Today, the world of the Internet is going through a lot of changes and experiments. Due to the changing moods of user’s taste, it has become mandatory for all entrepreneurs, business firms, companies, and individual business owners to own professional, uncomplicated and simply arranged websites. To create a stunning and user-friendly website, you need to have expertise in coding and designing appealing web pages.
Luckily, with the help of content management systems & open source website building tools, even non-programmers can easily create dynamic and high-quality websites with less effort. In this article, we will explain how professionals convert PSD to WordPress and build websites. Let’s start.
1. Create Your Website Blueprint at First
Most of the web designers simply start the process of PSD to WordPress conversion and website creation. They do so with an intention to save their precious time. However, when they advance with the project without any clear planning, they face unforeseen obstacles. As a result, they have to redo some of their works once again.
It doesn’t matter you have to create a simple WordPress website/blog or a fully-fledged site, all you need to create a blueprint it. Just take your time and do the following:
- Keyword research and creation of a keyword list targeting all aspects of your web-based business,
- Your website design and its goal,
- The target audience,
- Arrangement of high-quality and SEO optimized content and
- Call-to-action buttons.
2. Slice The PSD Files
It is perhaps the most significant step for PSD to WordPress conversion. In this method, you have to cut the big image files into smaller ones. This helps you a lot in coding and adding the necessary features and functionalities as per your needs. Major components such as Background, Header, and Separator & Footer should be kept in mind while slicing the image files. Here, you can use the image editing software as Adobe Photoshop for creating layers for PSD files easily and quickly. As the use of images affects your web pages and SEO efforts, optimize each image very well.
3. Create HTML and CSS files
In this step, you have to code the image files into HTML or XHTML format (index.html) and style them with CSS (style.css). To complete this step, you should have a sound knowledge of HTML/XHTML and CSS. You can use the Fireworks software and Dreamweaver to finish this step easily and quickly. If you are a beginner in coding, you should perform this action under the guidance of an expert Programmer or WordPress development company. This will help you to avoid silly mistakes in coding and learn new coding tricks. Alternatively, you can use online resources, such as W3Schools, TutsPlus, CSS Basics, etc, to get plenty of knowledge about coding.
4. Add index.html Into WordPress Theme
You must know that you can use the PSD files for the creation of a personalized WordPress theme and build professional looking WordPress sites easily. So, it is very important for you to create the HTML file in accordance with the WordPress theme.
To perform this action, break Index.html into multiple html files and divide them into several parts (depending on your needs), such as archive.php, header.php, footer.php, index.php, single.php, page.php, sidebar.php, category.php, search.php, 404.php, comments.php and comments-popup.php. This will help you to organize codes easily and quickly. For better organization of code, you can chop them and store in different compartments of WordPress coding.
5. Add WordPress Tags
One of the most important things about WordPress is that it has a huge library of functions which get updated regularly. You can add these functions to your website theme. And adding WordPress tags is super easy as they are pre-coded.
You need to store all these files in the same folder and it must be created with the same name as in your theme. You can place it into /wp-content/themes/ path. By doing so, you can easily find it during the WordPress installation process.
6. Add Functionalities To Your Website
As soon you create the WordPress theme and add it to the WordPress software, you will have to modify it to suit your business needs and add new functionalities. For this, you will have to change the core HTML code. It is a time-consuming work and the chances of making mistakes are high. So, you install a WordPress plugin on your site and make the required changes easily and effortlessly.
7. Test And Run Your Website
By now, you have completed the process of PSD to WordPress conversion. Just test all functionalities of your website and check whether they are in the right condition or not. Review all important elements of the site once again to eliminate the chances of mistakes. If everything is fine, launch your site and start publishing content for the targeted audience.
Final Words
These are the important steps of PSD to WordPress conversion. Using these tips, you can easily create professional WordPress sites and operate a lucrative web-based business with a little investment.
Author Bio:
Tracey Jones is well-known as a certified WordPress developer with vast experience in research and development field. She works with a leading psd to WordPress theme conversion company, HireWPGeeks Ltd. When not busy with coding, she loves to write about the WordPress and always on the way of learning something new. Follow her company on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
