What Business Owners Need To Know About WordPress Web Design

WordPress Website Design For Local Business

WordPress Web Design

WordPress is a website Content Management System (CMS).

Whilst there are many, many different platforms available for building a local business website, WordPress has become extremely popular over the last decade due to its ease of use for non-technical people, wide and varied functionality, and for the relative ease with which WordPress websites and pages can be optimised for Google search.

Some fast facts about WordPress popularity;

‣ WordPress has a 60.8% market share in the CMS market.

‣ WordPress powers 14.7% of the world's top websites.

‣ 500+ sites are built each day using WordPress while only 60-80 per day are built on platforms like Shopify and Squarespace.

‣ The WordPress Plugin Directory features 55,000+ plugins that offer endless functionality.

Source: https://kinsta.com/blog/wordpress-statistics/

You can read a lot more info about WordPress as a CMS on our About page.

In this article we will be looking at WordPress website design from the perspective of local business objectives, which are;

- to be visible in Google when local prospects search for the products and services that you provide

- that prospects click through to a professional-looking website that converts visitors to leads

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    WordPress Website Design & Google

    So let's start at the beginning by looking at the racecourse that we are all running on - Google and how it works...

    Google Search - Fast facts

    ‣ Google is the major player in the global search engine market.

    ‣ If you are US-based it has a market share of about 70% but if you are in the UK Google has over a 90% share of the UK search engine market!

    ‣ Those figures are replicated all over the English-speaking world!

    ‣ This means that Google is where you need to put all, or most of, your online marketing efforts.

    ‣ Probably the only major industrial countries which are not dominated by Google are China, Russia, South Korea, and Japan.

    ‣ Japanese searchers prefer Yahoo and in China Baidu and Qiuoo have reduced Google’s share to about 2%, whilst in Russia Google’s 25% significantly trails Yandex’s 60% share of the market.

    WordPress Website Design - How Google Works

    Any WordPress designer must understand how Google works if they provide WordPress web design for local businesses.

    Google is essentially a huge filing system that is ordered by relevance and trust.

    When someone enters a search query in its engine - e.g. dog training tips - Google will serve up a set of pages based on over 200 different factors.

    Most of these factors will focus on the quality of the pages themselves but, these days, some will focus on any known attributes of the searcher.

    WordPress website design

    Pages

    The higher Google considers the quality of the page the higher it will rank in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

    The Searcher
    With the advent of personalised and location-based search, other factors are also taken into consideration.

    Google considers some industries to be 'local' and so the users’ location will be used to establish which relevant businesses are geographically close to the searcher.

    If I am in London searching for a dog trainer, being presented with dog trainers from Manchester or Liverpool will not be helpful.

    Google themselves have an excellent interactive page outlining exactly how their search engine functions which are well worth spending 5 minutes having a look at;

    http://www.google.co.uk/insidesearch/howsearchworks/thestory/

    WordPress Website Design - How To Rank in Google

    Any WordPress designer providing WordPress web design for local businesses needs to ensure that the main objectives are always front and centre.

    One of the main objectives is to create a WordPress design that will rank well in Google - this means clean code and a good understanding of Google optimisation and what it takes to rank in Google.

    If you have a product or service then being number one in Google for relevant keyword phrases will almost certainly result in inquiries, leads, and sales.

    Being further down on the first page will have the same effect but to a lesser degree.

    Unfortunately, there can only be 10 web pages on the first page of Google (more in some local searches), but fortunately, there are generally multiple keywords that are relevant to a product or service and so you have multiple chances to get a page one listing.

    The process of ranking well in the search engines is known as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and this involves making certain changes to web pages to make them more relevant to specific keyword phrases and more visible to Google thus increasing the chances of a good placement.

    SEO can be divided into two aspects – on-page and off-page.

    On-page SEO refers to, as you might expect, elements on the web pages themselves, whilst off-page SEO refers to external factors – primarily incoming links.

    On-page SEO

    Keywords that your prospects are using to search Google for your products and services should be placed in strategic positions on your web pages;

    • URLs
    • Titles
    • Headings
    • Content

    You should have at least 600+ words of relevant and original content on your pages, together with an original image, a video, and/or something interactive – a map, lead-capture form, etc.

    Google wants content, so the more useful content in a multi-media format that you can put on your pages the better.

    Augment that content by completing the page and site meta-tags correctly and you will have a good chance of ranking because Google will consider your page to be within their quality guidelines and also relevant for the targeted phrases.

    Once you have your pages set up correctly it is time to look at off-page SEO.

    Click here for more on on-page keyword optimisation.

    Off-Page SEO

    Off-page SEO is really all about incoming links.

    However, the topic of incoming links is complicated and full of subtleties, but the relationship between WordPress web design and incoming links is not especially strong, so we will quickly summarise for the sake of completeness. 

    Here is a very simplified version;

    • Google considers incoming links – that is links from other websites or web properties – as a vote for the site receiving the link.
    • The more quality incoming links you have the better your site will rank.
    • Poor quality links will actually hurt your rankings.

    Links can be garnered through other websites linking to your website, or built through various methods of content syndication.

    Content comes in various forms;

    • Text articles
    • PDFs
    • Videos
    • Images
    • PowerPoint's/Slideshows
    • Podcasts
    • Infographics
    • Software

    For example, if you have a video uploaded to YouTube you can put your website URL in the description box and that will be a live link to your website!

    The more contextual links from high-quality, relevant websites pointing to your website the higher it will rank in Google.

    But just like with on-page optimisation, there are penalties for getting it wrong and being obviously manipulative.

