When it comes to websites, there’s no recipe to follow. But there are, indeed, good practices. And a lot of groundless advice, too. Knowing to make a difference between these implies a few different things.

On the one hand, experience. Building a website in the past will help you quickly grasp that some actions take you further while others freeze you. It’s not rocket science.

On the other hand, flexibility. We all write it down on our resumes and make a big fuss out of it, but, in reality, we’re far more stiff and opaque. In this context, I anchor flexibility into the willingness to make witty compromises.

Experience in building websites might not be your core skill. After all, you are the creative one passionate about your craft. A website is a way for you to tell your story, showcase your talent, and sell your services or products.

But have no worries. This article is here to help you settle the debate between content and design, so you cross the finish line sooner rather than later. And if you have to build a website in the past, trust me, it’s worth sticking by to see what you should improve the next time you adventure into such a feat.

Now a bit of a backstory.

Care and excellence are two of our core values (the third and last one is gratitude), and that makes my choice in how I’m going to pack this article simpler. I’m going to speak only from our direct ten years of experience in creating tools to build websites, so you can imagine that I will preach our mantras. Take it or leave it, but life is too short to keep thickening the existing bulls*it that’s on the Big Internet.

Speaking of experience, in the last eight months or so, I’ve been working closely with Andrei, my fellow marketer—in extenso with the entire Pixelgrade’s squad—to help local creatives build websites with Rosa 2, our flagship WordPress product. Why Rosa 2? Well, I’ll be honest: it’s the one in which we heavily invest our resources. On top of that, it’s also the most whimsical playground to start creating a website in style.

If you don’t trust me (we’re all a bit skeptical these days, it’s okay), read this particular story about how someone with fragile WordPress skills made the most out of our system and created a lovely digital space for her business.

Back to Andrei and I, I think it’s relevant to highlight that we’ve both worked in digital agencies, so we know a thing or two about the fuzzy line in the sand between this is what I want, and this is what you need. This combo proved highly efficient when interacting and helping our local community of creators build a digital home.

Please bear in mind that the following lines do not come from a place of romanticism before getting started. Quite the contrary. It’s from the land of pragmatism. 

Hear me out, amigo!

You can’t design your website while blindfolded

During my freelancing years and since I’ve been wearing the storyteller hat at Pixelgrade, I’ve learned quite soon that content comes first. Designers’ endeavor is to find smart ways to present the information in the best possible scenario, depending on the goal of that particular content. Not the other way around.

As the brilliant Paul Rand notes in Conversations with students:

Design is relationships. Design is a relationship between form and content.

Paul Rand

Most of the local businesses that collaborated with us to build up their websites were convinced that they should take care of the writing process at the end of the chain.

When the look-and-feel is over, when photos are uploaded when the perfect portrait picture is showcased. After that, they will get their flat white with coconut milk and less foam in a cup of latte and start typing with a bit of luck.

No, no, no.

Designers can’t work blindly. And WordPress themes can’t substitute for your lack of direction, even though they come with plenty of constraints to help you make fewer mistakes and focus on what you know best. At least ours do that and help people like you avoid useless headaches.

Have you ever considered a drag-and-drop website building solution that advertises pretty designs and endless freedom?

If you ever played with such tools, you know that there are moments when you feel like going to the mountains and scream until you faint. Design is not easy, especially when you are unsure what will fill in the blanks and the lorem ipsum.

Before spending countless hours making your visual obsession come true, often without solid arguments on the table, I kindly encourage you, again, to get comfortable and start writing.

Yeah, stop the bulls*it with all the procrastination, the writer’s block, and such. Seat down, my friend, and start typing.

Don’t know where to start? Let me give you a few hints.

1. Figure out what you want to accomplish with your website

Do you want people to read your blog articles and engage with your ideas? Do you want to sell your gorgeous candles flawlessly? Do you want to convince folks to fill your form to hop-in to your creative workshop?

Settle on one or a couple of main objectives for your website, and then move to the next step.

2. Be the same person in writing as in real life

Write as you speak is the best advice I could offer. It might sound frail, but it’s true. Copy-catting others, using cookie-cutter strategies, imitating the big players out there will only bring you damages.

And hey, trust is something hard to earn and easy to lose, so make sure you treasure it accordingly. The best approach to open this heavy door is by leading by example.

There’s no perfect approach to express your personality and showcase your work. It’s a trial-and-error, a continuous iteration, a permanent fine-tuning.

3. Figure out your target audience and speak their language

Start by considering how would your readers’ intentions and expectations look like. Imagine a specific scenario and try to grasp how they would express various needs and tailor the content to match them.

For example, if you’re a dreamer who sells soy candles and sharing a big chunk of your life with your Instagram audience, then manifest this kind of openness through your writing too. People want to find the same person behind the www.

Btw, I keep referring to this example because we lent a hand to a local entrepreneur build a website for these particular products, and OMG, they smell amazing!

In a nutshell, these takeaways are worth remembering:

1. There’s no such thing as design vs content; it’s a symbiosis, a tango if you want.
2. Design accommodates the content, which means you should start writing and stop blaming the look-and-feel for your lack of progress.
3. Expressing your personality will always be an adventure, so make sure you start with a first version and take it from there.

I’m not about putting writing on the podium or giving it more importance than needed. The content is king, and other hot slogans do nothing more than pressure people who want to build a website for their business.

I sincerely believe we need to start demystifying this craft as much as possible and encouraging people to write because all stories are worthy and deserve to be in the spotlight.

This posh yet glamorous approach towards writing keeps people away from sharing their narratives, which is, of course, a massive disservice for all of us.

When it comes to creating your website, content is the fuel that keeps the website’s engine up and running. Without it, you can’t reach the destination. So, are you ready to heat those rubbers?

The post Content or design: which comes first when creating your website? appeared first on Pixelgrade.

You might be a photographer who decides to sell their prints, a ceramist who creates vases, or a painter who turned their way of slowing down into products people want to hang on their walls. Once you get traction and see a genuine interest in want you make, the natural next step is to think about the best ways to present your products and sell them with ease.

Of course, getting traction usually means starting on social media. Still, we all know how easy things can get out of hand: multiple messages on various channels (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp), a difficult way of tracking your orders and filtering customers, and the pressure to answer those requests as soon as possible, no matter the time of day.

That’s why you are probably here, reading this article. You’re evaluating if building a website is the right way to go and want to figure out how to do it.

So, in my attempt to help, I’m going to walk you through these steps:

1. Why having a website is the right next step
2. What is WordPress and why you should consider it over alternatives
3. What are the basics of building a website
4. How a creative like you manages her small business with WordPress

Let’s make it happen!

Why you should build your website on WordPress

WordPress is an open-source content management system that allows people to create a website easily. It powers about 43.2% of all the websites, and the vast community around it helps it grow each day—either by contributing to the core code of WordPress or by expanding its functionality via plugins (for things like email marketing, e-commerce, payments, contact forms, etc.), and themes (to ensure your website looks top-notch).

There are, of course, other alternatives like Shopify, Squarespace, Wix, and more. They promise to deliver a more effortless website building experience while offering all the necessary parts in-house. Nothing comes without a learning curve and, since their software is closed source (meaning they have total control, you don’t want that, trust me!), the possibilities of broadening their functionality are limited.

This is especially true if you are not based in countries like the US, Canada, or the UK. Since few external developers can build on top of these platforms, you will often find yourself unable to integrate with the popular providers in your region (like payment processors, delivery services, etc.). Here, WordPress excels due to the power and size of its community, which means you will almost always find a solution for every need you have. 

On top of this, with WordPress, you own the website you built, and you can do whatever you want with it. Add as many things, tweak it however you want, remove what you don’t need. 

That’s not the case with the other solutions. They keep a tight lock on what you can do on their platform, which tools to choose, and how to adjust them. Fewer choices to make (an advantage for some) and less flexibility—you need to decide what matters to you.

What are the basics of building a WordPress website

The only difference between WordPress and the other website builders is that you need to find yourself a hosting—meaning a place where your website will be stored (similar to how you store files on a hard drive, to put it simply).

