For those who haven’t received the memo yet, WordPress is still the de facto blogging platform despite the heavy influx of other incredible resourceful blogging platforms
WordPress can be over-caffeinated at times, and at other times it can be too subtle for the liking. But there is always enough room for us to spread our limbs and make changes on the fly, and that’s what the webmasters of the world have attempted and succeeded in. Owing to consistent self-reinventions, WordPress has managed to endure despite the huge herd of other content management systems strewing the market.
The Internet realm has witnessed a steady stream of bloggers in past few years. To some, their blog is nothing more than an outlet for their thoughts & opinions. And then there are people who represent a business or a brand and their blog forms an indispensable part of their online marketing strategy. For some, any watered down blogging platform would be good enough, however, if being known as a serious publisher is on your agenda, you might as well want to migrate to WordPress without wasting any time.
Simplicity with power
There is a truckload of benefits WordPress bottles up for bloggers from plugins to widgets, irrespective of the scale they wish to create their website on and expand further. While setting up a website on this platform isn’t a sweat-soaked exercise, the effortlessness doesn’t come at the cost of features.
WordPress is about maintaining simplicity but providing feature rich options and technical power.
Now, there are WordPress websites that try extremely hard to shake of the WordPress-ian character in order to look different, and succeed. And then, there are also those that don’t branch out for to be overtly stylized, and yet manage to look charming.
Here are 10 inspiring WordPress designs maybe worth stealing some ideas from.
1. Leisure Martini
This is a website centered on the diverse themes of entertainment, poetry, and humor, Leisure Martini packs a powerful punch with its basic, yet charming design. The widgets are cleverly placed at the landing page and the corresponding internal pages of this content heavy site.
2. David Hellmann
A website dedicated to the portfolio of a designer, this one has some beguilingly exceptional tones, textures and designing patterns.
3. Website Bakery
With subtle tones and textures, this WordPress-powered website makes quite a statement.
4. Toronto Standard
Toronto Standard is a daily digest for many Canadians, it lays out everything in an easy to use format.
5. Web Courses Bangkok
The website of Web Course Bangkok is all about no-fuss. While it depicts that it is a website around academic courses, it keeps things interesting enough with the design.
6. Ownerd
Ownerd doles out a useful sermon for business owners, and it keeps the design innovation-driven.
7. Takashi Irie
Filled of text and restrained with colors, this one hardly gives an impression it is a WordPress site.
8. The Band Agency
Very creative, and very basic indeed, it is one of the popular more WordPress websites out there with not much to indicate that there is a WordPress platform behind its design.
9. Mrcthms
A website that represents the portfolio of a popular designer, it makes a fine boast of his works.
10. Great Lengths Hair
The website keeps it quite elucidatory with its name and an enticing landing page design that makes it clear on what’s it all about.
These websites symbolize everything that’s right with WordPress. Design, tones, sophistication, user-friendliness – everything leaps.
What about you?
Which website inspires you? Are you looking to upgrade your design? Are you thinking about launching your first blog or website?
Look forward to your stories and feedback in the comments below.
Guest author: Rohit Raina is a freelance writer and digital marketeer who was trained as an engineer and started his stint with writing on a wobbly note. Today, writing is all he does. Follow him on Twitter at @RohittRaina
Listen to this post as a Podcast!
Learn how to make your blog a roaring success
My book – “Blogging the Smart Way – How to Create and Market a Killer Blog with Social Media” – will show you how.
I show you how to create and build a blog that rocks and grow tribes, fans and followers on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. It also includes dozens of tips to create contagious content that begs to be shared and tempts people to link to your website and blog.
I also reveal the tactics I used to grow my Twitter followers to over 230,000.