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      WordPress Web Design & Local SEO

      Local SEO is Different

      Although local SEO was and remains somewhat different from non-local, recent changes by Google have meant that those differences have been reduced and that traditional on and off-page SEO factors have once more become influential.

      WordPress designers need to be aware of these changes that affect local businesses.

      As a local business, you will need to claim your local Google listing. Setting up this listing will help Google make you more visible in its local map listings.

      As well as the on and off-page SEO that we have discussed, the local map listings also use citations and reviews as ranking factors.

      A citation is an instance of your business name, address & phone number (NAP) on the internet, with or without a link.

      NAP info is a very important factor in Local SEO.

      Inconsistent NAp information online will negatively affect your visibility in the local maps listings.

      Reviews can be completed on your business's Google My Business local listing page.

      Google reviews do not improve ranking or visibility, but they will increase conversion - the number of users clicking through to your website from the listing, and will likely increase the volume of inquiries.

      WordPress Web Design - Important Design Principles For Lead Gen Websites

      With the three primary requirements for local business websites being to present the business in a professional manner, visibility in Google search, and local lead generation, business websites need to be built in a logical and structured way around a set of accepted design and optimisation principles.

      WordPress Website Design Principles

      1. Visual Hierarchy

      Visual hierarchy is a way of communicating the importance of an element - for example, titles and headers being in a larger font than regular body text is an example of visual hierarchy.

      However, size is not the only way to indicate one element is more important than another.

      Clickable buttons that represent a 'desired action' can be given an eye-catching shade in order to draw user attention and to direct them to the important areas of the page.

      To keep things logical and consistent choose one colour that is the 'action' colour, and use that sitewide for all clickable links relating to the prime objectives.

      2. Spatial Laws

      There are a number of ratios and visual arrangements that occur in nature and/or are pleasing to human visual perception.

      Perhaps the most important is The Golden Ratio - the magical number 1.618 (φ).

      "The Golden Ratio (phi = φ) is often called The Most Beautiful Number In The Universe.
      The reason φ is so extraordinary is because it can be visualized almost everywhere, starting from geometry to the human body itself!
      The Renaissance Artists called this 'The Divine Proportion' or 'The Golden Ratio'."

      The golden ratio is a standard tenet of visual design and mathematics for hundreds of years and recurs in multiple areas of the natural world, including in plant growth, DNA, planetary motions, and music.

       

      The Rule of Thirds - first discussed by John Thomas Smith in 1797, has become a convention in film, photography, and other visual design as a way of positioning elements in an image to avoid the subject appearing too centrally.

      The Rule of Thirds provides a good structure for aligning elements side-by-side on a page - it is not always desirable to have two even blocks and the rule of thirds offers an alternative layout option which also supports the establishment of visual hierarchies.

       

      The Law of Proximity - this rule states that people perceive things that are grouped closely together as being part of the same object, therefore ensure separate elements are not too close together in page layouts.

       

      White Space - White space is often misunderstood as 'blank' or 'empty' space when in fact it is the canvas on which web pages are given meaning. Imagine a web page with no white space - if everything on a web page was just text and image then it would be almost impossible to read any of the text or appreciate the images.

      A web page with a lack of white space will appear cluttered and be confusing for the visitor.

      White space allows for use of visual hierarchies and the implementation of other spatial laws.

       

      3. Hick's Law

      Hick's Law is all about choice - as someone once asked; "How many different brands of washing powder do I actually need to choose from?"

      The law relates to the 'paradox of choice' - that with more choices available it's easier to choose nothing.

      Therefore lead gen websites need to eliminate choice as much as possible and direct the visitor to the desired action - complete a form, click a button, watch a video, etc.

       

      4. Law of Simplicity

      Simple things are more elegant and useful.

      In web design, multiple studies show that simple websites outperform complicated, feature-filled sites in key areas related to user experience.

      It is important to keep the main objective in mind and not overcomplicate things with unnecessary additions - this means keeping it simple and making it easy for your visitor to find what they are looking for.

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        How WordPress Website Design Impacts Google Visibility

        The main WordPress web design issue caused, or solved, by design revolves around page load speed.

        Page load speed is an increasingly important ranking metric and the launch of Google's Core Web Vitals concept shows that Google considers page load speed will be an important issue for years to come - particularly as the move towards mobile internet devices continues.

        The most important rule to follow when it comes to WordPress website design and page load speed is that simple is best - present your offer and other information in the easiest most straightforward way possible.

        WordPress designer

        That means large image sliders are OUT!

        These sliders take a long time to load and generally add nothing to the user experience - how many users will sit there watching 6 or 7 sliders rotate on a home page slider?

        Not many - which means that after the first slide the rest are serving no purpose as the user will have clicked on something or clicked away!

        Images should be properly sized and in the correct format - webp is an image file specifically for the web which reduces the file size whilst keeping image quality high, so any modern website should have webp images available to serve to a browser that supports them, which is most browser versions these days.

        Bloated Javascript and HTML files are another culprit in slow load times - your WordPress designer should use the minimum amount of additional coding on your business website.

        How WordPress Web Design Impacts Lead Generation

        When it comes to WordPress website design simple is generally the best - make it easy for your users to find the information they are looking for.

        Have your offer and the benefits of your service front and centre on the home page and all service pages.

        A call-to-action can direct your visitor to take the action that you require them to take.

        A lead capture form integrated into the home page and all service pages is another WordPress web design feature that is vital if you want an effective lead generation website.

         

        WordPress Website Design - Summary

        To rank in Google and generate leads you need a WordPress website design that is;

        • Built for page load speed
        • Optimised for your relevant keywords
        • Full of relevant and original multi-media content
        • Has a clear offer, call-to-action & lead capture form

        Request a Callback to Discuss Your WordPress Web Design Requirements

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