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How to Design a CTA Button that Converts
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How to Design a CTA Button that Converts

How to Design a CTA Button that Converts 

CTA stands for Call to Action. This is the design of an element that prompts the user to perform an action on a website, this is usually a button. A CTA can be anything that requires action, such as adding a product to a cart, or simply exploring your website. When CTA’s are designed well, they will help users to navigate a site which will get your site more conversions. They can have certain features that help to get the attention of users, such as their position, colour or size. Designing a CTA button will help to increase the website’s conversions, which means getting more people to perform actions on your site.

How to Design a CTA Button that Converts

How to Write CTA Copy

The effectiveness of a call to action depends on the quality and structure of the copy. This text should be well thought out, it should aim to make its purpose clear and engage visitors. This means that this text has to be clear and direct. It should have a small amount of words, so it is straight to the point, but enough to be engaging. The ideal copy of a Call to Action will simply state its goal. It will also create a sense of urgency, so using words like “Now, “Today” and “Only” will help to create successful CTA copy. So if the aim of a button is to get people to purchase a product, then the button would be ‘Buy Now’, ‘Shop Now ’ or something similar. Effective CTA copy will create more conversions across a website, if they are engaging enough to visitors.

How to design CTA buttons

The visual design of a call to action button is just as important as its copy. The aim of a button is to get site visitors to interact with it. So it should stand out from the rest of the content on a page, making it easy to see. There are multiple aspects that will make buttons clear from its surroundings. These can include its size, shape, colour and placement.

The shape of CTA’s are usually similar across many websites. They are most often rectangular, but can be any shape, sometimes being circular or square. The reason why the majority of call to action buttons are rectangular is because they are the shape that we see the most across all sites, or even in our daily lives. They can project a sense of comfort and stability, because we are used to seeing them. Another thing that we unknowingly like seeing are curves. Curved shapes are more pleasing to the eye, rather than sharp edged ones. These two shapes that humans seem to enjoy combined make the perfect CTA shape. This is a rectangle with rounded corners. This is why you will mostly see this shape across a number of sites.

Another important feature of call to actions is its colouring. Colour psychology is a topic that has always been studied, which helps when designing anything. Specific colours are associated with different messages, and the people seeing them unknowingly receive these messages. This is why colours are important, so you are conveying positive messages. Brighter colours, such as red, stand out and would typically get more clicks. It is also important for your colour scheme to match your CTA’s. So if your scheme is more natural with earthy tones it wouldn’t be appropriate to have a bright red CTA. Overall, they should be part of the site’s theme, but stand out from the rest of the content.

Another aspect of CTA’s is animation. When used properly, animation can make buttons more intuitive and direct. This will make them more effective. Hover effects are mostly used, as it is not too interactive. It brings attention to the CTA but wont take any focus away from the message. If something has too much animation then it could become confusing, and create a negative effect instead of making the user want to use it. Subtly animated buttons are another great way of design, which makes focus on the button clear without being too distracting. The purpose of animation on buttons is to make it clear that it is a button. When you hover over a button it will change slightly, showing you can click on it to make something happen.

Another thing to think about when designing CTA’s is their positioning. This means thinking about the point on the page where the visitors will see it. For it to be effective, the surrounding images and text should relate. This will increase the chances of people performing the desired action of the CTA. Once you have a spot that is suitable, then it should stay in focus. This can be having extra space around it which means that the visitors will be able to easily spot it.

Overall, a call to action should be straight to the point, which means the copy should be direct and the surrounding content should relate to what it does. The colouring and design should stand out from any other content, but should still relate to the theme of the webpage. Any animation should be clear and not too complex. The placement of CTA’s should be suitable and noticeable. Following these design guidelines will help to get more conversions. This means that people will be more likely to do what the call to action is designed to do.

Why you need to include forms on your website
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Reasons Why You Need a Contact Form on Your Website

Reasons Why You Need a Contact Form on Your Website

A website’s contact form is a dedicated section which allows website visitors to get in touch with the company. It will have a set of questions which are to be filled out by the website visitors, once submitted it will send an email to the business email address. This will contain the information the user has sent on the form. Having a contact form is important, it gives site visitors the opportunity to get in contact and it also can help to grow a business. A contact form is usually short with a few boxes that the user would fill in. These fields are usually name, email address and the message they want to send to the company.

