relation to blog promotion, one other way to increase awareness about your website is through blog outreach. This practice involves creating relationships with influencers and other brands so they can promote your website or blog articles in their posts or pages. Not only does blog outreach help you gain a wider audience, but the practice also helps you enhance SEO efforts through link building. 

Backlinks are links from other websites that redirect to your articles. Having many backlinks serves as a signal to search engines that your content is relevant and trusted, which makes them more likely to place your pages on top of SERPs. 

Work With Flint, MI Website Design Experts

All the advice above may feel like a lot. That’s why, for our final tip, we recommend that you work with experts in web design. Professionals like the Hierographx team can handle most of the work and deliver appealing websites that entice your target audience. All you have to do is tell us what you want, and we’ll create pages that reflect your vision. 

Final Thoughts

Web design may feel intimidating at first for those without much experience in the practice. Thankfully, the tips we shared above can help you get started. If you want professionals to handle it, Hierographx is here to help. We’re your trusted source for WordPress web development services in Michigan, offering premier solutions that suit your needs and budget. Contact us now and let’s talk!