As a Happiness Engineer working on WordPress.com, I often get asked: how do I make my website look more professional? Chances are you’re wondering about that too. In this article, we’re going to unpack together the idea of a “professional-looking site.” We’ll explore where that professional look comes from. Then, we’ll convert this understanding into a set of simple tasks that you can easily tackle (even with no previous experience). Ready? Here we go!
First of all, though, what is this elusive ‘professional look’ thing?
Oh, I’m glad you asked.
A professional-looking site is one that looks good (and we’ll dig into what that means in a minute) but also feels good to your visitors. A site that delivers the content they need, in a manner that’s easy, pleasant, and compelling for them to consume, while communicating who you are and why they should trust you.
Now, I was going to write this long paragraph about how important all this is, but since you’re here, you know that already! So I’ll save you some time and get right to it. I’ll just add that first impressions are important. With nearly 2 billion sites on the internet, of which some 400 million active, your first worry is how to get people to your site, but once they’re there, you’ve got about 50 milliseconds to make them stay (see this delicious looking article for more).
So let’s dig into how we can get that visitor to stick around on your site!
In this article:
- 1. Articulate your concept
- 2. Outline a clear structure (clear navigation)
- 3. Pick your fonts
- 4. Define a good color scheme
- 5. Choose quality images
- 6. Allow plenty of white space
- 7. Optimize your permalinks
- 8. Create quality content
- 9. Include the right functionalities
- Bonus: I simply cannot let you go without sharing one last tip with you
As you consider the first 6 points below, notice how they correspond to the screenshot of Katie Mccoach’s website, which is a good example of a site with a professional design.
1. Articulate your concept
To look professional, your site needs a concept. A clear one.
Take a moment to reflect on who will be visiting your site. Get that clear image in your mind about who your audience is and what they might be looking for. We’ve talked about how to develop customer personas before, but this is so important that it bears repeating. Imagine all the specific types of people that might care about your site (are they teachers? teenagers? dog lovers? first time parents?…), then imagine you meet one of each. Give them a name and a back story: who are they, what do they do, what do they like and dislike. Once you know them well enough, consider why they’d be visiting your site (be sure to jot all this down).
Armed with that information, you can take a step back and think about your site. How can your site best meet those needs? What kind of content would you need? And what functionalities? What are the things that your visitors would expect to be able to do when they land on your site?
Your task:
Write down who your expected site visitors are, what their needs are, and what features will your site include in order to meet those needs.
2. Outline a clear structure (clear navigation)
When we first start working on our site, the temptation to start actually building your site right away is strong.
However, that will not help you put your best foot forward. Instead, I recommend you outline a tree-like structure for your site. Start from the top – with your homepage – then extend a branch for each page you’d like to have in your menu. Continue adding branches, knowing that a key SEO (search engine optimization) best practice is to make sure everything on your site is available in maximum 3 clicks.
So for example – you might want in your menu an About page, a Contact page, a Blog page and maybe a Shop page. Then, on your About page, you might have an About me section, then About this site. The point here is to think through the entire architecture of your site.
Now, if you’re thinking “I’ll just get the site started and worry about all this later,” please don’t. It’s critical to do this early on rather than through trial and error, as this impacts both your visitors and search engines. Both will be confused if you keep changing things around once your site is launched – with significant consequences for UX (user experience) and SEO (search engine optimisation).
But, if you’re thinking: ‘Whaaaat? I already have my site! Do I have to scrap everything?!’ – no, absolutely not. But you might need to do some re-organizing.
Pro tip: If you already have some visitors, you can pick their brain and see how they’re using your site, and how they think the structure could work better for them.
Your task:
Draw a tree-like structure that includes all the pages you’ll need on your site to serve your visitors well.
3. Pick your fonts
Typography is one of the most underrated tasks for beginning site creators. When you get started working on your site, you’ve so many things to worry about, and fonts are likely the farthest on your mind. Yet they are highly impactful, and using them skillfully can help your site grow. The fonts you pick speak volumes about the personality and the mood of your site.
