Update –
Read here – A complete and step by step guide how to create a professional website with WordPress
Time is changing and technology has been developed exponentially for past few years. There was a time when a guy that does not have programming knowledge, could not even imagine to create custom designs on a dynamic web platform. The only way to create websites without HTML/CSS knowledge was static website builder softwares. But the huge problem with these static website builder softwares, is that most of them generate poor and non standard HTML and thus, websites created with these softwares look ugly and these softwares are not SEO friendly at all. Other big problem with these website builders is that they are not so much flexible and don’t allow web designer to create high quality designs.
As a matter of fact these softwares can’t make you a complete web designers and these are only helping softwares that may reside on periphery of your business. However Serif Webplus is an exceptional Website builder with which you can create stunning and professional websites with many integrated dynamic features.
Well, I will tell you more about Webplus later. In this post, I need to explore WordPress as a complete way to setup your web design business without writing a single line of code (HTML,CSS,PHP). All you need to have some of WordPress plugins, themes and a Web Hosting account.
How to install and setup your WordPress within a few minutes, I have covered it here
You need a page builder theme or plugin to create custom layouts with custom colors and images. Many layout builder themes and plugins are out there but I would not like to make you scratching your head by providing all good and not good page builder themes and plugins. We tell you about best among them;
Elegant Themes Club Membership
I think it is the best tool to create custom layouts with WordPress. Divi is a part of Elegant Theme membership with which we get more than 80 premium WordPress themes ( and more are coming in future ) and 4 plugins ( more may come in future ). Divi is the most advanced theme of Elegant Themes club membership.
Divi enables use to create any type of layout without any knowledge of CSS,HTML and PHP. It includes a page builder that is attached to every post,page or any custom post type and this page builder works on drag and drop module mechanism. Divi page builder offers all kind of essential and advanced modules to add in page builder canvas. Some of the important modules are slider, photo gallery, sidebars, text/HTML, sections, row, portfolio, filterable portfolio, audio player, tabs, accordion, full width header, full width menu, login form, map, testimonial and a lot of other modules.
With the help of sections and rows, user can create complex and advanced layouts within minutes. Sections has easy CSS customization options such as background color picker, background image picker, background video option, Parallax effect, custom CSS Class and ID. You can divide a row into different type of column structure and can drop modules in every column separately. Every module has its own custom options including CSS class and ID.
Other than Divi, Elegant Themes members get many other awesome themes including Real Estate website builder theme, Directory website builder Theme, shopping cart website theme, Review Rating website theme, Magazine themes, Blog Themes and Question Answers themes like Yahoo Answer, Wiki Answer etc.
Members also gets some amazing premium plugins that can be used with any WordPress theme such as Layout builder plugin ( similar to Divi Page builder, Shortcode Generator, Maintenance mode and oming soon, Mobile website builder plugin.
Why Elegant Membership is highly recommended for Web Designers
- It is super affordable. Onetime fee and get support and updates for life
- 80+ premium themes and 4 plugins ( a complete pack to design any type of website )
- Divi builder theme allows you to create any kind of custom layout that fits your customer’s need
- There are many customers, ask to design directory listing websites, real estate websites and ecommerce websites. Elegant Themes can cover all these requirements
Price – $247 , Unlimited Site usage, Lifetime Updates
Ultimatum Theme ( Built Layouts as well as Page Templates, too )
It is its own kind of unique layout builder theme ( I use this theme on inrealsense.com ). However this theme might not suite a beginner user because its control panel and the way it works may be hectic for a user who would just start using WordPress or just start using this theme. But after cudgeling their brains a bit, they find that the theme is awesome and have innumerable possibilities to create not only layouts but also page templates (no any other theme offers page templates creation).
Apart a complete builder theme in itself, this theme is packed with stunning plugins that adds more glow to your web pages. Some of packed plugins are Visual Composer, Showbiz Teaser Carousal, Go Responsive Portfolio, Essential Grid, Ultimate Addon for Visual Composer, Slider Revolution. ( all these plugins, if purchased independently, cost more than $150 (per website) I think but with Ultimatum Theme, these come fully free and can be used on unlimited websites with Ultimatum theme.
Included plugins with Ultimatum Theme
- Visual Composer – One of the most versatile and powerful drag and drop page layout builder plugin
- Visual Composer Ultimate Addon – Add additional incredible modules to visual composer
- Slider Revolution – Best slider plugin. Create animated layered slider ( you will love it and everyone love it )
- Layer Slider – Second best slider plugin ( much similar to Sliver revolution )
- Essential Grid – Create amazing posts and portfolio grids
- Showbiz teaser thumbnail carousal – Best thumbnail scroller plugin that supports all post types. Show posts from any category,tag or create a thumbnail scroller by uploading your own images.
- Go Responsive portfolio – Create beautiful grids or thumbnail scrollers from your portfolio or from any post types
- Ether form – Drag and drop form builder to create any type of form
- + some other cool plugins
Price – $125 Unlimited Site usage, Lifetime updates
Formidable Pro ( Form builder and Software builder tool )
No one can imagine a successful web design business without having a tool that could create advanced forms for websites. Formidable Pro is a complete tool to create forms, payment Forms, data management, directory listing website and to create advanced custom posts from frontend. With Formidable Pro, it is possible to display gathered form data on WordPress pages. Its developer package allows you to use plugin on unlimited websites including your client websites.
You can create a frontend panel to access user profile,posts,pages and enable your clients to manage all of these from frontend without providing access to backend.
Read more about Formidable Pro here
Price – $117 Unlimited Site usage, Lifetime updates
Backupbuddy ( Best Backup Restore solution )
If you run web design company with WordPress, you need solid backup restore tool that could backup, migrate and restore WordPress websites without any hassle. Only Backupbuddy offers easy to use site backup/restore facility without breaking anything in the site. You do not need any advanced knowledge to restore WordPress websites or transfer WordPress from one domain to any other domain or directory ( changing website URL).
We recommend you to buy Backupbuddy Unlimited Lifetime license.
Price – $297 Unlimited Site usage, Lifetime updates
Other important but free plugins
Disable Comments
When we design sites for clients, we would not want to place a “comment form” under the layout we created. There are many free plugins to disable comments and it is one of them.
Disable admin bar
Admin bar appears on frontend when users are logged in. You should disable it for your web design client. Disable WP Admin Bar Removal is a free plugin to remove admin bar on frontend easily.
(these free plugins can be downloaded from WordPress.org/plugins)
In fact, it is not a ” yet another article on how to make money sitting at home”
If you use WordPress for web design, it would be really a great way to earn money by designing and developing client websites even you know nothing about web programming. All you need to playe with web hosting control panel and WordPress basics that is really a fun.
