A WordPress web design is any website that uses WordPress as its Content Management System (CMS). It is designed with usability and flexibility in mind making it an excellent solution for both large and small websites. WordPress is a free, open-source website creation platform and the most powerful blogging and website builder in existence. So if you require an e-commerce website, business website, e-learning website, wedding website, blog, event website, and more. Then you should give WordPress a try.
Brief History of WordPress Web Design
It all started in 2003 with Matt Mullenweg, Mike Little, and a blogging platform called b2. Mullenweg wrote about the need he saw for a new platform with the flexibility of Movable Type, the parsing of Text Pattern, the hackability of b2, and the ease of setup of Blogger. The first public version of the WordPress software was released on May 27, 2003, and it was called version 0.7. Version 1.0 followed in January of 2004. New releases were made adding features such as plugins, pages, and comment moderation. WordPress grew rapidly in popularity when users of Moveable Type started switching to WordPress.
In 2005, the website WordPress.com was created and version 2 was released that same year with more improved features. It allows users to create their blogs without having to install the software. It offered a better administrative interface and editor, and blog owners could upload images. WordPress web became a popular site for people for setting up simple blogs at no cost and with very little effort. These changes marked its growth from a blogging platform to a full-fledged Content Management System (CMS).
And in 2006, the company was founded by WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg, who filed the trademark registration for WordPress and WordPress logo. In the year 2010, Version 3 of WordPress was released merged into WordPress MU and revamped the administrative UI. In the same year, the co-founder Matt Mullenweg transferred the ownership of the WordPress trademark and logo to the WordPress Foundation.
As years went by a couple of things were added to WordPress such as allowing users to create online stores and build powerful eCommerce websites using WordPress. Theme customizer, theme previews, and new media manager were added, allowing users to create image galleries and preview themes before they change to a new theme.
Another release was added that is to allow WordPress software to update automatically. When Version 3.8 was released, it gave a better user experience to users on any device or screen. From the year 2016 – to 2019, WordPress Version 4.5 up to 5.2 were released and each release introduced some new features and improvements. Such as updates for plugins and themes, content recovery by using browser storage, and custom CSS. New default widgets were added to audio, video, images, gallery, rich text, and HTML. Brand new editing experiences were added and WordPress started implementing the Site Health project into the core.
From 2020 – to 2021 WordPress released versions 5.4 – 5.9. Among many improvements, there was real work on the Full Site Editing experience, automatic updates were added, block directory, block patterns, and lazy loading images were introduced. A lot of progress has been made over the years. WordPress web is used by 64.8% of all the websites whose content management system is known. Making it 41.4% of the top 10 million websites.
The Features of WordPress Web
WordPress Web Design
WordPress is quick in creating design elements and workflows. Thereby facilitating team development among those with varying design and coding skills. Your WordPress website can be responsive, easy to update, and can offer all of the features that a static website offers without sacrificing the benefits of a dynamic WordPress website.
Easy Content Management System
With the intuitive WordPress Content Management System, you can log in to your website dashboard and use a simplified interface to create your web pages, add content, and customize the design. With the right CMS, you can start a blog, open an eCommerce store, build a tutorial website, create portfolios, and more. A WordPress CMS allows you to design a WordPress web design without coding.
Move, Add, or Delete Dashboard Widgets
WordPress allows you to add images, text, files, links, and embed media right on the content areas of your pages. There are no restrictions on the number of pages, posts, or products that you can add. And also by default, users are redirected to the dashboard page in the WordPress admin area when they log in. This dashboard page has several handy shortcuts pointing to different sections of your website.
Embed Links, Videos, and Multimedia
WordPress makes it easy for you to manage your content. Create drafts, schedule publication, and look at your post revisions. It also automatically embeds content from some of the most popular websites like YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and more. What you need to do is paste a URL from one of the supported sites and WordPress will automatically embed it for you. Your contents can also be made public or private, and secure posts and pages with a password.
Greater Flexibility & Extend with Plugins
You can design any type of website be it: a personal blog or website, a photoblog, a business website, a professional portfolio, a government website, a magazine or news website, an online community, or a network of websites.
WordPress has a lot of features and for every feature that’s not in WordPress core, there’s a plugin directory with thousands of plugins. With this, you can add complex galleries, social networking, forums, social media widgets, spam protection, calendars, fine-tune controls for search engine optimization, and forms. You design your website to look beautiful with themes and extend it with plugins.
