Learn Why Less Can Be More When Creating a WordPress Website

From the installation of WordPress plugins to the writing of content, less is more. There are many ways in which you can provide too much of a good thing on your WordPress website. Your end goal should always be to provide a good user experience to your visitors. In order to prevent turning visitors away from your WordPress website, here are some basic concepts for making sure that you do not overwhelm visitors or in some other way send them away from your website.

When looking at a website, there is primary content and supplemental content. Your primary content is your actual post. Your supplemental content is additional links, sidebar widgets, and advertisements. With that in mind, follow this simple advice.

Planning Your Sidebar and Widgets

It can be tempting to fill your sidebar and other areas of your WordPress website with a variety of cool widgets. There are widgets for providing of features. While these widgets can look cool or provide a nifty feature they can also distract visitors from your main content. Limit your use of widgets that provide neat features and try to incorporate widgets that offer helpful navigation, such as blog archive widgets, page and post link widgets, or a widget containing tags from your posts.

Avoid Using Too Many Advertisements

This tip can almost go hand in hand with the previous tip. In addition to limiting the number of widgets you place in your sidebar, you should also limit your overall usage of advertisements, such as ads from Google Adsense. You never want to outweigh your main content with advertisements. A general rule of thumb is that you should only provide one advertisement in the first third of a webpage. This means that if you place an advertisement above your header, then place any sidebar advertisements further down the page or even place them in your footer.

Watch Your Word Count

When you are writing a post, it may help to limit your word count. Most visitors are looking for information that they can quickly devour. The majority of blog posts are between 500 and 800 words. When you notice that you are exceeding this then consider dividing your content into multiple posts. For example, if you write over a thousand words, then perhaps your content would best be served as two separate blog posts. This can also help with search engine rankings, as you are increasing the number of helpful posts on your website.

In closing, simplicity can go a long way. Too many distractions can take away from your overall message and turn off visitors. Watch your usage of widgets, plugins, and advertisements. Also, keep an eye on the word count of your posts. Remember that the first thing a visitor should see when opening a blog post is your actual blog post and not a bunch of additional content. Keep your supplemental content to the sides and the most important widgets towards the top with advertisements and nifty features towards the bottom.