There are many invaluable resources available to assist with website building and below is a library of the best that I have found.
A Beginner’s Guide To Creating A WordPress Website
This excellent article from Smashing Magazine gives a step by step guide to creating a WordPress website right from choosing your domain name to themes and plugins. There is an extensive section on choosing the right hosting package for you.
Choosing Themes
Choosing the right theme is often one of the most complex and time-consuming parts of your website build. There are so many free and paid themes to choose from. And you don’t necessarily get what you pay for.
WP Beginner are an excellent resource for all things WordPress. They are regularly updating their lists of the best free and paid for themes. Beginning with a list such as this 2018 best free wordpress blog themes is a good place to start when making these decisions.
Best WordPress Plugins
This is a really clear and informative post listing really useful plugins. There are of course many more plugins to choose from, but this is a great place to get started. Be aware that some plugins, if coded poorly, can slow your website, so always look for ones with good reviews, a sizeable user base and an active development team.
Yoast
The Yoast plugin is incredibly intuitive with its traffic light scoring system for improving your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). The website page readability checker is invaluable too.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
There is far more to Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) than working with a plugin such as Yoast, although it is a great starting point. This excellent article from WPMU DEV offers a comprehensive guide across the many elements of SEO.
SEO Keywords
Wordstream provide excellent resources for SEO keyword analysis. Their article on How Better Keyword Research Gets You Better Results is invaluable. They also have an excellent keyword niche finder tool.
Best Contact Forms
A method for your audience to contact you is essential within even the simplest website. This straight-forward post from WP Beginner gives you the five most recommended contact forms available. Some are free with pro-version upgrades and some require payment.
Backing Up your WordPress website
It is essential to back up your website regularly and there are free and paid plugins to simplify this process. WP Beginner once again have an excellent article highlighting the best back up plugins.
Switching Themes
Changing WordPress themes is something that I consider regularly as technology changes rapidly. Before doing so there are many things to consider. The article from WPBeginner offers an excellent list of the 15 Things You MUST DO Before Changing WordPress Themes.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a very powerful tool to enable you to understand your visitors to your website and how they interact with what you have to offer. This is an excellent tutorial on how to install Google Analytics for beginners.
Using Instagram effectively
Instagram has become an increasingly important part of my social media awareness building. Mixtusmedia.com have some very useful articles on using Instagram effectively. How Authors Can Quickly Find 1000 New Readers Using Instagram, 10 Types Of Content Authors Can Share On Instagram and How Authors Can Build A Solid Instagram Following In Ten Minutes A Day are excellent.
The Ultimate Pinterest Marketing Guide: How to Improve Your Reach and Promote Your Brand
This is a great resource for building awareness of your business through effective use of Pinterest. Before I read this article I didn’t appreciate just how much more there was to Pinterest by switching to a business account.
How to Write Blog Posts
There is a wealth of information about how to write effective blog posts. One of the more helpful articles I have found comes from hubspot.com.
I specialise in offering website design for fellow creatives and would be delighted to assist you with the creation of your website. Contact me to discuss how I can help you further.
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