What Do I Need to Do for a Responsive WordPress Website?

WordPress is the most popular blogging platform, and whether you’re new to blogging or you’ve been doing it for years, you may be feeling overwhelmed by the ever-changing world of online marketing and wondering what all the fuss is about. Everyone has a smartphone, so why should someone visit your website on a large screen? What do I need to do to make my site look amazing on any device?

The good news is, WordPress makes this incredibly easy. You don’t need to do any custom coding or hack any corners to get what you want – it’s all fully supported and integrated into the platform. Let’s take a look at what you need to do to ensure your WordPress website looks amazing on every device.

Make Sure Your Website Looks Great on Every Device

Mobilegeddon was the name given to the WordPress project that aimed to make the blogging platform mobile-friendly. Since its launch in 2016, webmasters and bloggers alike have been eagerly awaiting the final release of WordPress 4.4, as it will bring with it a number of new features and improvements that will make a massive difference in how your site looks on a phone or tablet. As a blogger, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about – WordPress makes creating a mobile-friendly blog simple.

If you’re reading this article, it’s safe to assume you’re on one of the many websites running on WordPress. So, we can begin by talking about improving the visual appearance of your site. This entails ensuring that everything from the copy to the images you use to describe your products or services is created with mobile usability in mind. When developing a mobile-friendly WordPress website, you should make sure to ask yourself the right questions so you can create a better user experience for your readers.

Use Video in Your Content

With the rise of TikTok and Instagram in 2018, video content is more important than ever to keep audiences interested and engaged with your content. Whether you choose to use videos to market a new product or service, showcase a talent, or want to create a more intimate experience for your readers, videos can work incredibly well in all situations. Plus, as an added bonus, you can use the video platform to actually drive traffic to your site.

When using video content on your site, you need to make sure the quality is high enough to keep audiences interested and the file size is manageable so it doesn’t disrupt the experience for your readers. On the other hand, YouTube’s video optimization tools can help you find the perfect size for your videos, no matter what platform you choose.

Invest In Good Quality Stock Images

Instead of using blurry screenshots or cheap stock photos, invest in good-quality images for your blog posts. There is a difference between a stock photo and a bad picture of something and someone. When designing a blog post, use images that aren’t just a stock photo because then your post will appear dull. Instead, choose images that will make your blog post unique and interesting.

Create a Hierarchy of Textual And Visual Elements

When writing a blog post, create a hierarchy of the various text and visual elements that make up the post. For example, start with a short description of what the post is about, followed by a short excerpt (which can also function as an image description).

This will make it much easier to understand what the post is about and provide prospective readers with a quick summary of the article’s content. When designing the layout for your blog, place visually engaging elements (e.g., bold text or graphics) on the left side of the page, and place text-only elements on the right side. This way, your readers won’t have to strain their eyesight to read the text.

Use The Right Headings And Bolding

The use of headings and bolding in your content is extremely important for making the text easy to read and accessible. For example, by using headings and bolding, you can make the following sentence:

“This year, Halloween will be celebrated on October 31st, the 1st day of Winter.”

into this easy-to-understand format:

“Winter is coming. This year, Halloween will be celebrated on October 31st. This is to inform you that you need to prepare for winter by taking care of your house and filling your freezer with ice-cream. Enjoy your last summer holidays!”

Now, if you weren’t already convinced that headings and bolding can improve the readability of your content, let’s look at some additional statistics. According to HubSpot Blogs’ research, 95% of online consumers prefer to consume content on a mobile device. So, if you’re using desktop computers to read your blog posts, you may be doing your readers a disservice by not making the text easy for them to read on smaller screens.

Responsive Design Is Key

In the last couple of years, the term “mobile-first” has been thrown around a lot, but it really means responsive design. When designing a website or app that will be viewed on a variety of devices, the first thing to consider is making it responsive so it can adjust to any screen size.

Now, when someone says that a website or app is “responsive,” it doesn’t necessarily mean that it will appear the same on every device. Instead, when designing a responsive site or app, you need to make sure that the copy is easy to read on any device, that the layout is suitable for viewing on a smartphone, and that the overall design looks great on all screens.

For example, if we take the blog post written above about investing in stock images for your blog, you’ll see that the visual style is the same on every platform – the layout, fonts used, and images are all the same. However, if we compare this blog post to the previous one, you’ll see that the text in the newer post is much easier to read due to the increased use of headings and bolding. Additionally, we can see that the design is quite similar between the desktop version and the smartphone version, but the photographs of food in the new post are more suitable for a small screen size.

You can use a service like Google Chrome’s responsive web design tool to easily test how your site looks on different devices. Just make sure to use a different browser on your phone and tablet, as the responsive design tool can interfere with the browser you’re using on your computer – causing your website to look odd or even mess up completely. Also, make sure to test the appearance of the site on various devices using various browsers.

Developers who specialize in creating custom WordPress themes may also use tools like the mobile-ready grid as they work, which makes it easier to ensure that every pixel of the site is accounted for and the layout looks as good as possible on all devices. This tool creates rows and columns that can be used to guide the layout of a webpage or blog post – making it much easier to develop a design that will look good on all devices.

Avoid Blurry Screenshots

When designing a blog post, don’t use screenshot excerpts as the only form of content. Instead, choose to add an image, either from an approved stock photo library or via a free ImageNet search, and then add a short description below it. This will make your blog post much more visually appealing and easier to understand. When designing the layout for your blog, don’t use images that are more than 600 pixels wide as this will make the text read very slowly on a mobile device. Finally, don’t use images that are more than 8000 pixels tall as this will make the text unreadable on a phone.

Creating a WordPress website that looks amazing on all devices is incredibly easy once you know the right way to go about it. Using the right headings and bolding, images that are suitable for mobile use, and video content where appropriate can make a massive difference in how your site looks to your readers. As you begin to develop your own WordPress website or plan to update an existing one, be sure to look at the tips and tricks discussed above to make the process simple and enjoyable.