Ideally, you’ll use just two: one for your headings, and one for your body text. Picking the right set of fonts is both a science and an art. But you don’t have to be an artist to get this right. We’ve got you. In fact, these days there are tools for everything, and finding a good set of fonts to match your style is totally possible. Take note of fonts you like on other sites – ideally sites that are similar to the one you’re creating. If you find one that speaks to you, you can use a service like My fonts to identify it, then you can check out some font pairings here – to make sure you nail that pair.
Your task:
Identify the pair of fonts that you think would be the best match for you, then add them to your site.
4. Define a good color scheme
I can’t overstate the importance of carefully choosing the color scheme for your site. It goes deeper than just looks. A good color scheme can directly impact your site’s success as it speaks to your site’s professionalism, friendliness, openness, and more.
Things can get tricky if you have a favorite color that just doesn’t support the message you’re working so hard to convey. What might help is reading up on color psychology; delving into this is quite the eye-opener, and understanding it will help you set the right mood on your site, lay the foundation for an emotional connection with your visitors, and prompt them to take action.
To get this right, my rule of thumb is: keep it simple. Pick a primary color, then use a tool to generate a palette. When all is said and done, you should end up with a primary color (that matches your intent for the site, according to color psych), a secondary color, and an accent color. Then, use the 60 (primary) / 30 (secondary) / 10 (accent) rule in using these three colors on your site.
Pro tips:
- Be sure to write down the codes of your colors so you can use them consistently throughout your site
- Use this cool tool to extract the colors in a photo you plan to use on your site, or this super fast palette generator.
- Set the color of any element with the editor’s built-in color picker.
Your task:
Identify your three colors and make note of their Hex codes; consider how you might like to use them throughout your site.
5. Choose quality images
You know the old adage: an image is worth a thousand words. Never has this rung truer than in web creation. To make sure you leverage their power, make sure the images you use on your site are meaningful to your site’s topic, relevant to their context, and engaging.
Chances are you’ll have plenty on your site: your logo, your favicon (site icon), your header, your featured images, your product images if you have a shop on your site, as well as any imagery you might end up using on your posts or pages. Good images help drive your point home – so pick images that reinforce, clarify or complement your text.
Pro tips:
- Always, ALWAYS, use quality images – ideally your own; if you need to use stock images, get creative to make them look less… stock-y.
- Optimize all your images thoroughly. Keep in mind that this begins before you even upload them to your site – with using the right file name.
- Need a universe of free images to choose from? Check out openverse, a vast library of stock photos, images, and audio – all available for free use.
Your task:
Create a folder and collect images for your site. Give them descriptive names (using relevant keywords and your site’s name). Make sure they’re the correct size. Keep them high-quality, relevant, and engaging.
6. Allow plenty of white space
This design aspect is the easiest to downplay as a beginning site creator. White spaces are the blank areas that surround the elements on your page. They can be unmissable – like the spaces before and after paragraphs, around your images etc. – but also more subtle, such as the space between menu items, or the space between the lines of a paragraph.
White space is used to balance things on the page, to provide a breather for your visitor, and to guide the eye from element to element. It’s THE thing that makes a site look modern and uncluttered. And it’s as straightforward as you imagine it to be. Add plenty to your page.
Your task:
Make sure you have plenty of white space on your page.
7. Optimize your permalinks
Permalinks are the addresses to your pages or posts – what you type in the address bar if you want to access your page or post; or what is displayed in search engines when your post / page comes up. It’s made up of your domain (yourname.com) plus a “slug” – the part that follows your domain. These addresses are supposed to be there as long as the page / post is live on your site, hence the name (permanent + link = permalink). They’re critical because they boost SEO and they impact your visitor’s experience of your site.
Once you’ve secured your perfect custom domain, optimising your permalinks ensures you’re getting the biggest bang for your buck.
