With an abundance of great looking themes available for free or for a small fee, it’s easy to make sure that your web site looks good. This abundance of quality makes it easy for your web site to start looking like everyone else. So the trick is to select a theme you like then modify to make it your own.
Choosing a theme for your web site
Though there are lots of great free themes available, starting at the WordPress.Org, I’m a big advocate of using a premium theme companies like Elegant Themes and WooThemes (to name 2 of many). Firstly, if you pay for the theme you have a higher chance of getting proper support, secondly after a couple of years you may find your web site looking a little old and worn, if you use the same theme company you have a better chance that all the layout shortcodes you used will work with your new theme. Reducing the amount of time and money spent on the refresh.
When selecting your theme, make sure that it will offer you the features you require to promote and sell your products and services. If you will be using a e-commerce plugin like WooCommerce or MarketPress, it is recommended to use a theme that has built in support for that plugin. With the rapid growth in web sites being viewed on mobile devices it’s pretty much a must that your web site has a responsive layout. This means that your web sites content will “morph” to ensure it looks its best for the screen size it is being view on. It’s a good idea to also select a theme that includes “shortcodes” to enable you to arrange your content in drop downs, tabs, columns, etc.
Colour Your Brand
Largely overlooked, the colours you select to be used on your web site can make a big difference in how your break up sections of your site and how easy it is to view the content. If you already have a logo, you’ll probably be bound by these, though since its a good idea to have 3 or 4 colours you may still need to select a couple more. The easiest way to do this is to use a colour palette, the same way you select new colours for your house. Two good places to start are Paletton and Canva. (On a side note Canva is a great place to learn about design in general.) It should also be mentioned that like your logo, customers do recognise your company by the colours that you use. That is why the big corporations trademark the colours that they use. A famous example of this is Cadbury Confectionery trademarking “their” purple.
Though customers will recognise your brand by the colours used, as in the real world, it is your company logo that customers will remember you by and like in a brick and mortar store it will be prominent though out the site. Most likely the theme you select will place it for you on the top left or top centre of each web page. With modern browsers displaying web pages on different tabs, it is recommended to include a fav icon, this is a tiny icon (32px x 32 px) that is placed on the tab of the browser, making it easier for site visitors to find your site when they have mulitple tabs open.
Unleash Your Inner Artist
Spend some time going though the endless amount of themes available for you to use and play around with the different colour combination and different theme page layouts, to ensure that your web site becomes part of your companies brand.
Till next time,
D