In this lesson, we’re going to talk about site design, pages, and plugins. If setting up a domain and hosting is akin to choosing an address and building a home, then we can compare this part of the process to obtaining appliances, sourcing furniture, and putting up decorations. This is the part where we lay the groundwork of establishing your site as a legitimate source of helpful and interesting information.
Design
Giving your blog a good look is important in making a good impression on your audience. On top of this, choosing a design that fit your niche could lead you to attracting more readers.
If you are equipped with skills in web design and development, then this process would be a breeze for you. However, if you’re someone who’s not proficient in designing a website, then fret not for there are lots of ready-made themes available online.
The most popular marketplace for WordPress themes are ThemeForest and Creative Market. These sites offer thousands of easy-to-install themes that are made available at a reasonable price.
There are also a number of sites that provide WordPress themes for free. Some of the best ones are Just Free Themes, Colorlib, ThemeGrill, and aThemes.
Pages
Once you’ve set up the design you want, then it’s time to create the initial pages of your site. These pages will help you communicate your vision and give your audience an insight on what they can expect from your blog.
Creating a page on WordPress is simple. Just hover over to “sites” then scroll down to “pages” and click “add”. This is different to publishing blog posts where you select the “add” button next to “posts” instead.
Having the essential pages from the get-go will also help you be approved for income sources like affiliate programs and ad networks. There are a couple of pages that could help your blog succeed but here are the most vital pages you’d want to have from the moment you launch:
1. About
Probably the most important page to have, an about page will help your readers get to know who is behind the post they’re reading. It helps you establish rapport and give your audience an idea on what to expect in future posts. If you’re an expert in the area you’re writing about, including a page that narrates your experiences in the field will also bring credibility to your content. This could lead you to gain more trust from your readers and make them regular visitors to your site.
2. Privacy Policy
A privacy policy page provides thorough information about location-sharing, device-specific data, and cookies. This one’s a must for anyone interested in joining ad networks since most of them require blogs to have a privacy policy page that outlines all the data that is being stored and collected from visitors.
3. Affiliate Disclosure
The information in this section lets your readers know that you might earn commissions should they purchase from the affiliate sites linked in your blog. Note that this is only applicable for bloggers who are planning to monetize their site through affiliate programs so skip this part if this doesn’t apply to you.
4. Contact
Including a page that contains a contact form or outlines your contact details will provide your audience an opportunity to extend further communication with you. They might have a follow-up question to a post you wrote or might want to share an anecdote that they’re not comfortable to leave in public comments. Either way, giving your readers access to reach out to you will help you build a trusting relationship with them in the long run.
Plugins
After successfully creating the design and pages of your blog, you’d want to install plugins next. These are scripts that improve the functionality of your site for you and your audience. Here are the most essential plugins for bloggers:
1. Yoast
This is by far, the most popular SEO plugin for WordPress. Through this plugin, you’ll be able to check if your posts are optimized for search engines, are easy to read, and doesn’t duplicate any of your older posts.
2. Jetpack
This plugin tracks the performance of your site and give you insights on the number of page views, unique views, likes, and comments your posts generate for a particular period of time. Aside from Jetpack, you could also check out MonsterInsights, another popular Google Analytics plugin.
3. Wordfence
One of the best security plugins for WordPress, Wordfence regular scans your site for any malicious activity which in turn protects your site from hacks and malware.
4. UpdraftPlus
To safeguard your site from data loss caused by hacking or unintended changes, it is a good practice to create a backup of your site’s contents. UpdraftPlus helps you do this by automating regularly scheduled backups and offering a one-click restoration of lost files.
5. Akismet
This one is a plugin that protects your site against spam. Unsolicited and irrelevant comments are disruptive for your readers and could cause your site to load slowly. Hence, it is always advisable to install a plugin like this which filters comments and keep spam comments at bay.
6. WPForms
A great plugin that lets you create forms, WPForms boasts a drag and drop feature that enables you to build and customize contact forms with ease. This plugin also send automatic email notification and allow users to incorporate Captcha verification which help prevent spam.
7. wpDiscuz
This plugin revamps the comment section of your blog by making it more organized and interactive, thereby improving the commenting experience for your readers. If you’re interested in allowing your readers to comment using their Facebook account, you can also check out WP Social Comments, another great comment plugin for WordPress.
8. Social Snap
Another must-have plugin is a social sharing tool such as Social Snap. This plugin will allow you to display social sharing buttons and share counts in your posts. Although newer compared to other plugins in this category, Social Snap offer nice-looking share buttons and a well-designed interface.
9. WP Rocket
To optimize your site for your visitors and search engines, it is best to install a caching plugin such as this one. They work by serving the lighter version of each page therefore improving the page loading time. If you have the budget for a premium plugin, you can also check out WP Rocket, a caching plugin that is quick to set up and offers additional capabilities for search engine indexing.
10. Broken Link Checker
As the name implies, this plugin scans your website and checks for any broken link. Keeping all of your site links active is important in optimizing your site for search engines and improving the experience for your readers.
Your Turn
Pick and install a theme by going through paid and free sources for WordPress themes. Next, create all the essential pages for your site: about, privacy policy, contact page, and affiliate disclosure (optional). Continue setting up your site by installing all the must-have plugins for bloggers.
Summary
To recap, this lesson has listed the most popular resources used by bloggers in finding a suitable design theme for their site. Additionally, we guided you through all the pages you need in communicating your objectives and the essential plugins that will keep your site running smoothly.
That’s all for now, check back soon for help in writing your first post!