You can do so by making sure your slugs are:
- Unique – no two pages or posts should use the same slug
- Descriptive – use elements from your post / page title, rather than a string of letters and digits
- Lowercase – use all lowercase in your slugs
- Short – remove the a, an, the etc. from your page / post title
- SEO optimised – use the keyword(s) you aim to optimise that page or post for.
- Example of a well-optimized permalink for a page that discusses flowering trees:
- Example of a permalink that could be better optimized:
Pro tips:
- When typing your permalinks in the editor, be sure to use hyphens (not underscores) between your words
- Don’t include dates (as that will make your content feel dated as soon as that particular date has passed
- Finally, avoid changing them once published as that will cause search engines a headache, which will impact your ranking.
Your task:
Outline a consistent structure for your permalinks and then… stick to it.
8. Create quality content
This is the hardest point to address in this list, as quality would mean different things for different sites. However, I’ve pulled the common denominators for you.
From a bird’s-eye view, beyond any site-specificity, having quality content means:
- Original content – making sure it doesn’t replicate an existing article on the same topic (not even if it’s your own!)
- High-value content – content that would bring actual value to your visitors (directly related to your site’s goal); content that brings depth and insight into the topic of the site.
On a more practical level, quality content means:
- Having no typos – so always, ALWAYS spell check your work
- Keeping the essentials above the fold (the area your visitor sees right away, without scrolling down)
- Making sure it’s easily readable – avoid long blocks of text, and scannable – make use of subtitles, lists, visuals, etc.
- Favoring plain language – avoid fancy jargon; in fact, good practice indicates you should write at 8th grade level (of course, this would vary based on your audience, but applies to most)
- Using the “inverted pyramid” model – add the most important information at the top, then gradually add any relevant / supporting details
- Being concise and using active voice, always
Your task:
Create a checklist that you can run through to make sure each piece of content you put out is of high quality.
9. Include the right functionalities
WordPress has a ton of features out of the box. Additionally, your site can easily extend functionality by adding from an ever-growing list of plugins. You can add:
- Social buttons and social integrations
- Forms
- Search bar
- Breadcrumbs
- Newsletters
- Forums
- Shops
- Live chat
- Maps
- Sliders
- Reviews & testimonials
- Booking systems
- FAQs
- And many more.
It’s easy to be overwhelmed and just as easy to overdo it. Refer back to the work you did earlier on when you defined the concept of your site. Think about your visitors and their needs, and make a decision on what would best serve them.
Your task:
Make a list of the features your site would need to include. Have a list of ‘must-haves’ – the functionalities that are critical for your visitors, and a ‘nice-to-have’ list that you can refer back to if needed.
Bonus: I simply cannot let you go without sharing one last tip with you
Try to build a habit of regularly running through your site to make sure everything works. Do this both on the back end, in your admin area – for instance, check that you’ve no updates pending. And also on your front end – your live site. Keep an eye on your links – check that they open the correct pages; make sure your forms work, your social media buttons are still connected. Make sure your mobile and desktop versions are well aligned, your search pulls relevant content and so on.
Your task:
Make a checklist of regular maintenance tasks and run-throughs and decide on a frequency that makes sense to you (not too far apart, but not so frequent that it becomes a killjoy.)
There you have it. Your 9 tips for making your site look more professional. Knowing who you’re writing for, having a clear structure reflected in a clear navigation, laying your site out mindfully by reflecting on your typography, color palette, use of visuals and white space, using a good permalink structure, creating quality content and hitting the right note with your functionalities, then making sure that it all comes together nicely with regular run-troughs – will get you off to a great start. Do this, stay curious and engaged, and the rest will follow.
Want more tips? Get new post notifications emailed to you.
WordPress.com Gives You More
Our designers create beautiful block-based themes, with Site Editing built-in. Curious to know what some of them look like?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Go WordPress 