Why you need to include forms on your website

Security

When robots crawl the web, they can look for exposed email addresses. These emails that they find can end up in the hands of spammers, this can mean a business email ends up in the hands of spammers. This can mean that the inbox gets full of unwanted, spam emails. To stop this happening, a website would not have their business email address public. Instead they could have a contact form, so then customers can still contact them.

Get More Leads

When a user fills out a form on a website, this means they are already interested in the company. Each time a person fills in a contact form on your website, then they should be added to the email list. This is a great way of increasing the amount of people in your email list, which will help to keep in touch with your target market. This is also an easy way for customers to subscribe and  keep up to date with your business. If the sign up process is long and complicated then people will be less likely to sign up, so they will go elsewhere. A contact form is an easy and simple way to gain subscribers.

Making Yourself Reachable

Many websites have links to their social media profiles, but this isn’t the best way of contact for all users. Not everyone has social media, and having this as one of the only ways of contact creates more problems. It would create more work for users if they didn’t have the same social media profiles that are linked to the site. Users will give up and go elsewhere if they aren’t able to get in contact easily. Having a contact form instead is the best alternative. 

Convenience

Having a contact form is more convenient than just listing contact information. It will make things easier for users, as they can quickly find where to get in touch. They will not have to open up their email software and write out an email. All they have to do is fill in a form. This will make people more likely to get in contact with you. Contact forms should also be easy to find and use, so that visitors have the best experience on the website. 

Clarification

To help visitors that are getting in touch, extra information may need to be collected about them. A contact form will have input boxes that require the user to fill them out, they usually ask for their name, email address and a message to send to the business. You can also add details to a contact form to help collect more information about the visitors who fill them out. These can be details such as their phone number or a specific department that they want to get in touch with. This helps to get as much information about the visitor as possible, helping the businesses when they get in contact with them.

Get to Know your Audience

Contact forms can help you to get to know your audience better, just by them filling out a few boxes. You can alter the fields that you put the forms so that you can gain the right amount of information from your audience. You can also use geolocation to find out the area that they live, which will give better insights based on your customers. Extra information may give you better details on your audience, but having lots of fields on one form can lead to a higher bounce rate. Visitors will not want to take a lot of their time filling out a contact form, so you should only choose the fields that are necessary.

Connect to Other Tools

You can connect your contact form to other tools that will give extra features, this could be an email newsletter subscription. This will help to gain more customers, by sending out marketing emails to those who are interested in your website. This will allow you to follow up with those who are already interested, and build relationships with your customers.

most-popular-wordpress-plugins
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The Most Popular WordPress plugins

The Most Popular WordPress plugins

WordPress has over 55,000 plugins in its plugin repository. Plugins in WordPress are software that adds features to sites, enabling customisation. There are many types of plugins which add different features to a website. These plugins are a few of the most popular ones, which can be especially useful when having your own website built by WordPress developers.

most-popular-wordpress-plugins

Contact Form 7

Contact Form 7 is one of the oldest but most popular contact form plugins for WordPress. This plugin is used to create multiple contact forms which are customisable. It is simple to use and easy to manage. It also allows users to filter out spam across multiple forms. It can be used by everyone and is free, which is why it has over 5 million installations. Contact forms are an essential part of sites as they make businesses more reachable.

Yoast SEO

This plugin is used to improve the overall search engine optimisation (SEO) score of all pages across a site. Using this plugin allows you to set many elements which will help with SEO, such as your main keyword, meta descriptions and alt attributes of images. It also has recommendations of the best practices for readability, and offers statistics and advice of how to improve your website. It essentially is used by anyone who wants to get their site to rank better in the search engines. This is important as it will increase the amount of traffic that your website gets.

