24 June 2024
WordPress website design foundations for service businesses
Practical steps to build a WordPress website design system that’s SEO-friendly, accessible, and effortless to update.
Start with a scalable design system
Outline your typography, colour palette, and spacing tokens before touching the CMS. A tight system gives every landing page design and reusable block the same polish—and lets teams ship new campaigns without reinventing UI design decisions.
Map the content model
List every piece of structured data you need: services, FAQs, case studies, blog posts. Use custom post types or Advanced Custom Fields to create clear, repeatable forms. Editors love it, and search engines get consistent schema data.
Optimise for speed
Choose lightweight themes or ship headless via Astro when you can. Trim unnecessary plugins, compress images automatically, and enable caching/CDNs. These steps keep Time to First Byte low and help you smash website speed optimisation goals.
Bake in accessibility
Form labels, focus states, semantic headings, and colour contrast are non-negotiable. Add keyboard testing to every QA checklist and ask screen reader users to review early prototypes. Accessibility is not an add-on—it’s part of the best website design process.
Document the workflow
Record loom videos, build a “how to design a website page or post” manual, and keep a changelog. When staff turnover occurs, the site keeps running smoothly and your SEO-friendly website design investment stays protected.***