Starting a website from scratch can be a lot once you consider everything the process entails. From the design aspect itself, all the way to hosting, plugins, maintenance, and even content marketing. Many dream of starting one and having what could be a very lucrative hobby if done right. But, unfortunately, more often than not, the ideal stage is where it gets abandoned and themes that fit a more feminine and chic aesthetic seem to be harder to find.
While this may be the case, trends are changing, and more feminine and overall classy website designs seem to be very in vogue at the moment. So, if you’re looking to create something of that style, your moment is now. In this short explainer article, we’ll give you a run-down of how to create a beautiful style from scratch and take care of its basic maintenance, as well as initial marketing..
Choosing A Domain Name
A domain is your site’s name, and as you may well know – these are quite important
Domain names can often be purchased through your hosting service, and they are fairly cheap. Some hosting services even offer a free domain name for the first year.
Buying Hosting
This is one of the most important steps for setting up your site. When opting for WordPress, you’ll have plenty of hosting options to choose from. Some may even be free; however, we would like to issue a quick warning regarding free hosting services before proceeding. While there is no initial investment, their servers are more often than not quite slow, and they compensate monetarily by advertising on your site. So, this is not advisable if you want your dream site with a feminine aesthetic to succeed in the long run.
Stepping Up WordPress
One of the best things about WordPress is that it’s almost infinitely customizable, and while that’s one of its major benefits if you’ve never created a website before, we get how confusing it can all seem. We’ll help you understand how to step things up and organize every element, so you’ll be able to breathe your dream feminine design into existence.
Picking A Theme
A WordPress theme is the central element of site creation. Without it, you won’t get very far.
Depending on your style and aesthetic preference, you’ll look around and see what fits your style best. But since we’re focusing specifically on feminine aesthetics, let us drop a few recommendations. Some of the most popular themes of this kind are Kloe, Chicshop, and Gema.
Designing Your Site
The first page you’ll want to work on is the homepage. Every theme you install can be customized through a visual editor by navigating to “customize” on your WordPress dashboard. Most of the themes will have a “Homepage Settings” button in the sidebar. This is where you’ll create the first thing your visitors will see, so make sure it’s done with a lot of love and care. Tweak the colors, move elements around, and play with whatever your heart desires until you achieve perfection.
While some themes may be more customizable than others, here are a few things to keep in mind if you’re looking to create a feminine aesthetic. Use lighter colors (pastels are also advised), don’t mix too many clashing colors, use cursive or adorned fonts (do make sure they’re readable enough), and always double-check to make sure everything flows nicely.
Next to your homepage, you’ll also need a coming soon page, especially while your website is still in the works. While you might not have thought about this at first, think about it. A coming soon page can not only be used to notify your visitors there’s more exciting content to come, but it can also generate excitement about your upcoming content; you can even add a countdown timer to make the whole thing that much more exciting.
Plugins like Coming Soon & Maintenance Mode are endlessly customizable, so there’s no way your page won’t fit the overall aesthetics of your site, and they come with so many premade feminine templates that only need a little tweak here and there before they’re ready to see the light of day.
Using Sticky Elements
Easy navigation is one of the top priorities for your future site. Why? Because it’s crucial to user experience.
WP Sticky gives you the option to create as many sticky elements as you want and improve navigation almost instantly. It’s beginner-friendly and has a ton of basic and advanced features to play around with until you’re pleased with the overall appearance and functionality.
Installing The Right Plugins
While WordPress is straightforward to work with, you will need some plugins to customize and protect your site. The use of plugins can vary greatly – they can be used for aesthetics, adding a functionality your site lacks, malware protection, and the list goes on and on and on.
Must-haves:
WP 301 Redirects: Always makes sure your visitors end up at the right page, even when you’ve changed the URL or hosting. It’s really good for SEO.
WP Reset: This plugin is your personal time machine and can not only upload and delete plugins and themes in bulk, but it can also help you with design mishaps. Maybe your site wasn’t quite to your liking, or you’re trying to rebrand from a personal blog to a full-fledged fashion blog. You install a new theme and some plugins, and you hate all of it. Simply take advantage of the snapshot feature and revert everything to its previous state. It’s that easy.
Google Maps Widget: Add any number of pins and maps to share what you’re up to with your visitors or mark off the best fashion stores in the city you’re visiting. The possibilities are endless.
Marketing
When it comes to marketing your site, well, that could be a lengthy post in and of itself. But, it’s not a secret that social media is one of your best, especially in the beginning. It doesn’t cost you anything, and the more followers you attract on one platform, the more you’ll be able to connect all of the channels together. Once the website grows a little bit, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to think about paid advertising either.
And while paid advertising can be a great way to promote the site, so is guest posting. Guest posting on other sites, as well as accepting guest posts, is beneficial to both parties. It exposes your visitors to fresh perspectives and spreads your reach across all platforms. However, don’t make a rookie mistake – credit your guest posters properly. Instead of leaving them hanging with no info or socials attached to the post, create a guest author box featuring all of their important links and a mini-bio using Simple Author Box instead.
Over To You
Creating a website with a beautiful feminine aesthetic has never been as easy as it is now. It’s become quite trendy in design, and personal as well as lifestyle blogs are becoming more popular by the minute. Just like any skill, it may take some time honing, but it’s well worth it in the end.