The good thing is that hosting providers have improved their services, and most come with WordPress pre-installed. GoDaddy, Bluehost, SiteGround, and A Small Orange are great solutions. Pick the pricing package that’s closest to your current needs, as you can always upgrade later on.

A domain name is also necessary, so people can know what to type in the address bar. This service is often one of the core offers of hosting companies, which means you can quickly get one while signing up for your hosting plan.

The most popular domain extension is .com, but if you don’t plan on addressing an international market, you can go with the top-level domain of your country (e.g., .de for Germany, .fr for French websites).

Next, you need to choose a WordPress theme that can shine a light on your business and product. Think of these as your website’s design baseline—similar to the templates offered by Squarespace and the likes. You can start with a free WordPress theme, but if you want a performant online shop, going premium is recommended to have all the bells and whistles.

What to keep in mind when choosing any provider is the company behind it. You will need customer support, and here is where not everyone is created equal. Choose the provider that seems to be there to help you when needed. Read their reviews to see what people have to say, send pre-sales questions with any concerns, check their social profiles. All in all, do a background check to learn if they’ll be there for you or not.

How a handmade soy candles business thrives on WordPress and Rosa2

I have the perfect example to prove my point.

In the next lines, I would like to present Andra, a creative person who decided to channel her creativity into making scented handmade soy candles. She started in 2016 and named her small business Flair Scent.

I’ve been a creative person since I was a little kid. I was always creating stuff from paper and cardboard, like pencil stands, photo frames, cards, jewelry, all kinds of crafts. Sometimes, when kids would call me to go out and play, I would say, “no, I want to play by myself.” But back then, I didn’t knew I was creative.

Andra from Flair Scent

Since she was a kid, she loved to surround her house with a pleasant smell, going as far as rating the best smelling apartments among her friends. Fast forward 15 years, finding a scented candle while on vacation made her rediscover her passion and think about making a similar product.

I was already a scented candle fan after discovering them on a trip to London, visiting my sister. Every time I went there, I would buy lots of scented candles because they were nowhere to be found in Romania. When I read the label of a candle, I saw that it was 100% soy wax. The next thing I did was order soy wax and some scents, but those ended up staying in the closet for almost a year.

Suddenly, for women’s day in Romania, desperate for some gifts for my boss and colleague, I took out the wax and the scents from the closet, some old cups I had around the house, used cotton strings as wicks, and that night I created my first scented candles. The next day I gave them as gifts, and they were very much appreciated. My boss was the first to tell me that I could sell them. Since then, I started testing types of soy wax, scents, wicks, pouring temperatures, and in August 2016, I started my own company.

Andra from Flair Scent

As demand increased, it was clear that the selling and presentation process needed to be streamlined, and continuing to sell via social media would not hold for long.

That’s when WordPress came to the stage, and she launched the first version of her website. As time went by, her business evolved, and it was clear that she needed a more robust solution. On top of that, she wanted a website that highlights her personality in style. She tried to put her vision out there and express it across the digital house, too. It’s what brought her to this place, after all.

Here’s when Rosa2, our best-selling WordPress theme, alongside the WooCommerce Add-on (a unique styling added the WooCommerce plugin needed for selling online) felt like the right choice.

With our customer support assistance, she redesigned the website and relaunched it just in time for the Christmas holiday season. Equipped with a theme built on the new block editor from WordPress, creating the pages was a breeze. Our customer support team came in handy when she hit roadblocks and didn’t shy away from recommending the best tools to get the job done.

Here’s the final result:

Although a daunting task at first, building your own website doesn’t have to be a complicated process if you have the right partners by your side.

Here’s what she has to say about the entire redesign process:

In October 2020, I won a European project, so the company got bigger; I had plans to open a physical store, I added a few employees to the team, so I felt the need to refresh everything, including the website. I have five employees now, and I feel this comes with great responsibility. It changes everything. From my bohemian way of living, all by myself, pouring candles at night, when I felt like it, talking to clients and packing candles by day, to learning how to work in a team, pouring candles with people around me, which never happened before. But it feels like the right thing to do, the right next step.

The new website is exactly what I envisioned, and I couldn’t have done it as fast without Pixelgrade’s support. You helped me launch it before the busiest time of the year—the Christmas holidays. The website worked flawlessly from day one, even when I got a surge in traffic. People congratulated me, saying that everything runs smooth and fast and that it looks amazing.

Now I can think about the next steps, like making an English version to sell across Europe, adding a dedicated page for workshop registration, and more.

Andra from Flair Scent

Building your own digital house should be seen not as a burden but as a natural evolution for your small creative businesses. Once you have it up and running, you’ll be surprised by the many possibilities that will open up to you.

It would be best if you remembered that the Internet tools of today had explicitly evolved to accommodate people no matter their digital literacy. All you need to do is pick the partners that speak to your values, prove that they can support you along the way, and you should be set for giving your website the best chance. It’s not the ultimate bulletproof since we live in such a dynamic and complex world, but it’s a route it’s worth taking.

If you were that courageous to open your creative side to the eyes and criticism of others by showcasing your work into the world, I’m sure you can handle building a website. You just have to start.

PS: Since selling with WordPress requires WooCommerce, the e-commerce plugin that powers 26% of all online stores, you might want to learn why you should consider WooCommerce for building an online store.

— Photo credits: George Mihăilă

The post How to sell your crafts online using WordPress appeared first on Pixelgrade.

Day in and day out, I see a bunch of websites, I analyze them, I’m mesmerized by some folks’ bravery, but also sad when I notice how hard people focus on getting the visual elements just right while neglecting the importance of providing clarity with each new element and paragraph.

I’m not saying that the visual doesn’t matter. It can play a big role, and we know this since most of our customers say that we sell beautiful designs. However, the implications weigh only when they are helping you achieve certain goals on your website. And the best way to uncover your goals is by asking the right questions before creating your website.

We often have internal debates before writing an article about covering a specific topic within the website creation playground. It’s easy to throw all kinds of 12 steps to, but as marketers, we’re well aware that the value does not lie in lists but context and in-depth information. At the same time, we can’t mime a full-service agency. We’re a product company; they’re a service organization.

If you succeed in walking through all of this and take action before jumping into building your website blindly, we guarantee that you already went further than most.

Usually, independent creators (primarily one-person companies working in photography, ceramics, design, illustration, copywriting, etc.) want to speed up the process by using cookie-cutter strategies and miss the essential areas of creating a relevant and performant website in the long haul.

Prepare your notebook, and let’s do some serious work to smooth your way in the digital world.

Quick navigation:

• Business goals first, aesthetics second
• Questions to ask before creating your website
  • Questions to discover your needs
  • Questions to discover the needs of your audience
• Find a route that works for you

Business goals first, aesthetics second

As mentioned earlier, one misstep is focusing on the aesthetics that catch people’s eyes and forgetting about having a clear statement that answers why someone should do business with you. It’s commonly known as a value proposition, and the main goal is to make it crystal clear what’s in it for your visitors.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s proven that people first focus on the visual aspects of your website—it’s human nature to interpret images faster than text. But after the first 2.6 seconds, people’s attention will be on the key elements to quickly understand what you do and decide if you can help them or not.

Let’s take a few home page examples so you can better understand my point. First, take a look at the website below and try to guess what they’re doing.

If you are not familiar with the brand, at first glance, it seems like they are promoting a design class, so that must be it, right? Or maybe a community of creatives? It can be anything and something at the same time.

Oh well, the company is creating pencils and all other kinds of writing and drawing instruments. And they are quite successful at it with a business with a history of more than 100 years.

I’ll give them credit to the fact that their brand is probably big enough that they can play around on their website, but for most businesses out there, that’s not the case. On top of that, no matter how big or small, clarity is a value in itself. Don’t underestimate it.

Now let’s take another example. Take a look at the video below:

Once you read the headline, you’ll see that you don’t need to invest much effort to understand what their website is all about—helping you with the hassle of time tracking.

At the same time, they didn’t take shortcuts when it comes to visuals; instead, they used them to draw people’s attention and make them stay while completing the puzzle with a value proposition that clears the air and sets the right expectations for visitors.

