How to Customize a WordPress Website for Your Business

If you run a business and use WordPress for your website, then you’re in luck – we have the perfect guide for you. In this post, we will teach you how to completely customize the look of your WordPress website so that it matches the elegant tastes of a business looking to present an image of quality.

The Basics

WordPress is a free and open-source content management system that can be used to create a beautiful, full-featured website without the need for coding knowledge. To get started, simply visit WordPress.com and click on the Get Started button to launch the installation process. You’ll then be taken to the WordPress Dashboard, where you’ll find a blue link named Tutorials. Click on this link to continue the setup process.

Once the installation is complete, you can begin experimenting with the different themes available for WordPress. To make your selection, click on the Theme Preview button to open up a preview of the themes available. Here, you’ll find three themes – Business, Urban, and Clean – that you can install on your site immediately.

The first two are classic WordPress themes that can be used to build almost any type of website. They are suitable for users who have little to no design experience. Business is suitable for businesses looking for a corporate theme while Urban is geared toward users who want a magazine-inspired design. Clean is ideal for people who want to create a minimalistic website.

Additional Resources

If you’re looking for more information on WordPress, then visit the official website at WordPress.com or the WordPress Documentation at https://wordpress.com/documentation/. There, you’ll find all the information you need to know about the platform, as well as a ton of helpful guides and tutorials on completely customizing your WordPress website.

So, now that you have the basics down, it’s time to dive into the fun stuff. How can you make your WordPress website more visually appealing? Let’s take a look.

The Ultimate Guide to Customizing a WordPress Website

As we’ve established, WordPress is an open source platform that can be used to create a beautiful, full-featured website without the need for coding knowledge. This makes it an extremely flexible tool for users who want to create something unique. However, this flexibility can complicate things when it comes to customizing a WordPress website. For this reason, we’ve gone ahead and developed an ultimate guide that will teach you the basics of website design using WordPress.

Here’s the plan: We’ll start by teaching you the basics of website design using the famous HTML5 doctype. After that, we’ll move on to the topic of WordPress design, where we’ll cover the various options available to customize the look of your website. Along the way, you’ll discover a few tricks of the trade that will help you transform any raw WordPress installation into a stunning, unique composition.

Since this is a rather involved topic, let’s dive into it in more detail. So, without further ado, let’s get started.

The Basics – HTML5 & CSS3

When we talk about creating a website, we usually think about a static web page that’s rather dull and boring. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth. A website can be anything – it can be a fully functioning blog, an eCommerce store, or even a catalog of products.

The key to making a website look great is through the use of appropriate HTML5 and CSS3 styling. When used together, these two web technologies can do wonders for your website’s design. For example, let’s take a look at the following code:

<h1>Hello World!</h1>

With this simple HTML code, we can create a heading that will be displayed at the top of a web page. However, this is just the beginning. Using CSS3 properties, we can completely change the look and feel of our website. Let's take a look:

h1 {

color: #222;

background-color: #FAFAFA;

font-family: Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif;

font-weight: normal;

text-align: center;

}

Here, we have defined the basic HTML h1 tag along with several CSS3 properties. Let's have a closer look at each one.

Color

First, we have the color. As we've established in previous lessons, color is an important aspect of web design. When used properly, color can not only increase the aesthetic appeal of a website, but it can also affect the user's experience.

In the above code, we've defined the h1 tag's color as #222, which is a light, navy blue color. This is just an example – you can choose any color you like within the parameters of the HTML5 and CSS3 codes.

Now, whenever you visit this page, you'll see the heading displayed in a nice, light navy blue color.

Background

Next, we have the background. Just like with the color, the background of a website can have a dramatic effect on its design. In the above code, we've defined the h1 tag's background as #FAFAFA, which stands for "fallback anti-aliasing" in CSS3. What this means is that, instead of seeing sharp edges on the text, you'll see a slight blurring effect – this is especially effective when combined with a dark background color. In previous tutorials, we have covered the various ways in which you can make your website look unique and brilliant; this is one of the fundamental techniques you can use to achieve that.

By combining this with some simple CSS3 animation, you can create some really unique effects that will make your visitors stop and take notice. One more thing – you can also use this same technique to blur the edges of photos you upload to your website. This can be a nice touch if you want to add a little bit of artistry to your website's design.

Font Family & Weight

Next, we have the font family and weight. Just like with the background, the font family and weight of a website can have a dramatic effect on the overall design. In the above code, we've defined the h1 tag's font as Tahoma, Arial, and Sans-Serif; the font family is used to define the general look of the text, while the weight is used to modify the boldness of the text. In some instances, you may want all your text to be bold, in which case you would use a bold font; however, for a more subtle effect, you can use a regular font weight.

You'll see above that we've defined the h1 tag's font as Tahoma, which is a nice, clean font that's ideal for making the text look sleek and simple.

Text Align

Last but not least, we have the text align. Just like with the background and font family, the text align of a website can have a dramatic effect on its design. In the above code, we've defined the h1 tag's text align to be centered, which will make the text appear in the center of the heading.

However, this is only the fundamental building block of a great looking website – you also need to make it unique. To do this, you have a couple of options. First, you can take a look at the logo of this site: www.creativelive.com. As you can see, this website's logo is aligned to the left of the h1 tag. For this reason, we can assume that this is a left-aligned logo and, therefore, the text will be aligned accordingly. When viewed on a small device, such as a smartphone, the text will be displayed on the left – as expected.

To the right is a wonderful example from arcticseaicecream.com: