How do make your sites look professional?

1) Wordpress all the way
2) I purchase themes
3) I lookup photoshop tutorials for whatever effects I am trying to go for.

self-hosted (Hostgator/cPanel/Fantastico) WP for web pages, and Dreamweaver 7 for landing/opt-in pages

hth

I've started buying themes from Themeforest. They usually cost about $35 but it's a small price to pay for something that looks so good.

I go with Wordpress. Look for a clean looking theme that is easy to use. You can purchase some great professional ones over at Fiverr.

Self-Hosted

Use Wordpress and pay $30-40 for a premium theme is the best way.

Thanks everyone so far for your replies. I definitely like the ease of use of Wordpress and how I can quickly change the way the entire site looks with the click of a button. Do you use pages with Wordpress to make it look more like a traditional site or just use posts?

I use WordPress, and bought a developer license for all of the Genesis themes a while back (a great deal BTW). I also use Premise for landing pages (extremely easy to knock something out; unlimited license for multiple sites).

Some sites are nothing but landing pages. One is just a blog. One is a blog and a few pages and a few landing pages - it depends on the purpose of the site.

I used to pay a graphic artist to do custom HTML sites, but the WordPress themes have gotten so good that there's little advantage in that for me now.

I don't want my sites to look too professional. Above all, I don't really want them to look like sites that belong to a "just a professional marketer", because that would lose me credibility with my target markets.

I am a professional marketer, and I don't conceal that (I have affiliate disclosures, and so on) but I do play it down. I want to look like a very knowledgeable enthusiast in my niches, who can inform, educate and entertain my subscribers and readers, so that they'll come to trust me and rely on my recommendations for "buying stuff".

I avoid Wordpress partly because almost everyone else uses it and partly because it's too difficult for me.

I use TypePad, among other things.

Regarding my "money sites", I outsource as little as I possibly can.

Don't assume that "professional-looking sites" are going to make more money than "amateur-looking sites" - some will, perhaps; many won't, for sure.

If you want to get decent looking sites up and running without coding knowledge. Wordpress is the best bet. There are a lot of good looking themes available for Wordpress, both free and commercial, that make it easy to have a nice looking site.

I use Wordpress and have my graphic designer do a nice theme for it. I used to get templates, but didn't like the code bugs in them.

Word press with a good theme is the way to go. It's just so much easier and can look really well done if you have a good theme. If you have some generic theme though then in my opinion it can look really generic and thrown together.

I use wordpress and it hasn't failed me yet, they key is not to overkill your website with a ton of banner ads, colors everywhere and a horrible layout. If you K.I.S.S. (Keep it simple stupid) your website then it will look fine.

Wordpress FTW -- For The Win. Buy a highly functional theme that lets you make adjustments. If you are branding yourself and want something over-the-top custom and super professional, call an experienced design company like Core Zero (link below).

Wordpress is great and very easy to use. I also use Microsoft impressions 4 and I find that relatively easy to use.

There are other FTPs that are free like Kompozer and Nvu. But if you are not familiar with these WordPress is definitely for you.

I'm a big WordPress fan, but when I want a really nice looking
site, I get someone who is good at graphics to create the site
for me... or at least a customer header.

After 15 years, I've learned that I suck at graphics, but write
pretty good copy. So, I focus on what I do best

Willie

Wordpress with Thesis. I like being able to code a bit in PHP and adjust some of the CSS. I'm learning those and JavaScript for kicks, but that's because I enjoy code.

You can make a Wordpress look like a 'normal' website. It's all in how you customize it. One of the biggest tips I have is setting the front page to a 'static' page.

If you don't know how to do this, it's super easy. You create two pages, most people go with 'Home' and the other is 'News/Updates/Blog/etc...' Then you go to your Wordpress settings - then to Reading - Select 'static page' and set your first page to 'Home' and the other to 'News/Updates/Blog/Whatever...'. This gives the reader a static landing page to land upon.

However, remember that if you have limited traffic allotment or server space, you don't want to go with Wordpress for a single page site. It's a lot of wasted memory take up not only loading it but storing it for just one page.

I am well versed in Dreamweaver, but I don't recommend it as it doesn't always implement CSS in an efficient manner and it tends to throw a lot of extra code into your site.

I don't recommend Photoshop for the beginner either. Go with the far more friendly Photoshop Elements. There is very little that you will miss from the full version. Good starting point. I do a mix of Photoshop and Illustrator personally. My avatar, for example, is done with Illustrator and is vector graphics. In fact, right now my header for my site is also vectored.

If you want to PM me one of your sites, I can take a look and see if I can help in any way. I'm by no means an expert, I have an associates in graphic design, but knowing how to work the software doesn't make the designer 'good', but if I can help you with a spruced up header or something, maybe I can help!

I used wordpress most of the times and there are many plugins which help me save lots of headache...

Wordpress is great, but like everything it has its pros and cons. Its great to use a combination of both wordpress and HTML.

I have found that for SEO, you should strictly use HTML. With HTML you can do exactly what you need to do to optimize the page with no restrictions. Can't say the same for wordpress.

For beginners, wordpress is awesome.

For experts, well...experts can go to their graphic designer and have them design something amazing looking.. hehe

Having a site that isnt pretty is alot better than not have a site at all. Forcus on what you can do and not what you can't. Whatever you can do to make it more pleasing to the eye, do it. And whatever you can do to make it pleasing to the search engines....really do it! and do it twice! (you get the point)

Mark Jones

wordpress is the best option to build a professional website.

It has lot of plugins where any one can make use of.

I use Profits Theme,, it has all the goodies you need,, landing pages, opt in pages, home pages, sends out passwords to new sign ups,,, it rocks. Also, there's a guy on here that sells a package of grafix for like 9 bucks

Robert X

I have to agree the profits theme rocks. Well worth the investment and it has a really cool blog too. If you're just looking for some pretty stuff then I suggest elegant themes.

I usually pay $35 for a premium theme on Themeforest. I'll even use the same ones for different projects if they are unrelated and I think the theme will work for those niches.

For squeeze pages I usually just use Dreamweaver. They are simple enough that I can create them pretty much from scratch and easily edit them if I want to test something on the page.

For simplicity, I don't really think that you can beat Wordpress.

To create my websites i use tools like Optmize Press.

You can create websites quickly and easily with the tool.

Personally, I use wordpress + mini sites the most! Only bought templates afew times to edit myself, so I guess that's combination with hand code. And I reckon it's not needed to outsource - you can always ask here, or google your questions!!

Investing into premium theme is really important. I can't even deal with free themes anymore. $35 for a theme at themeforest is a great motivation booster also.

WP + premium themes.

Wordpress is easy to use and effective, most of the premium themes offer a great professional look, it's worth taking a look at as many as you can to see which fits your site ideas to most. There are many nice free themes on WP too, it's all down to personal preference really.

Then as far as logos and grahpics are concerned, you can hire an experienced graphic designer to create your own brand.

I had a cutesy store selling bumble bee products and always hated the styling of it. It had evolved through FrontPage then Dreamweaver and was a bear to try and update. So I transferred the whole darn thing over to Joomla and kept the same styling initially. After a few months I bought a rather expensive Joomla theme, loved the way it looked....all shiny and professional. My conversions dropped nearly 40% overnight. It seems people previously thought they were buying from a mom and pop store and didn't like to think they were supporting a 'corporation' when the storefront became all fancy looking.

I'd considered the possibility of that happening ahead of time but I was surprised at the percentage of drop-off.

So keep your styling choices as a reflection of the image you NEED to connect with your target market.

Joomla and Wordpress are both equally versatile for me, I use Joomla when it's more of a website and less of a blog and requires more eCommerce functionality. I've been working a lot with WPMU lately and I love it.

I develop my own sites.

Ive got better things to do with my time than patch Wordpress security holes and vulnerabilities.

i outsource everything..

but if u want to have a few examples of professional sites then go look around the web for some inspiration or look at government or authority sites.

now government sites are getting more and more aesthetically pleasing. =)

no more just wordy sites.

Hi,

1. I’m using WordPress and I like it, because I also use Divine Elemente (PSD to WordPress software) which helps me to convert my PSD templates into a ready and working WordPress website.
2. Usually, I don’t need to code (thanks to plugin I mentioned above), but sometimes I do that because I really don’t want to lose my coding skills.
And I create templates myself, so I don’t need to buy them.
3. I create logos and graphics myself, but I also use the illustrations of creative illustrators.

If it's just a simple HTML site I'll build it myself using Nvu, if it's anything more complicated I'll use Joomla.

I have purchased templates in the past, but now I modify free Joomla templates - just do a search in Google, you'll find a TON!
No, I do it all myself using Photoshop and other tools.

Shoot, I forgot to mention this. I used to use Artister to create unique sites for clients. It's an inexpensive and easy to use program and gives a good basic structure for the site. You can make it look like ANYTHING you want easily. You can also use it for html sites (yuck) or simple squeeze pages.

However. I don't use it anymore because what is WAY more important than the initial look of the site is the FUNCTIONALITY of the site. And that's where us geeks really come in handy.

I want my site to be able to adjust columns on individual pages, not show comments when and where I decide, add logos on the fly without ftp, and some other top secret stuff (LOL) that makes my sites do WHATEVER I want.

These are the things that make the newer designs really shine. The back end stuff that helps the site look professional (for instance, I have one theme that shows comments on the contact page - YUCK!). These things are usually included in the theme functions php file and really make a theme rock.

I use Wordpress and have my graphic designer do a nice theme for it.

Thank you everyone for your replies. I see everyone has their own ways of doing things and they all work. Wordpress with a premium theme is the route I will likely take with my sites. I like Wordpress because I can quickly and easily change the look of the entire site by installing a different theme. I just will need to get someone to create my logos/headers etc. I appreciate the help.

Some people do too focus on make the site look professional and cause the site overload with content , flash and complicated design .
This make the site not seo friendly, not easy to navigate , site load slow.

So sometime people just go with normal one and get ranking and full of traffic rather than putting too much effort and not user friendly and bad in SERP ranking.

most of the time i will using wordpress and buying template . While it save lot of my time and the template is just fine for me .

1. Wordpress - free, easy to use, lots of free awesome templates on the web
2. Free modified templates.
3. Yap