If I were to go a step further, I would suggest being even clearer in the main headline by swapping the headline with the subtitle. That would look something like this:

As you can see, although visuals are important to get visitors to stay in the first few seconds, the text should be the one enticing them to stick around and browse other areas of the website.

Don’t go for catchy and fancy wording that raises more questions. Clarity first, creativity second.

The next thing you need to keep in mind is how your website answers the possible questions of your audience. If you want people to choose you and what you have to offer, you must provide and unravel those answers with each scroll of the page.

Take, for example, the presentation page for Rosa2, our WordPress theme. In it, we aim to showcase our product while alleviating fears by answering questions like:

• What can I build with this product?
• How can I customize it?
• Can it help me sell my products online?
• Do I get customer support?
• Can I translate it into my language?
• Will my website be performant if I use your product?
• Is it optimized for search engines?
• What websites have others built with this product?
• What do past customers say about this product?
• Are there any hidden costs that I should know about?
• Can I get my money back if I don’t find it a good fit after the purchase?

I know that getting to that place of clarity and providing answers to your audience’s biggest questions is no easy feat. That’s why it’s important to get your priorities straight while building a website.

Next, I’m going to walk you through some of the things that can help you come up with a value proposition that speaks to your audience’s needs.

Questions to ask before creating your website

As I mentioned earlier, the look and feel of your website needs to be followed by a clear message that explains why people should choose you.

Now it’s time to discover your goals and your visitor’s needs and wants so you can address them with each page you create. To do that, you must ask yourself and your audience the right questions before you even start creating your website.

1. Questions to discover your needs

If you want to build a website that speaks to who you are and helps you make something of it, you must first spend time thinking about your objectives.

This process is not a walk in the park, but the following list of questions can help you create a website on solid ground and uncover the core needs behind your business. From our experience of working with many creative entrepreneurs across the globe, we learned that it’s essential to make sure you don’t offer superficial answers. They will go against you.

1. What kind of website do you want to build?

Is it one where you showcase your portfolio? Or maybe you want to sell some of the products you make? Or perhaps writing is your core passion and what it to take center stage. Whatever it is, you must be clear about its purpose.

2. What business need do you want to cover with the website?

Do you want more customers for your photography business? Are you looking to generate more online sales or maybe build a personal brand around your writing?

No matter what it is, make sure you have it written down because your entire website should revolve around this objective and help you achieve it. With every page you build, section you add, or blog post you write, you must think about how it can get you closer to your goal. Only with this in mind can you turn your website into something alive and working for your dreams.

3. What is your target market?

Think about who are the people who will visit your website and are looking to get something from you. This is key, especially when you get down to write the content on your website. You must speak your audience’s language and make sure you meet their expectations.

Regardless of what you offer and however posh your audience might be, don’t get trapped into creative writing that brings no clarity. It not only makes people raise their eyebrows because they don’t understand the basics, and it will also frustrate them, thinking that you are fooling around.

4. What should people be able to accomplish on your website?

This can take many shapes and forms but focus on getting closer to achieving your goal. Depending on what your website is all about, the actions people should achieve can be booking a call, browsing your portfolio, learning about the people behind the curtain, purchasing your products, etc.

There can only be one primary action tied to your main goal and several secondary actions that address your visitors’ concerns.

Let’s say you are an architecture studio that builds houses, and your primary goal is for people to book a call. Think of how each page can help you get there. It can mean adding a “Book a call” button in the top navigation, footer, or at the end of each blog post.

As for secondary actions, these are the tools and features you need to address your visitor’s concerns. Continuing the example above, think of things like offering examples of projects, case studies people can read or download, testimonials from past customers, a newsletter or blog where you can showcase your expertise to allow people to build trust. 

Or, if people might wonder about your price ranges, you can go a step further and offer a simulation calculator where people can get a sense of what working with you might mean.

If you want to get an idea about the must-have pages your website needs, you can dive deeper by reading our blog post.

5. What are the other must-have features your website needs?

Certain features will allow you to publish the content the way you want and present yourself online on your terms. It’s better to figure out what those features are so you can start building your website with a bigger picture in mind.

For example, you might need integration with email services or payment providers, support for audio or video content, and so on.

Find a route that works for you

There are many blueprints and advice on the internet, but never forget that these are recommendations and not set in stone. 

You might not get it right from the first try, or there might be things you learn along the way that will influence how your website looks and feels.

It’s always best to take everything with a grain of salt and think about what you enjoy doing most and which are the products or projects that fit your values and way of building your business.

For example, people might expect to call you instead of email, but if you don’t want to spend your days on the phone and if the answers they seek require thinking time, make sure you clarify that with your website visitors.

Although some needs of your potential customers are valid, so are your own; you are the one who gets to decide how you want to do business or showcase yourself online. It does come with potential risks, but it can also mark your personality and brand.

At the same time, your website is not like a printed piece of paper that stays the same once it is out. The great thing about the digital world is that you can easily change things up when needed. Start from somewhere and constantly adjust on the way. You might not get it right from the first try, or there might be things you learn along the way that will influence how your website looks and feels.

We at Pixelgrade evolved a lot in the last few years—we discovered our values and made adjustments in the way we build our products, talk with our customers, or write online so that it matches with who we’ve become. We tried different ways of packaging our products that proved not to fit our customer’s expectations. That meant going back to the drawing board, analyzing our needs again, talking with our customers, and coming up with a more straightforward message that explains why people should choose us.

The same can be true for your website. Don’t settle for less. Put your business goals first, listen to your customers, find ways to alleviate their fears on your terms, and go beyond the eye-candy regarding photos, visual gimmicks, and overall design.

Every piece of content or feature from your website needs to help you reach your business goals, regardless of their nature: raising awareness, selling products and services, booking events, contacting and asking for an offer, nurturing a community, etc. 

In today’s world, where each of us spends so much time online, jumping from one www to another, most of your potential customers are well-informed and have developed a solid radar for bulls**t. If you’re not asking the right questions before creating your website, you won’t be able to be crystal clear and transparent right from the start, and people will just hit the little (x) in the corner of their browser.

The post Which questions to ask before creating your website appeared first on Pixelgrade.

When it comes to creating a website to present your work, things can become blurry. But, regardless if you sell architectural services, soy candles, product photography, specialty coffee, or anything else, you must not rely too much on others.

By that, I mean relying on the freelancer hired because of their very niche skills, the WordPress theme bought without a thorough analysis, the full-service agency that promises the moon.

This way of navigating is a fallacy due to a colossal misunderstanding.

Yes, you can delegate some areas of work where you lack expertise. That makes perfect sense. If you don’t have the writing skill or the time to practice it, it’s wiser to hire a copywriter to work on your story. However, you can’t ask the copywriter to choose which of your services or products have better chances to get traction.

It’s simply not his business. It’s yours.

Whenever I try to put together rock-solid articles to help creative entrepreneurs like yourself, I always do my homework. 

Recently, while doing research for this article, I ended up gathering many valuable insights about information architecture, content hierarchy, content planning, and user experience. While the discovery felt eye-opening, it left me drained and puzzled.

It was hard to digest and integrate the many complex concepts I ran into without tailoring them to specific business goals. 

At first, I realized that there’s an entire world around the structure of your website—aka the sitemap. So I thought I should focus on that but quickly realized that George, my teammate, already covered it.

That got me thinking. If I struggle with making sense of this information, what are the chances for a creative entrepreneur who has a lot of stuff on his table (creating products or delivering services, accounting, teamwork, sales, marketing, legal stuff, HR, etc.)? 

You might as well just say pass. It’s too much to swallow.

So I decided to make things easier for people like you, who might juggle too many balls at the same time. Hence, I decided to approach this topic from a communication perspective. After all, it’s my area of expertise. 

I’ve been working in the communication field for more than ten years; eight have been in the digital arena. I came to understand the ins and outs of presenting your brand on the Internet, especially when it comes to your digital crib, the website.

Let me walk you through a few insights into the structure of a website and its correlation to your business goals.

It would be best to take these recommendations and adapt them to what you want to accomplish and how success looks. The good part is that it’s not a one-time-game (it’s more of a series), so you don’t have to get it from the first try—quite the contrary. 

