Designing and structuring your site is a very interesting part of blogging. Remember, site design is more than a creative activity. You have to strategically design to retain a visitor for a longer time. Your site should be interactive and neatly built.
Table of Contents
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So, before anything, we have to dive into the theme. You can select a template or upload your own theme. Just go to the dashboard, then ‘appearance’, select ‘theme’, click ‘add new’, upload your theme, and then click ‘activate’.
Congratulations! Your theme is set.
You can always customize and preview the theme using modern and fast theme Acabado.
The first step of designing is planning, so let’s plan the Site Map.
Homepage
It is the face of your website and the location where your audience is supposed to find everything available on your website. The homepage should contain the header, menu, content, and footer.
Blog Post
A blog post is where all your blogs are linked to. A blog post is structured differently on different websites. If blogs are the primary product of your website, then there will be a blog post category on the homepage. Otherwise, there will just be a single link.
Resource Page
Resource pages play an important role in monetizing a website. They could be divided into subcategories as part of the site structure.
About
‘About’ is where the reader learns more about the website and the team behind the website. You cannot miss this page from your website. In order to connect with the audience and establish the website as a personality, the About page is a must. People will perceive you as you explain in the About section.
Contact Us
Often viewers would like to contact you or leave feedback. If you think your website needs a ‘Contact Us’ page, then just install a good forms plugin and create a form that they can fill out. It will automatically generate an email that will come to your inbox. Every website doesn’t require the audience to reach out to them so use only if necessary.
Legal Pages
It is advisable to build pages explaining the legal policies of the website. You can create a page for Terms and Conditions. You can include a Privacy Policy if you are asking them to sign up. This information is vital to the viewer, so it’s better to include such pages in the site structure.
Product Page
If you are offering any kind of product, physical and digital, then a product page will be there. You can list some products on the homepage as well, but having a separate product page is more effective. You can just list the name on the homepage and link to a detailed page about the product.
When people come to your homepage, they first review the menu to find something helpful. The menu is the most important part of your website design. So, let us discuss menu design –
Items to Include in the Menu
In one sentence, you should include every major item that is part of your Site Map.
Resource page
The parent resource page should be linked to the menu.
About
Information about you
Contact Us
How would you like to be contacted
Home
People usually skip Home, if a visitor can go to the homepage by clicking on the logo.
Terms and Conditions
You shouldn’t forget about legal terms and conditions.
Blog Post Categories
Again if blog posts are your primary product, then the menu will contain blog post categories. That means you have to create a menu item for each blog category. If the blog is not the main focus of the website, then add the categories as sub-menus.
Product Page
If you offer various categories of products, you can create separate menu items for each product as well.
YouTube
Link your YouTube page in the menu. This will allow your visitors to check out your videos and gain interest in your content. It will create an action cycle. Since you have mentioned your blog posts in the videos, they will be redirected to your website. Better for your YouTube page, best for your website.
How to Create a Menu
Step 1
Step 2
Step 3
Select “Appearance” on the WordPress Dashboard.
Click on “Menus.”
Now you can either create your own menu by selecting “Create a New menu” or use a demo one by selecting from the “Select a menu to edit” options.
Step 4
Fill in the menu name, preferably, “Primary menu” and go to the left to select Paged.
Step 5
Click “View All” and select the pages you want to appear on the menu and click “Add to Menu.”
Step 6
Next, go on the Categories and add blog categories to the menu. You have to do this even if you want the categories to appear as a sub-menu.
Step 7
You can add the YouTube link by clicking on “Custom Link.” And write the title of the link under Link Text.
Step 8
You can add any menu item as you desire.
Step 9
Now just arrange them by dragging them around on the “Menu Structure.” You can arrange the submenus by placing the items under the desired headings and then slightly dragging them to the right.
Step 10
Now just check the box under “Menu setting” against “Primary Menu.” Then click “Save Menu.” The set menu will appear as a primary menu on your website. Now let’s move to the footer.
Footer
The footer is designed to contain important items that were missed from the menu. For example, in the footer, you can mention the contact details under the Contact Us heading. Furthermore, you can list the submenus as subcategories in the footer. So, you can include, Resource Pages, Blog Posts, About, Contact Us, Terms and Conditions, and more in the footer. You can directly enter the form in the footer to send you an email. To create the footer menu, you will follow the same steps mentioned above.
Now that the menus are done, let’s look at widgets and how to incorporate them into your website.
Widgets
Widgets are those things you see in the sidebar of most sites. You can get to the widgets section of your site by clicking on “Appearance” → “Widgets”. When you get there, you’ll see all the options you have available for widgets. Some themes and plugins add even more options.
You can use text widgets for things like the affiliate legal disclaimer. Just grab the type of widget you want and drag it over to the main sidebar, one of the header widget areas, or one of the footer widget areas. You can turn header and footer widget areas on and off using the customizations available for your theme.
Now Let’s Add the Logo
Once your logo is ready, optimize it for your website. Ideally, it should be around 50 pixels tall. However, it could vary according to your header design. Save the optimized logo to your media library to easily upload your logo. You can add the logo by going to Appearance and then selecting Customize. Different themes have different settings for logos, so you can search on Google to find the specific instructions for your theme. Just search: How to add a logo on [your theme].
Golden Rules for Customizing Your Sites
Stay Near Your Theme
When you are customizing going beyond your theme, you are using CSS code. Well, everybody cannot be a coder and that’s okay. So, you use a code only when you are aware of the results. Otherwise, you will end up with a messed-up design. So, it’s always advisable to customize around the theme. Don’t get over ambitious and go outside if you are not well versed with CSS code.
If you want to customize, you can research a bit before starting the process. You can find theme-specific tutorials on YouTube as well. So, do your research before customizing. And if anything goes wrong, return to the theme and stick to it. You can seek advice online and find out the best way to customize your theme.
The types of customizations we normally make on our site are things like font sizes and colors, background colors, header colors, link colors – all pretty basic stuff. Some themes have sliders and neat things you can do with images, like the post carousel on X Theme.
Keep It Simple
Do not overcrowd your website. Design and structure are important to keeping the site clean and clear. With one glance, a visitor should be able to understand the purpose of your site. The menus should be able to guide them smoothly. And there must be negligible distractions from the main content. Make it simple, good looking, and informative. This is just the start; your aim is to offer quality content. You will get better with the design as your move along.
You will learn what you want from the design as your website grows. So, for now, work with a simple design and don’t overwhelm your audience.