Elementor Website builder

Elementor Website Builder is a visual drag and drop plugin. The plugin allows website builders to build custom pages, which are independent of what the theme you use allows you to do. It gives a visual design interface when you can create your own page from scratch, or use one of the templates that are available. This will give full control over the design of your website, and is an easy way to create your website.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the plugin which will let you turn your website into an e-commerce site. It is for business owners as WooCommerce was built for commercial purposes. This will allow you to sell products to your customers through your website. It has had many extensions created, in order to make selling online as easy as possible. WooCommerce lets business owners sell physical and digital products, add variations of products and extensive payment methods.

Jetpack

Jetpack is a plugin built by Automattic, and is another very popular WordPress plugin. It is a multipurpose tool that brings lots of benefits to your website. It helps with marketing, design and website security. Alongside the main features it has site analytics, automated social media posting, span filtering and more. Some of these features are not free of charge, as Jetpack has three paid subscriptions. This plugin is suitable for many types of sites, including personal blogs, for startups and corporate businesses. So there is a subscription suited to many types of businesses.

WPForms

WP Forms is another popular plugin, which adds contact forms to your site using a drag and drop builder. There are a variety of forms which can be added in a few clicks, with a simple interface. This plugin is intended to be used by those who do not want to hire web developers, but wish to have contact forms. There is a free version of this plugin, which is limited to three types of forms. WP Forms Pro, is a paid version which has advanced features that allows users to create survey forms, payment forms and more.

Google Analytics Dashboard

Google Analytics by MonsterInsights is a plugin which connects Google Analytics with your WordPress site. It gives so much insight to website owners, such as tracking conversions, gaining data on users of your website and how people find your site. All of this helps to grow your website and your business. Adding the Google Analytics plugin will allow you to monitor the statistics of your website, all from the WordPress admin area.

Akismet

Askimet is an anti-spam plugin. It is another plugin developed by Automattic, that is made to block spam comments. This can protect your site from many types of spam, such as promotional links, irrelevant stories or even malicious content. It can become difficult to filter spam by yourself, especially if you get lots of comments. This plugin will help to manage this. It also will check any contact form submissions in the Askimet database, so that only the relevant and safe information is sent to you. This plugin is essential for those who receive lots of comments daily.

All in One SEO Pack

Another plugin that relates to search engine optimisation is the All in One SEO Pack. This is an alternative to the Yoast plugin. It can allow you to experiment with SEO more, and is suitable for both beginners and advanced users. An important feature of this plugin is that it provides SEO integration for e-commerce sites, which Yoast does not have. It also offers Google Analytics which is essential for SEO
Using the Psychology of Colour to Increase Website Conversions
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Using the Psychology of Colour to Increase Website Conversions

Using the Psychology of Colour to Increase Website Conversions

Use of colour is one of the first things that catch your eye when visiting a website. It has an easy influence on how you feel towards a website and its brand. Colour is not only an aesthetic choice, it has a psychological impact on users. This is why you should always consider the colours that you use when making design decisions. These colours that you choose should reflect the message that you want to give. Understanding the psychology of colours will give website designers from Liverpool a good idea of what colours will work best with their brand. It will also help with conversion rates. This is the percentage of users who take action on the site, such as making a purchase or subscribing.
 
Using the Psychology of Colour to Increase Website Conversions

Favourite colours

According to a study done in 2003, 35% of women and 57% of men said blue was their favourite colour. Purple and green are other favourite colours of women. Green and black are other favourite colours for men. Orange is one of the least favourite colours of both women and men. This is why blue and green are popular colours used by brands when targeting both genders, such as Facebook and Starbucks. If you visit a site which has a target audience of male only or female only, then you will usually find that their most used colours are those that are the gender’s colour preferences.

Trust in a brand

Blue is one of the most popular colours used in branding and websites. This is for a good reason. The colour blue is associated with stability, loyalty and peace. These are good messages to give your audience. A well known company, PayPal, uses blue in its logo and across its website and app. It is also used in other, well known banks. This will help to improve their trustworthiness and convince people to use their bank, just by their colour scheme. If they were to choose another colour, such as yellow, as their colour scheme then they wouldn’t have the same effect on users. For example, if someone was looking for a new bank and visiting multiple websites, they would be likely to look more into a bank with a blue colour scheme than one with other colours. This is because the colour blue gives them a feeling of trust, a colour affecting them without them even knowing.
 