Businesses are dynamic, they evolve for the better or worse, and the website should reflect this specific moment in time and space.

There’s no set-in-stone recipe out there. There are definitely dozens of ways to make mistakes, that’s for sure. This is why at Pixelgrade, we’ve been working for ten years in a row to get the knowledge to make well-informed decisions for our customers.

It does not mean that we get the job done for their businesses, but we give a solid starting point to avoid cruel faults.

However, one of the best parts of the digital playground is that there’s room to play. The beauty lies in having the freedom to create a website that truly represents your brand personality and needs. At least that we’ve been doing on our side of the world.

Photo taken at our office by Katerina Nedelcu

The post Must-have pages on your website appeared first on Pixelgrade.

In the process of building your website, you might feel the need to add all sorts of bells and whistles. Sometimes, because you need them, other times because you got inspired from somewhere or want to be covered just in case.

And that’s, in part, a good thing because the solutions others found for their needs might also apply to yours. Plus, you get the added benefit of not having to come up with something from scratch—don’t reinvent the wheel, right? But don’t forget that not everything is within your reach or beneficial for what you aim to achieve.

I know what you might think—that I don’t find your wants to be valid. But I can assure you this is not the case.

All your ambitions and expectations are completely justified and real, and in fact, you might need all of them at some point. I do not deny it one bit.

What I’m trying to say is that you should be extremely careful what promises you make to your audience and be confident that you can deliver on your word. Avoid getting carried away by the excitement of all the new possibilities your website can unravel.

Think about building your website the same way you think about building a house. You first imagine what are your current and future needs and start building them one by one. You build one bedroom for you and your significant other, a small kitchen since you don’t cook that often, a dining table for when you get together with your friends.

With time though, you realize that your life changed and does not fit your initial plans.

You started working from home, which allowed you to cook more often. Plus, some of your friends moved to different cities to pursue work opportunities, and your living room hasn’t seen a party in months.

This raises the opportunity of transforming the space to better fit who you are today. That dinner table could be replaced with a smaller one and make room for a proper desk. Your kitchen is now useful and needs to fit in a new oven to cook healthy meals.

The same is true with your website. Don’t look at it as having to fulfill all your current and future possible needs all at once. Your website is dynamic, even more so than a house. It can transform and evolve over time to accommodate your ever-changing needs.

Not everything has to happen at once, and not everything will stay exactly the same forever. And that’s perfectly okay. That’s the beauty of the digital landscape—it comes with flexibility and freedom. Wisely used, both can turn into outstanding advantages that keep you competitive in the long haul.

During the almost a decade of building products that help people impact their communities, we’ve talked with thousands of customers and saw the creation and evolution of even more websites. Plus, recently, we helped half a dozen local creative entrepreneurs expand to the digital world using Rosa2, our flagship product.

These experiences uncovered patterns and areas where people often jump head first when building a website without critically analyzing if they do it sustainably or if their business actually benefits from those extra features.

So, in the next paragraphs, I’m going to go over some of the things you think you need on your website but actually don’t—not yet, at least. Trust me on this one.

If you want, you can jump to the area that interests you the most:

• “I need a newsletter to keep in touch with my readers”
• “I need a blog to write about stuff”
• “I need a contact form so people can reach me”
• “I need a pop-up or browser notification to tell everyone about my offer”
• “I want an online shop to boost my revenue”

“I need a blog to write about stuff”

I’ve seen more ghost blog sections than I can count, and I’m sure you have too. Nothing speaks outdated like a list of five blog posts that are at least two years old.

As you might have guessed, this happens when you don’t set yourself a clear goal, a writing schedule, and a few topics you want to write about. Do you like to share your creative process? Do you aim to talk about your struggles as an entrepreneur? Do you plan to provide educational content to help your readers achieve specific outcomes?

Enable the blog and use it regularly or forget about it for the time being.

Having it there for the occasional “yearly post” makes no sense. At the same time, seeing it exist can prove to be a burden and frustration for never having the time to do it right. If that’s the case, you might as well not have one—I doubt that it brings any value in that form.

We advocate (with solid arguments) for writing less on social media where you don’t own the content. A good way to keep your audience in the loop is to use the blog as a place where you write updates and news about your business while offering context for a better alignment with who you are.

So, if you don’t want to have a blog section that’s like a tumbleweed from a 1970s western movie, you can start using your blog in a similar fashion as the social feed.

Plus, having that extra space means you can go in-depth and give more context about what’s happening. Enable the blog and use it regularly or forget about it for the time being.

It took us more than nine years to find a name, a story, and a clear positioning for our blog, so be gentle with yourself. Things will fall into place after all, but take your time to digest what you want to accomplish in this communication medium.

“I need a pop-up or browser notification to tell everyone about my offer”

I see this happening everywhere, and it’s something that’s almost always implemented just because people see it used (a lot) on many different websites.

But I ask you, what’s the point of having a big, intrusive pop-up shoved in people’s faces when they visit you for the first time or with a completely different goal in mind?

Most of the time, people don’t even have the chance of browsing your website before being blasted with notifications and calls-to-action to hop on a subscription list.

I’m not saying they don’t work, but I believe they can be more effective if you tailor them to your customer’s needs and browsing history on your website.

Maybe your small business can’t afford 10% discounts for every newsletter sign-up.

A small pop-up telling me about an exclusive discount on certain items that I am currently looking at can bring much more value than a generic one showed when I just landed on your home page.

For example, let’s say you have an online clothing store, and I’m looking at the jeans section. Informing me about a sale on a particular jeans model is much more appropriate to my browsing journey.

The same is true for a subscription pop-up. I often see incentives like a 10% discount for jumping in, but that’s way before I even got the chance to look around. Not to mention that if I’m on the checkout, I might either forget about your offer or have to go back and subscribe, check my email, and restart the checkout process.

What if, instead, on the checkout page, I also get the option to subscribe with a 10% coupon automatically applying if I do? Having those features implemented in the places that make sense will increase their effectiveness and won’t be just another thing I have to click to make it disappear and let me mind my business.

At the same time, before implementing these features, be sure that you provide value to people who choose to enable notifications or subscribe. If all you’re going to do is blast them with constant campaigns and messages unrelated to their needs, you might wear them out.

Again, the key is to NOT do it for the wrong reasons or just because you’ve seen it somewhere else. Maybe your small business can’t afford 10% discounts for every newsletter sign-up. There’s nothing wrong with not doing something that’s not sustainable.

Just because what I listed above doesn’t happen now, it does not mean that it can’t happen in the future. Your website is like your house—there’s a cost of having it, there’s cleaning that needs to be done to keep it in shape, and there is remodeling to adapt it to your changing needs.

Plus, all of these changes or potential opportunities come with a cost—time, energy, and money. That’s why it’s better to ask yourself a few hard yet honest questions before fitting your website with a feature you think you need but are not sure it will ever get properly used.

So before committing to some new feature, action, or activity, go through questions like:

• What’s the bare minimum I need to launch my website before making any promises I’m not sure I can keep?
• Do I have the right skills to pursue this endeavor?
• When I’m going to fit this new activity into my daily schedule? Is there someone else that can handle it for me?
• Are people and potential customers expecting me to do this?
• Do I want this because it can truly help me and my business or just because others are doing it?
• What are the costs of implementing it? What about the intricacies of doing this long-term?

Answering these questions will help you speed up the building process and ensure that you won’t sign up for something you can’t deliver. It might seem like a hassle, but it will save you from a lot of headaches.

Start from being pragmatic and list all the responsibilities you already have. Focus on where you bring the best value, and make sure you grow your website’s capabilities when you are ready and have clear goals that you plan to achieve—one battle at a time.

Otherwise, you will only increase your chances of getting people frustrated because they subscribed to a newsletter that they don’t ever receive, they ordered products and are nowhere to be seen, that you have a blog with two articles written a million years ago, and so on.

Less is more. And better.

The post Things you want on your website, but you don’t need (yet) appeared first on Pixelgrade.

