WordPress is one of the more popular blog and website platforms. It was one of the first platforms to modularize commonly used web site components. Today there are thousands of WordPress components also known as plugins, extensions, themes and templates. Which ones to use is a natural starting point. An orderly approach is one strategy. The first item that most web designers consider is the theme, also known as the blog template, specifically the layout of the web pages, the colors and the typography. There are two considerations here though, how will the blog look on a laptop screen and how will it look on a smart phone screen.
Contributing to the popularity of WordPress is the fact that it automatically sizes its blogs so that they are PC screen and smart screen compatible. This saves a little bit of work for web site designers. They don’t have to use grid sizing APIs like Bootstrap to make their web site mobile friendly.
Beyond themes, but still very much an integral part of the theme story is the navigation bar. There are themes that use horizontal and vertical navigation bars. There are even more options. Horizontal navigation bars can be designed with drop down navigation, which improves the user experience significantly.
For a WordPress site that includes web site pages and a blog, one will have to decide on a theme and associated navigation for the pages and the blog. The blog theme and navigation can be a little more challenging than the page theme and navigation. With a WordPress blog one needs to decide on a category schema, blog topic categories, and then have a smartly placed navigation bar that lets the visitors easily navigate between the different categories.
There are different paths you can take to design your theme and navigation. The first and easiest is to use the default theme and navigation that comes with your WordPress based site. Depending on who hosts your WordPress site, you might have just one or several different themes and navigation bars you can choose from. To use these themes to obtain the best CEO and navigation you will have to categorize each post, for example whether it is a press release post, a product post or a nutrition post.
The next path that you may want to take is to examine the various WordPress themes (called templates) that are available open source (free) or are available for purchase. This task still requires you review the template highlights and evaluate if it fits your needs. This in itself, actually may require you spend some time reviewing templates before deciding which template has the best layout, colors and navigation flexibility for your blog. This task can be made a little bit easier by first looking over WPBeginmer’s article,
64 Best Free WordPress Blog Themes for 2022, Editorial Staff, January 2022, WPBeginner.com, https://www.wpbeginner.com/showcase/best-free-wordpress-blog-themes/ (Accessed August 24th, 2022).
The third path, which offers the most customization and does save the time of installing templates is to create your own template or revise an existing default template. WordPress does allow you to customize the appearance of your blogs and pages. This is done with the WordPress Theme Customizer that comes with all WordPress sites. WPBeginner also provides the instructions you need for the Theme Customizer,
How to Use WordPress Theme Customizer Like a Pro (Ultimate Guide), Editorial Staff, June 2022, WPBeginner.com, https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/how-to-use-wordpress-theme-customizer/ (Accessed August 24th, 2022).
Regardless of the path or paths your take, either way will take time. This will require that you determine if its worth your time or take another path, find a WordPress developer that knows the ropes. An experienced developer can get you what you need in an afternoon, that is color coordinated, well categorized, with user-friendly navigation that will also improve your SEO ratings and visitor traffic quickly.