Luxury products

Darker tones and colours such as black and navy gives a sense of luxury, value and power. This is what high end e-commerce sites want their audience to feel. This is why it is used across sites and brands, it gives the feeling of elegance to both their products and website. The car manufacturer, Lamborghini’s official website has a black colour scheme. It is an expensive brand that wants to give their customers the feeling of luxury. Just like buying one of their cars will. Black is not always the best colour to use though. It is the ‘heaviest’ colour which means it can be difficult to highlight other parts of a website. Elements with a black background can seem smaller, so you should not use black when there is too much content on a page. While the colour black can have an elegant feel, it is also related to serious and negative feelings. This is why it is important to really consider when and where to use a black colour scheme.
 
Environmental products
Green, and other earthly colours, is used in connection with the outdoors, nature and the environment. The National Trust logo is green, which relates to nature which is what the company is all about. This could also be why BP, an oil industry company, uses it on their site and logo. They could be using the positive connections with the colour to present themselves in a more eco-friendly way. Green is also a colour that can improve creativity, which may be why some companies, such as Spotify, use it. Green is also a colour that stands out from the rest, which is why it is often used on buttons for websites. The ‘buy now’ or ‘submit’ buttons you see on websites are often in the colour green as it stands out from the rest of the webpage it is on.
 
 
Choosing the right colours is important as it gives the user information and feelings towards the site, without them truly thinking about it. These colours should match the company’s logo and branding, but also should be psychologically appropriate. This means having colours that will relate to the type of website it is. If a site is good to look at, then it is likely that people will stay on the site. This will increase the conversion rate, meaning people will take action on the site
Choosing the Right Font for Your Website
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Choosing the Right Font for Your Website

Choosing the Right Font for Your Website

When making a website, there is a lot to think about. There should be a balance between writing good content and having a visually appealing website. Good content doesn’t mean much when a site looks bad. When creating your website something that should not be overlooked is the fonts that are used. A main reason for this is that they give first impressions of your website, visitors will focus on the text which will give first impressions. This will be a short guide on how to choose the best fonts for your website.
 
Choosing the Right Font for Your Website

Serif or sans?

What is the difference between sans fonts and serif fonts? A serif font has decorative strokes at the ends of letters, such as Times New Roman. A sans font does not have any, such as Arial. Sans typefaces are known for having a modern, clean design. Whereas serif fonts are typically used to bring a more formal and elegant tone. It all depends on the style that you are going for.

Placement of text

Where text is placed has a lot of importance as it contributes to font design. You can align text to the left, center or right. Left aligned text is usually the easiest to read as it is what people are used to. Another choice to do with text is having justified or ragged text. Ragged text is where one edge of sentences in a paragraph do not line up neatly. This can be on the left or right side. Justified text is where both edges of a paragraph are neatly aligned, this can add extra space in-between words which can be slightly difficult to read. Choosing the right text placement on a website all depends on the style you want to achieve. Justified text can create a sense of symmetry and formality, when it is done well. Ragged text which is left aligned is more natural to read. When the margin is set to the right, it gives off a more informal style.
 

Make sure your fonts match your brand’s tone

Your typography should match your brand’s tone. The fonts you choose should work well together, as well as with the rest of your website. This means ensuring that your fonts are cohesive with the rest of your visual branding. This can be using the same font for parts of your website as the ones used in your brand logo. Another thing to make sure of is that your typographics match your design purpose. If you want your website to have an effective design then you should think about which font combinations work best with each other.
 