Why WordPress Web is Popular
Since 2003 when WordPress was launched, it hasn’t ceased to assist small and big businesses in effectively showcasing and marketing their products or services to the world. WordPress is user-friendly especially for beginners, you can create a WordPress web design without coding. And for advanced web developers, WordPress continues to introduce amazing features to help professional web designers design unique websites.
WordPress Plugins
Plugins are one of the biggest reasons WordPress is the most popular website creation platform in the world. A WordPress plugin architecture allows its users to extend the features and functionality of a website or blog. And WordPress.org has over 50,000 plugins available. And each offers custom functions and features enabling users to tailor their sites to their specific needs. Plugins also represent a development strategy that can transform WordPress into all sorts of software systems and applications. It is limited only by the imagination and creativity of the programmers. Some plugins add minor new features to your site, such as Dark Mode, which changes the colours of your admin dashboard.
Theme System
With WordPress users can install and switch among many different themes. These Themes allow users to change the look and functionality of a WordPress website without altering the core code or the site content. For beginners and design experts, WordPress provides you with the flexibility to create themes that are simple or complex. And the themes are generally classified into two categories: free and premium, so the choice is yours on what will be perfect for your business.
Speed & Accessibility
Another reason why WordPress web design is popular is the speed it offers and its accessibility. Here users are provided with a smooth, user-friendly website because a slow loading website turns off potential visitors and can inhibit the success of the company. The WordPress accessibility team provides continuing educational support about web accessibility and inclusive design.
Other Advantages
- WordPress features integrated link management which means it is a search engine–friendly, and clean permalink structure.
- Compatible with mobile applications.
- The ability to assign multiple categories to posts
- WordPress also supports the Trackback and Pingback standards for displaying links to other sites that have themselves linked to a post or an article. These posts can be edited in HTML, using the visual editor, or using one of several plugins that allow for a variety of customized editing features.
- It supports tagging of posts, automatic filters that provide standardised formatting and styling of text in posts.
How to Design a WordPress Web Design Without Coding
Create an Account with WordPress
To enter into the world of blogging with WordPress, you will first need to have an account. To create your WordPress user account the first step is to visit WordPress.com and create your administrative account. Registering and using WordPress is free, so it’s best to start fresh, with a corporate profile used only to set up and manage your company’s website.
You Need a Website Domain Name
When the first stage is completed, the next is to give your website a name. Your domain name is the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) you type into a browser to visit a website. Think of a unique name for your website. Choose a title that is important to your niche. The purpose of a domain name is to access your website on the internet. It serves as your business address. At the end of your domain name is the domain extension, which would either be; .com, .net, .org, .co, and more. When the domain addresses are well written and concise, it helps your brand to gain recognised on the internet.
Get Website Hosting
To create a WordPress web design without coding, you will need web hosting. Website hosting is where your website lives and breathes. And WordPress offers some free templates available on third-party marketplaces to buy. Hosting is pretty cheap these days. So if cost is your main concern, you may want to take the time to master the WordPress platform.
Choose a hosting platform, purchase a template, and use WordPress as the Content Management System (CMS) to add and edit content. No matter which theme you are using, you will get some free templates with WordPress. These templates have a specified layout with specified places. You can insert content, image, forms, and other website elements. Aside from hosting a WordPress theme, it’s a low-cost solution to creating a website fast. And the theme you choose will make a significant difference in your success.
Design & Write Your Website Copy
With your WordPress theme in order, it is time to write copies for your website. Note that a poorly designed theme increase page load time. In turn, affects customer experience, and this directly has a negative impact on SEO. This Search Engine Optimiser is what brings audiences to your site. So your SEO needs to be green, or you will risk losing your website. Speaking of website copy, it is vital to keep things simple and compelling. Your WordPress web design copy can be written on different pages. For example a Home page, About page, Service Page, Portfolio Page, Blog Page, and Contact page. You can use grammar checker tools like Grammarly Premium to optimize the copy for quality.
Hire a Web Design Agency – Xanda
Web design agencies like Xanda are here to assist businesses with a well-designed website. Depending on the extent of your website project, the quickest way to design a website without having to code is outsourcing. When you partner with a web developer, you can focus solely on the strategy, planning, wireframe layout solutions, visual design elements, and the final UI for the website.
By choosing Xanda as your web developer, you are guaranteed a better working communication relationship that will help in the design of the desirable website. When you work with us, we will handle the design and the development aspect. To get started, contact us today.