Many users describe WordPress as an imperfect web development platform especially when they work with clients. And they are not completely wrong. So you need some strategies if you are building a site in WordPress that your clients will love.

The following approaches will help you to understand how you can create sites quickly and effectively in WordPress:

Come up with an Idea

To build a site that will make your customer happy, the first thing that you will need is a proper idea. But the bitter fact is ideas don’t come up just like that! You need to see others’ work to come up with good ideas. Don’t worry! We are not asking you to steal ideas. Just go through them and choose the things that resonate with you and fuel your imagination. This will help you to polish the images you already have in mind. The truth is, this is the most common way of practicing design and building amazing sites. Many people take ideas from the same sites but all end up with different results. So don’t hesitate if you cross something that seems appealing and speaks to your soul. Mix it with your own ideas and put your own spin on it.

But an idea by itself has no value; it needs to be developed.

The Groundwork 

Most clients do not care about the beauty of the site; they care about the results the site can provide. So it is very important to make sure you are helping the clients achieve their goals with the site. The same applies if you are building a site for yourself. Understand the goal properly, lay the groundwork, and build the site based on that. Rather than have five or ten goals, identify one main thing that you want to gain—for instance, selling products or generating leads.

Choose the Right Tools

Having the right tools and using them properly will deliver the results you want. We are not going to tell you about the obvious tools like Google Drive or Photoshop. We are going to introduce you to a different set of tools that may be not so well known but can make any WordPress designer’s life easier.

Although there are many, here is a list of tools that have proven immensely helpful to WordPress users:

• Productivity Tools: Toggl, The Pomodoro Technique, Evernote, Google Docs, Trello, Slack, LastPass, Sketch, XAMPP, Code Editors, WProller, Duplicator, Browser Developer Tools, Unsplash, Optimole, Yoast, etc.
• Time Tracker Software: Time Doctor, Harvest, Hours, Timely, Hubstaff, Tick
• Dev Tools: Postman, Buddy Works, Prettier, Draftium, Telepresence, Parcel, Speedline
• Email Marketing Tools: Sendinblue, Mailchimp, GetResponse, Drip, ConvertKit, InfusionSoft
• Local WordPress Development Tools: DesktopServer, XAMPP, MAMP, Vagrant, Local by Flywheel
• Website screenshot Tools: URL2PNG, Browshot, Fireshot, Screenshots.cloud, 1Click Screenshot

Take some time to learn more about these tools and see which of them fits you the best.

Modifying or Designing?

There are two main ways of building a site through WordPress: modifying and designing. You can either use a ready-made theme that is available and modify it per your needs, or you can design the site from scratch.

Although the decision is completely yours, we prefer the former. In the existing theme, some functionalities have been tested and used by many. There are many excellent WordPress themes by Templatic. Moreover, if you face any problem while using ready-made templates, there are always experienced people ready to help. But this might not be the case if you design the whole structure. We are not discouraging you to design from the ground up, but modifying an existing theme is an easier and more efficient technique for most WordPress designers.

Some Non-obvious Plugins

In this step, we will give you a list of plugins that will help you to build a site quickly but help to satisfy your client. We’re not going to focus on the obvious ones like Contact Form 7 or WordPress SEO; rather we will talk about the ones that are less obvious but still important. The plugins that we need are as follows:

• Custom Fields – This plugin will help you to add more customization to the user interface. As a result, your customer will get some extra content and elements to make their posts better. But it is not a one-click plugin, which means it requires some work.
• Showcase IDX – As the top rated idx plugin for WordPress, this features everything a business would need to work with a lead generation program.
• ROP Plugin – in today’s world, most people do not have time to share posts manually every day; they prefer to revive old posts instead. The ROP or Revive Old Post plugin does that for the customers, saving them time in their daily schedule.
• Better Click To Tweet – This is one of the most popular click to tweet plugins. It helps to make tweetable content for the readers of the site. It uses Gutenberg block or in some cases a simple shortcode.
• Optimole – Optimole will help you to save some space on your server. This plugin works on image optimization. If you activate this plugin, your images will take up to 80 percent less space without compromising the quality.
• Thrive Leads – This plugin helps your business obtain leads with more efficiency. You can explore the Thrive Leads review to learn more about the functions and if it is right for your WordPress site.

Be in Touch

Don’t just forget about your customer once they pay you. If you can, offer them a helping hand in initial content creation. If they thrive, there will be more work opportunities for you.

If your client is a newbie, they may find it a little hard to use the site in the beginning. Guide them to figure out how to publish and what to publish so that they don’t fail with the site you just built for them. Even if your work is not done perfectly but you remain in touch with them and fix their issues as much as possible, they will come back to you for their future projects.

Of course, these are not the only things to make a perfect site in WordPress, but practicing these things will help you to make the best possible site for your client in the least amount of time.