WordPress has emerged as a prominent platform to develop any kind of website easily and conveniently. And, PSD to WordPress conversion has become a popular method to develop attractive websites. WordPress offers great opportunities for creating websites and it comes with top-of-the-line functionalities to develop websites. By converting PSD files into WordPress themes, you can develop out-of-the-box and error-free websites that will fit your business requirements.
Moreover, when working on the PSD to WordPress conversion process, some mistakes might happen that should be avoided. If you don’t avoid these mistakes it may result in a negative impact on your website. Hence it is necessary to know these mistakes to make sure that you create a completely error-free website. Here is a list of 10 mistakes that you should avoid to create the best solutions.
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1. Poor navigation
User navigation is a significant feature of a website that has to be at its best. The navigation allows users to move from one page to another and browse the sections and menus on a website. Poor or improper navigation is one of the biggest mistakes that happen during the PSD to WordPress conversion process. You should focus on this part when converting your PSD files into WordPress theme to build a very user-friendly website. Make navigation easy and predictable so that users don’t get any navigational issues.
2. Use of inappropriate typography
Sometimes due to ignorance or to create a distinct business identity, the use of typography is often mistaken. If you are not using typography properly on your website it will lead to poor readability. For instance, if you are using the background and font color in a way that it is hard to find what is written then most of the users will leave your website sooner or later. To avoid such a mistake, you need to understand what type of fonts would be better for your website. Not only do you need to decide what type of font you want to use but also you need to decide the font size, style, line space, and other things too to ensure greater readability on your site.
3. Inappropriate closing of tags
WordPress CMS is based on the PHP programming language that uses the opening and closing tags. Thus the syntax is valid only when you use both opening and closing tags. To avoid any mistakes in PHP code during PSD to WordPress conversion, you must ensure that all tags are closed properly. If you miss closing any tag, your website will have a strange look due to distorted appearance.
4. Using images incorrectly
Website owners and developers want to add images to their websites to make them more attractive and eye-catching. Images are also helpful because they are more impactful than plain text. Hence developers and website owners integrate images and other visual elements to enrich the look of a website as well as to enhance the overall user experience. Improper use of images is one of the key mistakes that negatively impact a site. You need to focus on image size and quality to render a better experience. High quality and large images would take more time to load that will affect website loading speed. You need to choose the right images for your website that will offer an optimal user experience.
5. Auto playing video or audio
As mentioned above website owners and developers want to create attractive websites and they do this by incorporating visual elements like images and videos. Visual elements like GIFs, images, videos, etc can be helpful in explaining any written material, but they should be utilized aptly as they might be irritating for users. You should avoid adding videos and other visuals in autoplay mode.
6. Inappropriate use of inline CSS
If you hire WordPress developer he/she can use inline CSS when converting your Photoshop files to WordPress themes. When multiple pages are created, the developer can either use inline CSS or separate CSS files to stylize contents. A separate CSS file can be created to link to all PHP files. By doing this, the developer can ensure that a change in a single CSS file will be visible on multiple pages.
7. Illogical linking of pages
Another mistake that can affect your project of PSD to WordPress conversion is not planning the interlinking of pages. Your website will have multiple pages and these pages have to be interlinked to make website navigation easy. You need to plan out a logical and well-thought-out linking structure of varied webpages to ensure smooth navigation and allow search engines to easily index your web pages. Hence with proper internal linking, you not only make better user navigation but also generate more traffic.
8. Inappropriate use of special characters
One key mistake that could impact your website is the improper use of special characters on your website. You need to make your website reader-friendly as well as search engine friendly to ensure greater traffic. If you include special characters on your website inappropriately, it will affect its readability and search engine ranking. It will be hard for search engines to index your site if it’s filled with a lot of special characters.
9. Missed alt attributes
Images are an essential part of websites and you utilize them sparingly on your website. However, one mistake that is often made regarding images is not using the alt attribute in the image tags. The alt tag is important because it is displayed when an image cannot be loaded on a webpage. If you don’t include alt tags it will affect search engine indexing.
10. Uploading content with errors
Uploading clean and error-free content is important for the success of a website. If you upload content without proofreading or with spelling mistakes, it will drive away from most users on your website and will hurt the website’s reputation.
Let’s wrap up
WordPress is widely used for developing a myriad of websites and this is a primary choice for many developers or website owners. Nowadays PSD to WordPress conversion has become an ideal choice to create out-of-box websites. Whether you decide to hire dedicated WordPress developer or do it yourself, mistakes are inevitable that might arise due to ignorance or recklessness. Moreover, you can keep yourself on the right track when putting the PSDs into WordPress theme by being conversant with these errors. You can avoid these mistakes only if you know about them. The above mistakes that we have mentioned in this blog can help you avoid errors when converting your Photoshop docs to WordPress.