I hope I’m not too cocky when I say that we are well-known in the WordPress ecosystem due to both our modern portfolio of products, but also for our strong mantras regarding what good design is all about, where is the fine line between authors and customers, and why the one-size-fits-all kind of approach is simply not an option for us.

In case you haven’t heard of us until now, here’s a summary: we’ve been creating WordPress themes for more than eight years, and ever since, we’ve been pushing the boundaries to benefit our clients’ needs and requests. 

Often, this is translated into putting in place a list of efficient constraints in order to avoid burdening you, the customer, with big design decisions and focusing on what truly matters to your success.

I will walk you through how to choose the right blogging WordPress theme for what you plan to accomplish. I will help you to not get lost in the deep ocean of one-size-fits-all or the so-called too-good-to-be-true products. As in life, there isn’t a recipe for anything that’s meaningful and long-lasting, just a bunch of choices.

What follows is a set of rational arguments why Pixelgrade could be your first option when kicking-off on this blogging journey or leveling up your digital game.

I narrowed everything to three straightforward steps you should follow if you consider paying for a premium blogging WordPress theme. I chose three not because it’s a magical number, but because the Internet is already full of advice that you can skim through whenever you want. My aim is to provide the essentials and the obvious that are so often neglected but manage to bring the best outcomes. 

By considering them, you will increase the chances of making a decision that will help you stand out in the digital world, and eliberate you from headaches and lost time, energy, and money.

Ready to learn the basics and create a truly amazingblog? Welcome on board, have a nice ride.

Step 1 — Built for one niche, not one size fits all 

The best blogging themes out there are built on an in-depth process: doing research, defining the pains of the users, and finding design solutions for the upcoming product. 

In other words, everything related to the theme serves specific goals that potential customers need to accomplish at some point during their journey.

You should choose a theme that offers a particular list of features created to solve real and specific problems. 

Let’s take the example of Julia, our food blogging WordPress theme. 

Since most of your content is around recipes,ingredients, and other culinary experiments, you will need a solution to easily display them to your visitors without creating any confusion or anxiety.

On top of that, a simple yet efficient recipe index should concern you because the more articles you will write, the harder it will be for your visitors to find the ones they are most interested in. By keeping track of your recipes, your audience will be able to quickly filter them by category, course, season or any type of tag that makes sense for your blog.

Make their journey more pleasant, avoid testing their interest or loyalty useless. 

On the opposite side of the spectrum, if you lose focus and go with a theme that promises you a huge list of features (remember the too-good-to-be-true promise made by everyone these days?), you will end up overwhelmed and drained. 

Instead of putting all your resources in writing meaningful and authentic content about your food, you will spend a lot of time trying to navigate between choices that make no sense for your blog’s endeavour.

At Pixelgrade, we’ve always been a huge fan of serving niches instead of pleasing everyone or creating a multipurpose theme packed in the ultimate and disruptive solution. 

Our portfolio of WordPress blogging themes is a proof of that: you have travel blogging themes, magazine themes, food themes, fashion themes, minimalistic themes — all tailored to particular needs discovered along their process of building these products.

Moreover, all these needs have been heavily confirmed by real use cases from our customers, discovered from our discussions with them. From answering dozens of customer support tickets to running Skype calls, we’ve been gathering first-hand insights to improve our work.

Step 2 — Customizations made easy and smart, no extra costs

The Internet is full of bloggers of all kinds, but few of them succeed in creating a personal brand out of their digital activity. There are several reasons why getting recognized is hard, but you can definitely do some things to increase the chances to be heard. 

Maybe you don’t even want to become some famous blogger out there (you don’t have the time to invest, the interest to make a career out of your writing activity, etc.), and that’s totally fine. 

In the end, you can define what success means to you, but you should definitely care about having a blog that offers a consistent experience from top to toe. Without that, there is just no point in adding more noise to the already crowded digital landscape. Find another route to satisfy your writing needs.

Usually, customization implies various costs. Even the name entails that because everything tailored makes perfect sense to be more expensive. 

• Do you want a car made on your requests? You need to pay more.
• Do you aim to have a house built with specific materials and in a certain way? You should have some extra cash saved up.
• Do you want a suit that makes you look outstanding? Hire a talented tailor.

There’s no exception when it comes to blogging themes. To continue the food blog example I mentioned above, you should look for a theme where customization is an investment, not a cost. In other words, buy a product that is already build-in with such a system in place, not the other way around — don’t get the theme and then hire a developer to write code for you. It just makes no sense.

We created Style Manager, a customization tool with an intuitive interface where you can choose between predefined color and font palettes or simply create your own. 

The great thing is that it allows you to get visual consistency across your websites. This way, you make sure you are on the right track with the design of your website and offer an exceptional experience while focusing more on what you really love: creating content.

Step 3 — Autonomy in terms of using the theme at its full potential

Plenty of companies that built WordPress themes shout out loud about their 7/7, 24h customer support availability. You can open a ticket whenever you want; someone at the end of the funnel will write you back in no time. It seems like a huge advantage that you should take benefit of, right? 

Well, reconsider for a bit.

Do you really need such a timeframe to reach the customer support department? Do you care about the people behind the screens? Would you like to work for a similar company?

The truth is that you are what you reinforce. If you sustain such an attitude, it says something about you and your values. 

On the other hand, this does not mean that you should no longer have access to customer support in order to keep things floating and making sure your blog is up and kicking. We certainly take pride in the lengths we go to help our customers. Ultimately, you pay for it. In the WordPress ecosystem it’s almost a default, so no doubt that you want to take advantage.

We come up with a balanced and healthy solution for both sides: employees and customers. It’s called Pixelgrade Care, and it’s a plugin created by us that offers you a smooth onboarding process, but, more than that, direct access to theme’s documentation directly from your Dashboard. 

In other words, you no longer need to mingle between several sources of information, you can skim through our knowledge base in the blink of an eye, and if you do not get the answer to your concerns, you always have the option to open a ticket right from there.

Maybe it’s important to know that our blogging WordPress themes are easy to use, so most probably you will get the outcomes you wish on your own, but in case you need more guidance, this is our smart solution to provide it. This way we protect our customer support menthal space, help you get the job done, and keep everything up and running.

There are also other good practices to consider when you are in the position of choosing the right blogging WordPress theme, but these ones are mandatory if you care about what are you building, how, and for what costs. 

As any initiative, both digital and non-digital, you need to jump into cold water and learn on the go since nothing beats the lessons you are going to learn by being in the arena.

However, our portfolio contains a cluster of 11 simple and beautiful blogging WordPress themes (from fashion to travel, from food to magazine) that you can twist and turn to fit your personality and working style.

We genuinely care a lot about our craft and the experience we are providing to our growing community of 60K+ creative people from all over the world. 

The post 3 key perks of getting your blog WordPress theme from us appeared first on Pixelgrade.

A multilingual website WordPress plugin can help you reach those users, and it could be a great decision for your site if you’re located in a multilingual geographic area or targeting global visitors.

Translating your WordPress site can have some real benefits and, with the right tool, it’s a lot easier than you might think.

In this post, we’ll lay out what those benefits are, take you through some key considerations, and show you step-by-step how to create a multilingual WordPress website using Rosa 2, a sequel to the #1 selling restaurant WordPress theme as an example.

Why you should consider a multilingual website WordPress plugin

If you’re not already convinced, there are two big reasons to consider a multilingual website WordPress plugin:

1. You can create a better experience for your existing visitors and make your website more accessible.
2. You can reach more visitors in search engines like Google.

Let’s go through those benefits in detail.

1. Create a more accessible user experience

It’s a multilingual world on the Internet, and it’s no surprise that most people prefer to browse the web in their own native language. Sometimes this choice is for convenience, while for many people it’s the only option.

If you want to make your website accessible to more people, going multilingual is the only option.

You can pull some good examples of this from the restaurant niche, though the same principle holds true in other spaces, too.

Many restaurants are in areas with a multilingual population and/or a well-developed tourism industry that brings in people from around the world.

Delicious food doesn’t have a language barrier, but food menus do, which is why you’ll see a lot of restaurants add multilingual content to their sites.
For example, Yakimono is a sushi bar in Montreal, Canada, who uses the Rosa theme for their website and translates it into two different languages – English and French.

