The days of website design is over. Unless you are a big brand or corporation who wants to make a statement, designing a website is an expensive proposition. Website design is not longer a ranking factor for Google. It looks for useful, informative and engaging content for their search audience. Upto 2015 websites were viewed on desktop computers and laptops. Well designed website gave a significant advantage. But with the advent of mobile devices with limited screen size, content became important and design taking a backseat.
How search engines work and what are they looking for
Imagine you performing a google search and you get substandard content in results. The relevance of Google Search will only remain if they consistently serve quality search results every time. So if your content is spot on, the task of getting prospective customers to your website will be done by Google itself.
The failed AMP experiment and now Core Web Vitals
Since 2015 Google has been pushing AMP as the way forward for webpage design. It is a set of rules and good practices that one needs to follow while designing a website layout. Google servers cache AMP pages before serving them in search results. But despite five years of persistent effort, Google had to let go.
Beginning 2021, Google announced that they will be rolling out updates to a new way to measure overall website experience, Core Web Vitals. Google describes the three pillars of page experience as Loading performance, Responsiveness and Visual stability. In other words, how fast the website loads and how fast it responds to user inputs and how stable is the layout and content placement. Google says that there are the three main factors for now, but may change in future.
Small brand owners and Single Business persons should stick to WordPress templates
WordPress themes take care of the basic design and best practices on their own. It is upto the theme developers to do all the research and be updated with the latest SEO techniques and other initiatives and announcements. Brand owners now can focus only on content and presentation. Here are a few ways to make your life easier.
Starter Templates by Brainstorm Force
Starter Templates comes from the same guys who gave us the most popular WordPress theme, Astra. They have hundreds of pre-made templates. The free templates are good enough to cover each scenario and style. Importing the templates is easy and the only pre requisite you need is Elementor Plugin.
Templately – Blocks, Pages and Templates
Templately integrates nicely with WordPress and there are some interesting templates and blocks available. They also have packs which are actually multi page website with pre filled content. Templately has the widest range of options in blocks and pages. Tight integration with Elementor means that the blocks can be placed right inside the page. Templately also gives you a workspace to store your templates just like Elementor.
Starter Sites by Themeisle
Neve is a great WordPress theme. Along with Neve you can install starter sites for WordPress. The only glitch here is that you cannot use the free version with Elementor. Otherwise there is a nifty pack of templates available to download and use.
https://themeisle.com/themes/neve/starter-sites/
Themes still hold strong
Even though Elementor has removed the concept of a theme by redefining block design, there is still a big market for WordPress theme. One website deserves a special mention for they way they have worked on various themes is refreshing. All themes are light and have different layouts. If you like bright and airy designs, Blossom Themes is the one which you should look for.
I am an MBA graduate with dual qualification in Finance and HR. I have done a Google Certified course in Digital Marketing. With many such qualifications under my belt, I am now focused on women entrepreneurship. With brands like SukaOne and Narisakti, I help women to make their idea to reality and navigate their way through the maze of digital work.