WordPress Web Design: Companies, Tutorials & Tools You Need to Know About

With its ecosystem of plugins and themes, WordPress allows anyone to create an attractive website — not just web designers. But if you’ve never designed a website before, you should consider all your options. You can hire a designer to build a website from scratch, or build your own site using pre-designed themes and other components.

While hiring a designer can be costly, it allows for more flexibility and customization so you can create a completely unique website that reflects your brand. If you’re on a tight budget, however, you might be better off designing your own site. It will take some self-education, but you can find plenty of resources and tools to help you create and customize a WordPress website.

To help you decide what route to take, we’ve compiled a list of the best WordPress web design companies and an estimate of how much they cost. We’ve also included tutorials and software that can help you learn more and dabble in WordPress web design.

Best WordPress Web Design Companies

The best WordPress web design companies will ask about your goals and needs, and then produce a customized WordPress website that might include custom post types, taxonomies, plugins, and APIs that are designed specifically for you. Here’s a few companies that do exactly that.

1. InboundLabs

InboundLabs is a digital marketing agency dedicated to helping companies tell their stories, reach new audiences, and generate leads through web design as well as content creation, SEO, PPC, social media marketing services, and more. InboundLabs specializes in designing a tailor-made Wordpress website that integrates seamlessly with HubSpot.

2. SmartSites

SmartSites is the #1 ranked web design agency by G2, Upcity, and BestFirms. Their clients have included Harvard University, the biggest car brands, doctors, plumbers, lawyers, non-profits, and small businesses. This Boston-based agency specializes in building custom websites from the ground up. That might include designing logos and graphics, setting up Zapier integrations and APIs, writing content, creating SEO strategies, conducting technical audits, and developing custom functionality.

3. The Free Website Guys

The Free Website Guys have designed WordPress websites for over 5,300 entrepreneurs — for free. Their goal is to build connections with business owners who might hire them for larger projects later on, once they have more budget and resources. These guys specialize in making fast, mobile-optimized, and SEO-friendly websites.

4. HtmlBurgher

HtmlBurgher is a highly experienced professional in custom WordPress development. With over 9 years of specialized experience in WordPress and a track record of completing over 3600 projects, they have gained extensive expertise in all types and varieties of WordPress and WooCommerce projects.

5. HTML Panda

HTML Panda is a web development and design agency that offers a range of services, including WordPress development as well as Drupal and ecommerce development, among others. This Boston-based agency specializes in making high-converting websites.

6. PHRUTOS

PHRUTOS offers web design services for multiple platforms, including WordPress as well as HubSpot, Webflow, and Zoho. This boutique agency specializes in creating websites for start-ups and other growing companies.

7. JSL Marketing & Website Design

JSL Marketing & Website Design aims to be a one-stop shop for a business’ complete marketing and design needs. It offers a wide variety of services including website design, SEO strategy and management, content marketing and email marketing. This Dallas-based agency specializes in creating responsive WordPress websites for small to mid-market businesses.

8. Infront Webworks

Infront Webworks has been developing, customizing, and hosting WordPress websites for over a decade. They specialize in creating secure and SEO-friendly websites with custom-made themes for small businesses.

WordPress Web Design Pricing

According to OuterBox, the pricing of WordPress agencies typically ranges between $1,000 and $10,000 for design alone.

However, the actual cost of hiring a WordPress web design company depends on a variety of factors, including:

• The number of pages on your site
• The type of site (small business, ecommerce, etc)
• Whether you want special design elements, like animations
• Whether you use a custom theme or pre-designed template
• Whether you need custom functionality
• Additional services, like SEO planning and content writing

It’s understandable if you’re intimidated by the ballpark estimate above. The good news is that pricing should be discussed at multiple points during your working relationship with a design agency.

First, you can get a quote from an agency before making any commitment. That way, you have a clearer understanding of how much you’ll actually be spending and can use pricing to narrow down agencies you’re deciding between.

During this evaluation phase, you can also ask agencies to submit a web design proposal. These proposals will clearly lay out the objective of your website design or redesign, costs, timeline, and any terms and conditions.

Here’s an example of the introduction to a WordPress website design proposal. You can also see the other sections included in the table of contents in the left sidebar.

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Learning WordPress Web Design

If you don’t have the budget or time to work with a WordPress web design company, then you can try your hand at designing your own website. While you can get started immediately by browsing themes and plugins, it would be useful to have some WordPress web design knowledge. The good news? There’s hundreds of resources available for beginners to developers.