Yakimono has a multilingual customer base since in Montreal half the population speaks French and a quarter speaks English, so translating their menu and other content makes sure that all of their potential customers can understand what they have to offer:

So if you target a geographic area with a multilingual audience and/or could benefit from reaching a global audience, translating your website is a great way to offer a better experience for those people.

2. Reach more visitors in search engines

See, people don’t just browse websites in their preferred language, they also search in Google using their preferred language. So you might have someone searching for the exact thing that you offer…just in a different language.

With a monolingual site, you’d miss out on all that potential traffic. By translating it, you give yourself a chance to reach those people, which means you’ve expanded your site’s visibility without needing to create any “new” content (you’re just translating ideas that already exist).

Let’s go back to that restaurant example above to drive home the point.

Even though Montreal residents are mostly bilingual, having the US so close means that a lot of English speaking tourists will come to visit. If they were looking for a sushi restaurant, they probably wouldn’t be searching Google for sushi restaurants in French. Instead, they’d use their native language and search for something like “best sushi Montreal”.

If Yakimono’ website only existed in French, since that’s what the majority of the population speaks, they’d do mostly fine with all locals. But they’d totally miss out on being found in Google by their pool of potential English speaking customers.

By going multilingual, though, they can connect with all those potential customers.

4 important questions to ask before creating a multilingual website on WordPress

Ok, so you’re interested in taking advantage of a multilingual website WordPress plugin to achieve the benefits above…but how can you set yourself up for success?

Answering these questions will help you create a solid strategy and pick the best plugin for your needs.

1. Which languages do my visitors speak?

You probably already have a pretty good idea of which languages your visitors speak, but it never hurts to turn to some hard data for confirmation.

If you’re using Google Analytics, you can use the Languages report in the Geo tab of the Audience section to figure out exactly which languages your visitors prefer (this data is based on visitors’ browser language):

This will help you focus your translation efforts on the languages with the best ROI.

2. How do I want to translate my content?

When it comes to creating a multilingual website on WordPress, there are two main approaches to translation:

• Automatic machine translation — you let a computer automatically translate your content — think Google Translate.
• Manual translation — you can translate the content yourself, hire a freelancer or outsource it to a professional translation service.

While you can exclusively focus on one or the other, a time-saving approach is to pick a WordPress translation plugin that allows for both methods. That is, you can start by using machine translation for all of your content. Then, you can go back and manually refine the end result if needed.

For the restaurant website example, you might be fine with automatic translation for some parts of your site, but you probably want to use a manual translation for your menu to ensure it’s perfect.

Finally, for the manual route, your needs might change depending on who’s going to be translating your content. For example, if you want to hire professionals, you might prefer a WordPress translation plugin that makes it easy to outsource your translations to professional services.

3. Is the plugin I’m looking at optimized for multilingual SEO?

If you want to get the full benefits from a translation plugin, it’s important that you pick one that’s going to set you up for multilingual SEO success.

For example, some translation plugins just use Google Translate to dynamically translate your site’s content for each individual visitor. While that’s certainly convenient, Google won’t be able to index those dynamic translations, so you’ll completely miss out on any on SEO benefits of translating your WordPress site.

Instead, make sure to pick a plugin that creates a static, indexable version of your site for each language using either a subdomain or subfolder. For example, yoursite.com for English and then yoursite.com/es for Spanish.

4. Can the plugin I’m looking at translate all my content?

With a WordPress site, there are a lot of moving parts. Sure, you have the content in the editor, but you also have tons of content from your theme, any plugins that you’re using, and any custom post types or custom fields that you might’ve added to your content.

Almost any WordPress translation plugin will work for content in the text editor, but things aren’t so guaranteed when you start talking about other types of content.

For example, you may want to translate images on your website.

If you want to comprehensively translate your site, it’s important to pick a plugin that will let you edit all the different content types you’re using on your site.

Additionally, consider whether the plugin requires specific compatibility in the themes or plugins you are currently using, as this will be another important factor.

A good multilingual website WordPress plugin to get started

While there are a lot of great multilingual plugins out there, including names like WPML and Polylang, we’re going to focus on one plugin for the tutorial below – Weglot. There are a few reasons for this:

• It’s easy to set up and you’ll have a working multilingual website in just a few minutes.
• It’s automatically able to translate 100% of your site’s content, including any content from your theme or plugins (that includes WooCommerce, too).
• It starts by using automatic machine translation and then lets you manually refine your translations as needed.
• All your translated content is SEO-friendly, which means you can start reaping the benefits of multilingual SEO.

How to create a multilingual website on WordPress: step-by-step

Now, it’s time for the “how to” part of this post.

Below we’ll walk you through how you can easily create a multilingual restaurant WordPress website by using Rosa 2, our restaurant theme. While we’ve focused a lot on the restaurant industry for this post, keep in mind that everything in this tutorial will work for any type of website, no matter which theme or plugins you’re using.

For this tutorial, we’ve already set up the Rosa 2 theme and imported its demo content.

1. Active Weglot and choose languages

To get started, you’ll need to set up Weglot and choose the languages that you want to use on your site.

To do that, you’ll need to:

• Register for a Weglot account
• Install the Weglot multilingual website WordPress plugin
• Add the API key from your Weglot account to the plugin’s settings in your WordPress dashboard

In addition to adding the API key, you’ll also be able to make your language choices:

• Original language — this is the default language that your site’s content currently exists in.
• Destination languages — these are one or more different languages into which you want to translate your site’s content. E.g. Spanish, German, French, etc.

Once you’ve made your choices, click Save Changes to activate Weglot and automatically translate your site’s content using machine translation.

2. Configure language switcher

By default, Weglot adds a floating language switcher to the bottom-right corner of your website. Here’s what the default behavior looks like with the Rosa 2 theme:

If you want to change the behavior, Weglot gives you some tools for changing both its style and display location.

First, you’ll get some new settings in the Weglot area in your dashboard that let you control how the language switcher looks, like whether or not to display country flags:

Second, you can also change its location to other areas of your site. Beyond the default floating language switcher, you have four other options:

1. In a WordPress menu
2. As a WordPress widget
3. With a shortcode
4. In your source code

For example, if you wanted to add it as a menu item in the Rosa theme, you could go to Appearance → Menus and add the Weglot switcher menu item:

And then you’d get that nice drop-down menu language switcher effect like this:

The language switcher automatically pulls its styling from your WordPress theme, so if you’re using Rosa 2, that means you can change your language switcher’s typography by going to Style Manager — Fonts settings in the WordPress Customizer:

3. Manually refine translations

At this point, all of your site’s translations are generated from automatic machine translation.

Now, let’s say you want to go back and manually edit some of those translations. Again, if you have a restaurant website, you probably want to manually edit your food menu translations at a minimum.

Weglot gives you two different interfaces. Both let you access all of your translations and automatically sync with your live WordPress site — the only difference is the approach.

First, you could open the Visual Editor and navigate to your restaurant’s menu page on the live preview of your website. To edit the text on your menu, you can hover over it and click the green pencil icon:

That will open a popup where you can edit the translation.

Alternatively, you could also use the backend translations list interface.

With this interface, you’ll see a side-by-side list of the original text and the translated version for all your content.

To find specific content, you can use the navigation and search options:

Once you make edits in either interface, those changes will automatically sync to your live WordPress site.

If you’d like to outsource your translations to someone else, Weglot can also help connect you to professional translation services. Or, you can also create special translator accounts that have limited access to your Weglot dashboard.

And that’s it! You just created a multilingual website on WordPress.

Create a multilingual site on WordPress today

If your site is already receiving multilingual traffic, or if you think your site could benefit from the chance of reaching visitors in different languages, using a translation plugin is a great choice for two big reasons:

• It makes your website accessible to people who are already interested in what you offer. For example, a restaurant who’s able to connect with visitors in different languages to bring in new customers.
• It gives you a chance to expand your visibility in Google search because you can start ranking for queries in new languages, which can also help you get more customers or fans.

While there are a lot of plugins to help you translate your WordPress site, the Weglot plugin makes a great starting point because of its simplicity and comprehensiveness.