Rank fonts by importance

The number of fonts that you use should be limited, realistically there is no need to use more than three fonts. You don’t want to overcomplicate things with too many fonts. It is typically one font for headings and one for the body text. Adding bold and italics to them could count as even more. The primary font is the one most visible on your webpage, such as in your brand logo and headings. This font should be the one which is the most cohesive with your brand identity. The secondary font should be used for the body text, such as any descriptions. This should be simple and easy to read. The tertiary font is not always used, but can be for specific elements on a website such as a navigation menu. You should keep in mind that pairing fonts can be hard, so it is important to ensure that you limit the number of fonts used so that they can match.Think about load timesSlow websites can increase the bounce rate. This is why if fonts take too long to load, they are not the right ones to use. Load speed is a reason why you shouldn’t have too many fonts on your website. You should also only choose the styles that you need when downloading a font, such as the normal and the bold style. This should be the same with downloading the languages for font. If you only require a few then make sure to deselect the ones you won’t use when downloading it.
 

Test how your font appears on different devices and screen sizes

Font design should always be thought about, as typography makes up about 90% of website content. This will have a direct influence on user experience and will determine whether users stay or leave your site. To make sure that all of your audience has a good experience on your site, you should test how your fonts appear on different devices and screen sizes.
The History of WordPress
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The History of WordPress

The History of WordPress

An overview of when WordPress began to where it is now.

WordPress is an open source, content management system, which allows its users to manage aspects of their websites without needing to have the knowledge of programming. It is a simple way of creating websites and blogs, and is the most popular way to do it. WordPress powers over 37.6% of all websites on the internet, proving that WordPress makes building a website accessible to anyone.

The history of WordPress for CMS and website design

2003 – Where it began

The development of blogging software b2/cafelog was discontinued by its main developers. This was due to developer support becoming non-existent. Two users of this software, Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little, then decided to create a new platform on top of b2/cafelog. They could do this as b2 was released on SourceForge, which is a web-based service which allows software developers a place to manage free, open-source software projects. This was then named WordPress.

 

In 2003, the availability of the first version of WordPress was announced, having more significant improvements than b2 had. This version included a new admin interface, new templates and generated XHTML 1.1 compliant templates. Mullenweg wanted WordPress to have the flexibility of MovableType, the hackability of b2 and the ease setup of Blogger.

2004

In May of 2004 a new version was released, which came with the opportunity to use plugins. This allowed users of WordPress to extend the functionality of websites and add new features. Users and developers would write their own plugins and share them with the rest of the community.

WordPress had an increase in users, when its competitor, MovableType, changed its pricing structure. This drove away its audience, and led to them looking for an alternative. WordPress was the best choice for these users.

2005

In 2005, WordPress began the creation of their logo. Several developers and designers began the early workings of the ‘W’ we know today. After a few months, the logo was finalised on the 15th of May.

A new update of WordPress came with new features. In early 2005, the update added pages, comment moderation tools, and brand new themes. Another update was released in December 2005, with a new admin dashboard. This update used JavaScript and DHTML.

2006

The trademark for WordPress and its logo was filed. This was done by co-founder Matt Mullenweg’s company, Automattic.

2008

A web design company, Happy Cog, joined the WordPress project. They helped to design a new admin interface. A usability study was conducted to do this.

Throughout 2008, new releases had new features. Such as shortcodes, one-click updates and built-in plugin installation.

In 2008 the WordPress Theme Directory was launched, where anyone could develop and then upload their themes to the directory and make them available to visitors. This would be once a quality check was completed. There are now 3,944 available themes in the directory.

2010

The company Automattic, founded by Matt Mullenweg, transferred ownership of the WordPress trademark to the WordPress Foundation. This ensured that WordPress will continue to grow as it is not dependent on a company or group of developers to continue the project.

In 2010, version 3.0 of WordPress was released, which included several features such as custom post types, custom backgrounds, headers and menus. This was a major step for WordPress as a CMS (Content Management System)

2011

In 2011, post formats and admin bar were introduced to WordPress. Also around this time, new WordPress plugins were being used to build powerful e-Commerce platforms on top of WordPress. This enabled users of WordPress to create online stores.

2012

Updates in 2012 had new features including theme previews, theme customiser and a media manager. These features helped new users of WordPress to create image galleries and preview themes, before they change their website to a new theme.

2013

Version 3.7 of WordPress came with a new automatic update feature which allowed WordPress to automatically update your site’s software for minor releases. Some users didn’t like this feature.

By this time, WordPress had become the most popular Content Management System in the world.

