When you first set up your WordPress website, it’s likely going to be a white screen with a few places to write content and put your logo. It needs some eco-friendly website design TLC.
It’s definitely not going to be the masterpiece you have in your mind.
But it’s not difficult to get it to that point. Here’s how to get your site ON FLEEK.
Eco-friendly website design for a fresh new site
This is where the real fun begins!
When you first visit your new website, it will have a placeholder landing page set up by GreenGeeks (assuming you used our walkthrough on building eco-friendly websites).
In order to change this, you’ll need to log into your WordPress account with the information you used to install it to your website.
You can generally find it at www.yoururl.com/wp-login
WordPress can look a little confusing at first, but I promise you’ll get the hang of it soon!
Spend an hour or two watching YouTube videos and playing around with your site and you’ll know your way around WP in no time.
Or, schedule a call with our CEO and he’ll walk you through it!
WordPress themes making eco-friendly website design easy-peasy
Once you’re logged in and familiar with the WordPress layout, it’s time to choose a theme.
You will see several themes are already installed on your blog: Twenty Twenty-Three, Twenty Twenty-Two, etc. While these themes are clean and well optimized for SEO (search engine optimization), if you’re new to WordPress, they’re a bit bland and it would take quite a bit of research to figure out how to spice them up.
A theme like Twenty Twenty-Three will pretty much get you a white homepage, space for a logo, and a menu…that’s it.
The best thing to do if you don’t want to spend hours learning custom code is to start your web journey with a pre-designed theme.
On the left hand side of your dashboard you’ll see an option called appearance, click that, then hit add new theme.
All of these themes are designed to look fantastic and be fully optimized for SEO as soon as they’re installed.
The main difference between a theme that’s been downloaded a bunch of times with a 5 star rating and one that hasn’t is the support you’ll get when you run into roadblocks, as well as the number of plug-and-play customization options (options that don’t require you learning code).
We like to start newbie bloggers off with the Mesmerize theme. It’s incredibly easy to work with and integrates seamlessly with Elementor (the most popular drag and drop website builder) for when you’re ready to take your site to the next level.
If you’re not seeing a theme that speaks to you, head over to ThemeForest. At ThemeForest you can get much more granular in your search for a WordPress theme.
Customizing your WordPress themes
Once you’ve installed the Mesmerize theme, you’ll want to install the Mesmerize Companion plugin. To do this, click plugins (left hand side of dashboard) -> add new, search for “Mesmerize Companion -> install now -> Activate
Once that plugin is activated, hover your cursor over your site name in the very top left hand corner. That will create a dropdown with an option to visit site, click that.
Here’s your homepage! It may not look like much now, but it’s super easy to edit from here. Our homepage, for example, is just a couple of About sections, an Overlappable, and a few CTAs.
It may look a little different on your site, and if you have trouble navigating around, feel free to book a call with our CEO here and he’ll walk you through it.
Some people spend months of valuable time tweaking their blogs and trying to make them look perfect, but this is one of the main reasons most people don’t succeed with a blog.
When it comes to creating an online presence, the most important thing is to just get started. It takes Google anywhere from 3-6 months to recognize your website and start ranking it at all. So rather than spending too much time perfecting everything, just make sure your eco-friendly website planning sets you up for success and get something published!
You should try thinking of your blog as something that’s going to be constantly changing and evolving as you continue down your path of building a name for yourself.
Don’t worry if it doesn’t look quite right to you at first –– you can work on that while Google takes its time indexing your site.
Once your blog looks good enough to show to your best friend, it’s time to shift your focus to creating content.
Eco-friendly website next steps
Your site is really coming together. Now it’s time to bring people in!
Creating high value blog content is the best way to do that (without using paid ads and the like).
Or jump around to different articles in this topic cluster series ->
- Building an eco-friendly website in 10 minutes
- Planning out your eco website
- Promoting your eco-friendly website
- Monetizing your eco-friendly website
Having a problem with your website customization? Need help with your marketing strategy?
Book a call here and our CEO using the link below (it’s all free 😉 )
Or subscribe to our newsletter for bi-weekly tips n’ tricks on growing an eco-friendly business (right hand side)!