It integrates perfectly with the Rosa 2 restaurant theme, as well as all of the other themes in our portfolio. Choose the one you like and start building today.

Meet Rosa 2 🎉

The sequel to the best selling restaurant WordPress theme, reimagined for the new Gutenberg editor.

Check out Rosa 2 🚀

The post How to create a multilingual website on WordPress appeared first on Pixelgrade.

Wrapping your head around the best way to display your work, could feel like a zombie attack, constantly trying to keep up with the right approach to follow and the best trends to consider. Yup, it’s no walk in the park.

However, we, the Pixelgrade crew, like to think that we do much more than to deliver design-driven WordPress themes for our beloved clients. We work really hard in order to provide an unforgettable experience for those who are eager to raise the bar in showcasing their work. Believe us, it’s not just a manner of speaking, we take this to heart and strive to live by it.

Embrace your unique self and what makes you an artist

If there is one thing that stuck with us from the start, is that you can’t go general with creatives. No. Each of you has your own story to tell, your own unique perspective on this marvelous world around us. Could we have made things harder for us? Probably not.

But we are not shaken in our determination to help you. And being a design focused team definitely, helps. That is design beyond pretty pixels and eye‐watering animations (though, who can resist those?). 

A design-thinking team that asks the hard questions and digs deep for those basic principles, for those solutions that are dead simple (close to stupidity, but not quite). 

So, based on the numerous gatherings and interviews we’ve had with our clients – that are photographers or design artists – we’ve identified some problematic aspects artists face. For example, James Rowe, a freelancing photographer and producer from the US, explains how tedious it can be to identify the right theme fit for your website:

“I’ve set up over half a dozen websites over the years for my photography and production agency. Border has been, by far, the easiest and quickest to build theme, while not having to sacrifice on usability. Everything works straight out of the box and, the quick, easy access, pop-up, self-help box makes any hurdle easy to jump over.”

As a result, we’ve put together some useful steps to follow, along with a smart solution so that, the busy creatives out there, don’t have to struggle with design dilemmas. 

What to look for in a photography theme?

With a myriad of choices, picking the best possible theme can be a rather daunting task. Why? Because you must consider the service you buy, how well it performs, and the list goes on.

However, we believe that the first thing you should seek is a cultural fit with the team behind a certain WordPress theme. You’re in this for some time to come, and you don’t want to be traveling with the wrong people.

Read about them, check out reviews or their public interactions with the existing customers, fire up a pre‐sale ticket to them. Get a feel about how you are treated as their partner.

For instance, here, at Pixelgrade, we send personalized “Thank you!” letters to our clients because of our awesome collaboration and respect for one another’s work. 

The second crucial aspect to not overlook is finding the theme that speaks to you. For instance, does the design structure fit your portfolio, or does it naturally showcase your work in such a way that you feel giddy?

Also, play around with their demo, check out their documentation. Is there anything that sounds suspicious or too complex? Ask away — drop a line about your concerns and see how reliable is their answer. Do you sense a reluctance in the way they approach your issue or a sense they are hiding something? Move away. There are plenty of fish in the water.

We recommend you stay clear of those that over promise and make you think to yourself: “This sounds too good to be true! And look at that tiny price!”. It usually is just that — Something’s gotta give. There are no bargains, but overly priced products. 

Do yourself a favor and don’t fall for that marketing crap: “look at our 100+ demos; look at how many ways you can use our theme; it’s perfect for anything you want”. It means they are net fishing, not fly fishing. Be a trout, not a shrimp.

Once you’ve decided on the theme and verified the company’s proactive approach and legitimacy, it’s time to focus on the theme’s features. Pay special attention and make sure that it has the following traits:

• Focused on your needs.
  You’re looking for a photography theme where its main purpose is to showcase your work visually. While you might be able to present your craft with a general multi-purpose theme, it’s in your best interest to choose one that’s focused solely on your photos and has a clean interface that brings them in the spotlight.
• Easy and intuitive navigation.
  With so many elements that need to load, you’ll want a theme that doesn’t complicate things, but rather simplifies the whole process making it pleasurable and accessible to run through.
• Responsive design.
  When you put your content together, check that the design nicely adapts to whatever piece of technology is displayed on (mobile devices, tables, desktop, etc.).
• Captivating visual experience.
  The way users interact with your website is essential in determining the level of engagement and the confidence it transmits. So, double-check the loading time, pay attention to details — like the transitions between pages, or the design consistency across pages — and make sure the whole experience has a good feel to it.

Next, from the cluster of photography and portfolio themes, we’ve selected Border because it stands out through its unique “framed” layout, minimal design language, and lively page transitions. 

Why Border theme might be the right solution for you

Talk is cheap, right? So, here are some strong and to‐the‐point facts about how you could benefit from our work in order to emphasize yours.

#1 — Unique visual experience 

Border is our response to all of you, frame loving photographers, out there. In favor of a captivating visual experience, our theme boasts lively and spirited page transitions in many unexpected, yet perfectly natural ways.

It embodies a minimal, beautiful design language that allows the photos to take the center stage. Plus, you will not only get the looks, but also the speed your websites deserves in order to make the entire user experience an awesome one.

#2 — Flexible design structure

Whether you shoot people, landscapes, food, or weddings and you’d like to keep a journal with your vision and thoughts, present your bio and services, Border’s got you covered!

It is fully packed with slideshows and grid based galleries, and it also lets you mix images with videos,so you only focus on the way your reflect your talent.

#3 — Easy to use interface

Besides being a one of a kind photography WordPress theme, we’ve made it super easy for you to handle all those wonderful shots that crave for that full‐screen glory. And they should.

Want to slap a title on it? Again, easy. Just type it in and look out for those fancy animations (we are suckers for those).

#4 — Mobile ready and fully responsive

The theme features an off-canvas multi-level push menu to make it easy for your mobile users to discover your site. We extensively tested it on many devices both iOS and Android, and made sure it’s fully responsive.

Pics or it didn’t happen

Furthermore, feel free to take a tour and admire some websites built with Border. Each of them is a boundless source of inspiration and empowerment as well.

All in all, we’re happy to build useful and eye‐candy products, but we are far more driven by the fact that we help our clients spotlight their creative projects.

In the end, it’s all about bringing some joy and confidence to those who pick us from the crowd. Ready to join our growing community?

The post How to choose the right photography theme for your website appeared first on Pixelgrade.

In this article, I want to lend a hand and walk you through the best solution when it comes to creating an online store.

But first, a bit of context to help you get a grasp about my approach.

For more than five years now, I’ve been working as a customer support agent, and I love what I do. During this time I talked with thousands of customers, so I guess I’m entitled to say that I know their expectations pretty well when it comes to digital challenges. Long story short, they all look for the same outcome: an easy to use yet powerful solution.

Therefore, what I am going to share with you next is linked to this core need I keep hearing over and over again from people across the world.

What is WooCommerce?

I dare to assume that you already have a website or you plan to get one shortly, and now you’re looking for the best option to get an online store, too.

Here’s the thing: if somebody tries to charge you for creating an eCommerce solution, ignore them. The best solution is already there, and its name is WooCommerce.

Being the most popular WordPress plugin, with more than 4 millions active installs and 64 million downloads, WooCommerce powers now almost 30% of online stores.

This is enormous! I guess the numbers are enough to convince you, but please allow me to share some more reasons why WooCommerce is the right option for your online store.

Today, starting an online store is ridiculously easy — all you have to do is activate a plugin, and you’re ready to go. Even more, there’s a setup wizard that leads you through the installation process and with just a few clicks, your online store is up and kicking.

Allow me to share you a macro picture of this fantastic plugin — what it is, how we use it and why it’s the best out there.

Released back in 2011, WooCommerce growth quickly. In less than two years, it was downloaded by more than 1 million times. Initially started by a few developers, the plugin was acquired in 2015 by Automattic, the company behind WordPress, and now a team of more than 50 people is taking care of it by developing and supporting it continuously.

Quite impressive, I would say.

So, if you’re thinking about creating an online store and you already use or consider using WordPress, don’t look further. WooCommerce is exactly what you need. You can get the store with just a few clicks, then focus on what’s essential to you.