Version 3.8 was released, and introduced MP6 which was the new WordPress admin interface. This interface was more responsive and provided users with a better user experience. This was for any device or screen size.

2014

Release of WordPress 3.9 in early 2014 focused on improving the visual post editor. Images were able to be dragged and dropped directly into the post editor. Users could also edit images and see gallery previews in the editor. This update also introduced live widget previews, audio playlists and other improvements.

Later in the year, Wordpress 4.0 and 4.1 were released. These updates had many improvements including a new media gallery and language packs which allowed users to switch language from the admin area, rather than having to upload translation files.

2015

In 2015 three updates, 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4 were released. These updates had new features such as improved localisation, emoji support and a theme customiser.

WooCommerce is an e-Commerce plugin for WordPress. It was acquired by Matt Mullenweg’s company, Automattic.

2016

Versions 4.5, 4.6 and 4.7 were released. Each of these releases had new features and improvements. These features included updates for plugins and themes, a custom CSS feature for the theme customiser. By the end of 2016 WordPress announced supporting HTTPs.

2017

2017’s updates brought some new default widgets. These were to add audio, video, images, gallery, rich text and HTML. These releases started off the new WordPress block editor.

2018

WordPress 5.0 was released and had a brand new editing experience. This block editor project release was codenamed GutenBerg. It had some of the features that were released in 2017 updates.

Present day

Wordpress has changed a lot through new updates, since starting in 2003. It is now the number one Content Management System in the world, with around 18 million installations. WordPress continues to meet the needs of its users, with new updates and features. It continues to be the most popular web development in the world, powering over 75 million sites on the web.

How Does Responsive Web Design Work?
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How Does Responsive Web Design Work?

How Does Responsive Web Design Work?

Responsive web design is the approach that suggests web design and development should respond to user behaviour and environment based on their screen size, platform and orientation. As a user switches from devices, such as from iPad to laptop, the website should be able to accommodate for resolution, image size and scripting abilities. The settings on devices should also be considered, for example if they have a VPN the website should not block the users access to the page. This means that the website should have the technology to automatically respond to the user’s preferences. This eliminates the need for different designs for each and every new gadget.

How does responsive web design work?

Screen Resolution

All devices have varying screen resolutions, definitions and orientations, and new devices are always being developed which will differ from other devices. It is obvious that custom solutions for each type of device cannot be created. So to deal with this, flexible layouts are created. Making sites more flexible means images can be automatically adjusted, so that layouts don’t break. This gives more options when designing websites, such as when devices change their orientation. For example when a tablet goes from portrait to landscape the web page will fit the screen without breaking the layout.
 
 

Flexible Images

Images can be a problem if they are not resized proportionally. They can interfere with a website’s layout, so we can make them automatically resizable. A way of doing this is to set the max width to 100%. This means that when the screen size changes, so does the image. Such as when a device has a narrower screen size, the image will become more narrow to fit the screen. The idea of flexible images is when you set images at the maximum size that they are going to be used at, the browser will then resize the images. This is done while using css will then display the image at its relative size. This simply resizes images to fit the device’s screen size.
 

Custom Layout Structure

When a website has large size changes between devices, the layout may have to be changed altogether. This can be done through a separate stylesheet or a css media query. An example of this could be if a group of people were to work on and create a website. If one were to work on the header of the page, and someone else works on the body then it would be suitable to set up separate stylesheets. Each user can comment the code they have written, so that each other person working on the site can see and understand what they have done. To do this you start the comment with /* and end it with *\.
 
Showing Or Hiding Content
Sometimes it is not the best solution to display all of the content on a page, depending on the device. For example, a phone screen has a much smaller screen size than a tablet, so some content can be hidden that is not necessary to see all of the time. This could be an image that is not seen unless switching orientation to landscape. Another example would be a button that is visible on a mobile device but not on desktop.
What is in the WordPress admin dashboard?
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What is in the WordPress admin dashboard?

What is in the WordPress admin dashboard?

What is in the WordPress admin dashboard?

The WordPress admin dashboard is where the entire WordPress website is controlled. It is where content is created and managed, plugins are added for functionality and styling is changed.

