Thanks to platforms like WordPress, making a website has never been simpler, even for those with rookie-level knowledge of web development. However, building a well-made site needs skills that go beyond what a WordPress theme can provide. Here are some of the best tips for taking a basic site to pro levels.
Organise, organise, organise
Any site of more than 10 pages needs careful consideration. Your site should be logical and easy to navigate for your users, but for some sites like online casinos that have hundreds of individual URLs active at once, you need to plan your structure carefully. After all, someone logging in to play online roulette doesn’t want to go through dozens of slots and poker games to get there.
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If your site has as much content as a casino, here are two things that are essential: a clearly segmented menu and a logical URL structure. For unique items, such as terms and conditions in the above example, a high-level URL like ‘/Terms-and-conditions’ is justified, but if smaller things can be divided up into categories, then it helps a lot.
Make it accessible
One of the few elements that is known to definitely factor into Google’s ranking algorithm is accessibility. This encompasses any feature of a site made to accommodate different technology but is mainly around assisting those with disabilities to use the site. Making sure all your users are accommodated is simply good practice as well, so there are a few things to take into account.
Firstly, make sure all your images have alt text, configurable in WordPress. Alt text appears in place of images that cannot be rendered, making it critical for visually impaired users, as well as handy for those simply with weak internet connections. Keep colours and fonts in mind as dyslexic users may have difficulties otherwise, and make sure that your pages are navigable using a keyboard only for users who cannot otherwise use a mouse. These small considerations can make a big difference.
Remember the HTML
This is less for the users and more for the Google bots, but keeping your HTML code and tags in the backend is another vital step. It’s important to remember that bots don’t see your site in the way a human user would, and if the HTML is messy, or missing important things like title tags, the bots can get confused and miss core parts of the page.
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Pages on your site are ranked both as part of a whole site as well as individually. If you are competing for search engine rankings, your first step should be making sure your pages are getting read correctly. Thankfully, there are plenty of free tools across the Internet, not least of which Google’s own Pagespeed Insights, which can scan your pages and highlight any missing or incorrectly implemented parts of your code.
While it’s tempting to immediately throw in tons of flash features, it’s crucial that the above steps come as a priority first. Make sure you’re building up from a concrete base!