WordPress Web Design Tutorials

WordPress web design tutorials will help you pick and customize your theme and decide what plugins are essential for extending the functionality of your WordPress site. Let’s take a look at some tutorials that might help you in the design process.

1. How to Make a WordPress Site Look Professional, HubSpot

When opting to create a WordPress site yourself instead of hiring a professional, you might be concerned that it won’t look professional. But don’t fret. This blog post will walk you through seven ways you can make a professional-looking WordPress website, from choosing a theme to customizing your website footer.

2. The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Themes, HubSpot

Picking a theme is arguably the most important design choice you’ll make when going down the DIY route. This ultimate guide will walk you through how to pick a WordPress theme, then offer a brief overview of some of the best free and premium themes.  

3. Wordpress Complete Website MasterClass, Udemy

When creating a WordPress website, there’s a lot to do: purchasing a domain, installing plugins, optimizing your content for SEO, setting up forms, and so much more. This 6.5-hour class covers it all. You can go through the course from the beginning, or skip around to the parts you’re most interested in, like homepage design or establishing an ecommerce store.

4. Winning the Battle of Design & Function by Focusing on User Experience, WordPress.tv

When designing a website, user experience should be a top priority. This presentation offers a broad overview of why UX matters and some actionable takeaways you can implement in your WordPress website design.

5. How to Set Up Your WordPress Menus (In 3 Steps), DreamHost

Navigation menus are an essential part of your website’s design, especially considering that bad navigation is a top reason visitors leave a website. This tutorial will walk you through how to create well-organized and prominent menus on your WordPress website in three easy steps.

6. WordPress: Custom Post Types and Taxonomies, LinkedIn Learning

In WordPress, there are seven default post types (posts, pages, attachments, revisions, navigation menus, custom CSS, changesets) and three default taxonomies (categories, tags, and post formats). But you can display different types of content according to your own rules by creating custom post types and taxonomies. This course shows you how.

7. 11 WordPress Web Design Trends to Pay Attention to, TorqueMag

Whether you’re designing or redesigning your WordPress website, you want to know about the latest trends. Otherwise, you risk creating an outdated design. This article walks through over 10 trends that can help you create a stylish site.

WordPress Web Design Software

One of the biggest advantages of building a site on WordPress is the vast collection of third-party plugins and tools you can use to extend the platform’s functionality. The tools below will help you enhance your website’s design — whether you’ve built it from scratch or worked with an agency.

HubSpot WordPress Plugin

You can easily create forms, popups, and live chat using HubSpot’s drag-and drop-builder. This plugin also lets you adjust colors, stylings, and more to match your brand and provide a seamless experience for visitors.

Atarim

Atarim is a platform for web design and development agencies, which enables teams to manage internal operations, production funnels, client communication, and much more. Essentially, Atarim is a project delivery system that has helped thousands of agencies bring their efficiency and productivity to a whole new level.

Elementor

Elementor is a drag-and-drop page builder plugin that helps you create stunning pages without any coding. This plugin has a free and pro version with several great modules and design options.

Ultimatum

Ultimatum is a premium tool for creating a one-of-a-kind theme. You can use its drag-and-drop builder to insert headers, footers, menus, and other widgets exactly where you want in the layout.

Monarch

Monarch is a premium WordPress plugin that enables you to create a custom set of social media share buttons and social media follow buttons. With this plugin, you have control over what social networks and profiles you display as well as the placement and design of your buttons.

Envira

Envira is a premium WordPress plugin that makes it easy to create beautiful photo and video galleries in just a few minutes. With Envira, you can customize built-in gallery templates, enable full-screen lightbox mode to showcase individual images, and share photos on social media.

CSS Hero

Want full control over your site’s appearance but don’t know how to code? CSS Hero is designed for users like you. With this plugin, you just have to mouseover the element you want to customize and adjust the settings in the left sidebar.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is the most popular ecommerce WordPress plugins. This free plugin comes with all the basic features you need to turn your WordPress website into a fully functional ecommerce site.

Ready to Design Your WordPress Website?

If you’re interested in designing a WordPress website, there are plenty of resources available to help. You can hire an agency, check out some DIY tutorials, and use a range of plugins and other tools to help simplify the design process.