It is accessed by adding /wp-admin/ to the end of the URL of the website which you want to access. If you are already logged in then you will be redirected to the admin dashboard, otherwise you will be redirected to the admin login page.

When you first login to the WordPress admin dashboard, the default screen has widgets such as Activity, At a Glance and Quick Draft. This gives the user an overview of the details of the website. On the left of the dashboard there is a sidebar with menu options. There is a default set of options that WordPress includes, but different plugins and themes have additional options to the menu.

Can you change the WordPress Admin panels looks and functions?

If there are some elements of the WordPress dashboard that you don’t like or use, you can hide them to simplify your workflow. To do this you click on the ‘Screen Options’ button in the top right corner of the WordPress admin page. You then uncheck the items that you don’t want to see.

Creating a blog post

The WordPress admin area helps to write blog posts. To add a blog post you would hover over the menu item that says Posts, and then clock on the Add New button. This will open up the Add New Post screen. There is then a space to enter a title, write the blog post in the text editor, upload images and assign categories.

Managing how a website looks

In the WordPress admin area there is a section to modify how the website looks. There are themes to choose and customise. This is done by going to the Appearance item and choosing the option you want to edit.

The WordPress toolbar

The WordPress toolbar is the bar at the top of the screen that appears when you logged into WordPress as an admin. This toolbar allows users to perform actions quickly, without having to return to the dashboard, no matter where they are on the site. You can turn off this toolbar by going to Users, Your Profile and then unchecking the box for Show Toolbar when visiting the site.

Further Customisation

The WordPress dashboard can be easily customised, which is useful when working with clients to simplify things. Some things that can be done to the dashboard are;

  • Hiding or changing things in the admin menu
  • Organising items using drag and drop
  • Hiding the toolbar
  • Branding the dashboard with your logo and colours
  • Creating custom menus
Supporting Other Women In The Workplace
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Supporting Other Women In The Workplace

Supporting Other Women In The Workplace

Supporting Other Women In The Workplace

International Women’s Day has been and gone but the topic of conversation is still very popular. After running our all female-led podcast, I felt empowered to talk further about supporting women in the workplace. In particular, women who work in tech as this is something I can relate to the most. Overall I think the attitude towards women in working in tech has improved but there are still areas that are tough are women. Even though this is the case, it’s still important to support other women in the workplace and motivate them.

Teaching Skills

Firstly I think it’s important to give other’s help when needed. Teaching women your skills, giving them advice or just offering general support can really help others, especially if they are just starting out. You might have vital knowledge that can support people in their learning journey. Even if you are not mentoring someone, it’s good to let women in junior roles know that you are available to help at any time.

Sharing Successes

Another advice I would give you is to think of one woman’s success as a whole success. It’s important not to see other women as the competition but support them in their achievements. Many women in tech are doing so many good things within their job role and proving that it doesn’t matter what gender you are. When you see this either online or in person, make sure to congratulate them and show them your support. Women sharing other women’s success stories will empower everyone else to do the same.

Supporting Women In The Workplace
Women In The Workplace

Involving Women  

Wherever you work, there will be women who want to be involved in different projects within the business. As we understand, people can’t be involved in everything but ensuring they feel like they’re are included will give them a huge boost. Give them a chance to voice their ideas, come along on female-focused events and just be generally involved in the business. Even though this is important for women in tech, it’s also important for people, in general, to feel like they are involved within the company they work in.

Speaking Out

Sometimes gender bias might not be purposely nasty but it can happen in the workplace. If it does and you notice it, it’s important to speak out. Support the women in your workplace and show them that you aren’t going to let it slip. Whether you speak directly to the person or to a manager, you need to make sure that this is bought up as no company should allow gender bias.

 How To Empower

 With all this being said, you need to be supporting women in the workplace no matter where you work or what your job role is. There are many ways to show your support as mentioned previously but there’s no better time to start than now. To keep up with our activities on how we are supporting women in tech, head over to our https://www.facebook.com/Bluewhalemedia.co.uk

Supporting Other Women In The Workplace