Why WooCommerce in the first place?

Beside WooCommerce being free to use, what’s great about it is being open-source. That means if you’re a programmer you can inspect, modify and change the plugin’s code as you wish.

On the other hand, if you’re just a newbie and you’re working with WordPress for the first time, with zero coding or web skills, there’s nothing to worry about. WooCommerce takes care of everything for you, so after installing the plugin, all you need to do is add your products.

You can sell small stuff like T-shirts, coasters, pings, illustrations or bigger products like bikes, lamps, kitchen supplies. For example, if you’re a restaurant owner you can use it for online food ordering or selling tickets for special events. No matter if you chose to make money out of digital or non-digital things, WooCommerce covers your back.

On top of that, the plugin is updated all the time, it’s always compatible with the latest versions of WordPress software and themes as well, so there’s nothing to worry about.

You save plenty of time and money because you work with a trustworthy partner and now can focus on doing what you love most.

WooCommerce it’s completely adaptable being already integrated with more than 300 extensions, for all kind of needs. There are extensions which can help you boost your sales, while others help you create email marketing campaigns.

Email marketing generates the biggest ROI of all marketing channels. With that in mind, you can definitely find a WooCommerce email marketing extension that will help you provide your customers with a top-notch shopping experience. 

This specific add-on converts your site’s visitors into subscribers and customers, and this one makes it easy to set up and manage a referral program to keep existing customers coming back and get new ones, and so on. There’s a WooCommerce extension for everything you could imagine.

It really doesn’t matter if you’re running a product based business or you want to sell an eBook or a course, WooCommerce does the job for you.

The best example of successfully using WooCommerce is our shop. In the end, we’ve always put our skin in the game and talked from our first-hand experience, not copycatting other’s folks’ stories.

We sell digital products (WordPress themes for a wide range of niches) and services (to assist you kick-off with ease and speed up and secure your website) for almost eight years now, and everything runs flawlessly from the first day.

We set up the online store using WooCommerce a few years ago, added our WordPress themes as products, and shifted our focus on what’s crucial for our customers and us — providing the best possible experience.

We decided to get everything under the same roof, with both the blog and the store based on WordPress. This way we can manage them both quickly, we have everything we need at hand, we can move fast, we can be creative while running marketing campaigns, and so on.

Real insights from real people

Many of the customers I talked with told me that WooCommerce accommodates perfectly with any type of business. Starting from selling an online course, an eBook, digital prints, photos, services, bookings, goodies, toys, cars, or anything else, you can rely on WooCommerce.

And hey, if you think you don’t have anything to sell, well, maybe you should dig deeper since you too can make the most out of what you already have.

Another insight from our community is that everybody looks for quick, nearly instant solutions. This is what WooCommerce offers.

Rather than hiring a developer or working with an agency (both are quite expensive), you can try to embrace a DIY attitude.

You will not only learn a lot of valuable lessons along the way, but you will be surprised about how easy is to handle this plugin and make it work on your terms.

This way you keep the costs down for managing your online store, and you can invest time and energy in what you truly value. If you want to get an idea of how much you might need to invest to create an online store with WooCommerce, I recommend reading this article (hint—it’s less than you might think).

There’s no perfect timing when it comes to leveling up your digital game and starting to sell online. However, WooCommerce makes it easy for you to start, see how it goes, and take it from there.

There are no certainties, unless the fact that this is the right moment to give it a go. And hey, believe me, that none of the people I talk regularly were ever 100% ready to start the adventure. They just did it.

Looking for a WooCommerce ready WordPress Theme?

Browse our portfolio and start selling today!

Take a look at our themes →

The post Why consider WooCommerce for building an online store appeared first on Pixelgrade.

The truth is that there are a bunch of how-to guides about how to start a bog. However, most of them can make you feel overwhelmed by all the rules and the steps you should pay attention to. That’s why we need a more friendly way to talk about blogging for those who are barely scratching the surface.

After talking with a wide range of bloggers out there: from those who are using this channel to share stories around their passions until those who are making a living out of their websites, we discovered that there’s way too little dialogue around how to start a blog on your rhythm.

Therefore, we summed up a few aspects to keep in mind when kicking-off the blogging journey. No matter the years you have, your academic background, or where you are based. You can make it work. Let’s walk you through this!

Blogging is, and it should, be about you

Frequently, people talk about how you should have a clear statement on your blog and stick to it. We encourage you to start the other way around. Write content that is meaningful and useful for you, stories that you find them insightful. This way you make sure you own what you publish because it’s part of your inner-why and blogging should define your core values, whatever they are.

Don’t try to spend days and weeks on the perfect sentence that describes your blog. You have plenty of time to discover it and fine-tune it along the way. Invest time and energy in writing pieces that say something about who you are.

Share your stories with the world

Be the first ambassador of your blog by telling your friends that you have a website and inviting them to be the first critiques of your digital stories. Go a step further and share your stories on the social media channels you use on a regular basis and encourage people to provide feedback.

Don’t try to keep the stories for yourself and draw conclusions of any kinds because they lack solid arguments such as validation from your potential readers. Jump in cold waters and make room for people to start a dialogue and offer suggestions. This way you will have a clue about which topics they find useful and which not.

Actively listen to your readers

There’s no better way to find what your audience expects from your then asking about its expectations. You can open a wide range of communication mediums to engage with your readers: from reading and responding to their comments, stalking them to find out what kind of content they consume, where do they spend their online time, until writing them e-mails.

These type of conversations are no different than the ones you are already having in the non-digital world. Take the time to listen to people, be gentle with them, thank them for their involvement, ask them what they love and hate about your blog and build from there.

Find a tribe who shares similar interests

As in any other activity, you can too find a tribe who has similar interests to learn and grow together. Fortunately, there are lots of blogging communities which address to beginners and provide valuable advice. Enter such groups and start creating bonds by letting them know about your struggles as an early-stage creator.

On top of that, it’s an excellent opportunity to learn from other people’s mistakes and ask them to support your activity by sharing your content on their networks. You keep the ball rolling and the learning curve up, which is one of the best things you can do at that particular moment.

Keep the fun side alive and kicking

Be your barometer and remind yourself why did you start in the first place. Don’t put too much pressure on your shoulders by comparing your early days with other’s late success. You have your tempo, and you should be proud of what you accomplished so far, no unhappy with projections of all kinds.

Blogging comes in many forms, so it’s up to you to experiment, play, and find creatives gateways to explore your blog. As long as you have fun and you learn from what you are doing, you are on the right track.

We created a list of questions to help you start with the right foot. Ask them, frankly and you are already doing progress:

• Who are you and how do you introduce yourself in the offline world
  The same way you should create the story for your About page. Put a little bit of extra effort when you craft this one because most people will lend there to find more things about you.
  
• What do you want to write about?
  Find a few topics that empowers you to start writing and keeps you engaged. Think about your interests today, they will definitely change with time, so be gentle with yourself.
  
• How do you know blogging brings you joy?
  If you are going to enjoy it you will find time, energy, and money to continue to invest. If not, you can drop it without regrets. There are other ways of expressing your ideas as well.
  
• Where do you plan to share your content?
  Make a list of your favourite social media channels (hopefully there aren’t more then 2-3) and see if you’d feel comfortable to share your blog posts there. Give it a go before saying a loud NO.
  
• How do you get to know your readers?
  As in any other type of conversation, feel free to ask questions about their expectations, to invite them to comment on your articles, to answer their messages, and so on. It’s a good start for developing a healthy relationship with your audience.

In a world full or recipes, it’s easy to get lost in a long list of ingredients, where each one is mandatory, urgent, and highly important. I remember how I started and I am grateful I knew so little things about blogging because I had the chance to be mesmerised.

The simple act of discovery is what keeps my wheels spinning today, nine years later. I am far from what the industry calls a professional blogger, but I am a happy creator who owns her words and finds fulfillment in each post, even though I write 20 articles per year. In the end, we define what success means for each of us, so don’t be afraid to shape your understanding. Blogging should be fun too.

The post How to approach blogging if you are a beginner? appeared first on Pixelgrade.