How to Create Agency Websites With WordPress Theme Designs

If you run a web design agency, creating an attractive website that showcases your designer skills is a must. By promoting your work online, you can start building your authority and allow even more of the potential clients to find you and book you for their web design projects.

But, if you’re like most web designers, you might be too swamped with current client work that you don’t have time to code and design a website from scratch. If that’s the case, then agency WordPress themes are your best friend. With a digital agency WordPress theme, you can get your site up and running in no time and get back to the pressing client projects.

In this post, we’ll show you how to use one of our agency WordPress themes to create a website and customize it to match your brand.

What You Need to Create Creative Agency Websites

In order to create your agency website, you’ll need to purchase a domain name, sign up for a hosting plan, find the theme that you want to use, and prepare content, images, and portfolio pieces that you want to showcase. Here are a few tips that'll help prepare everything you need.

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  Research hosting companies before signing up for a plan. There's no shortage of hosting companies, however, not all of them provide the same level of service. Consider asking your fellow designers for their hosting recommendations or consult independent, third-party hosting review websites to find a reliable hosting company.


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  Get the domain name at the same time as your hosting plan. While you can purchase a domain name separately from your hosting plan, in most cases, you’ll be able to get it free of charge for the first year when you purchase a yearly hosting plan from your chosen company. This makes it easier to manage everything from a  single dashboard.


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  Choose only the best pieces for your portfolio. When it comes to building out your portfolio, avoid adding every project you’ve ever worked on. If you want to make the best impression on potential customers, choose only the best pieces to showcase in your portfolio.


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  Don’t forget testimonials. As you’re getting everything ready for your website, consider reaching out to past clients and asking them for a testimonial. This will boost your credibility and make it easier for potential clients to go ahead and entrust their web design or creative project to you.

Once you've got everything ready, sign up for a hosting plan and then get ready to dive into creating your agency website.

How to Create Your Website Design Agency Site

With everything in place, it’s time to dive into actual website setup. You’ll need to install WordPress, install your theme and any required plugins, and then add your content as well as customize the theme with your fonts, colors, and other visual styles.

In this tutorial, I’ll be using the Agency theme. This theme features a minimal design with elegant typography and a clean grid portfolio layout with subtle animations that add visual interest to your site. The Agency theme is also responsive and uses Live Customizer which makes it easy to tweak the colors and fonts while the WPBakery Page Builder helps you create unique page layouts.

1. Install WordPress

To begin setting up your site, you’ll need to install WordPress onto your hosting server. You'll need to log in to your hosting account’s dashboard using the credentials provided to you by your host.

After you've logged into your cPanel, scroll down until you find a link labeled as One Click WordPress Install or One-Click Installers, Fantastico Installer, Softaculous Software, or something similar. Locate the WordPress icon and then follow the instructions to install it.

You'll need to enter your chosen username, password, and email. In some cases, you'll be prompted to select additional plugins or backup options. Enter the required information then proceed with the installation.

When the installation has been completed, you'll see a notification on your screen along with a link to your WordPress dashboard. Click the link and log in with the information you entered during the installation as now is the time to install the theme and begin the rest of the site setup.

2. Install Your Chosen Agency WordPress Theme

Upon logging in to your WordPress dashboard, use the left-hand sidebar to find the section labeled Appearance. Under Appearance go to Themes > Add new. On the screen that loads, you’ll want to click the Upload theme button.

Locate the folder with your theme and upload it, then press the Activate button when the installation has completed.

3. Install Any Required Plugins

Once the theme has been installed and activated, you'll notice a notification screen that you need to install and activate required plugins in order for the theme to function properly. Follow the link that says Begin installing plugins.

On the screen that loads, select all the checkboxes and then use the drop-down menu to install them. After the required plugins have been installed, navigate to Plugins > All Plugins > Inactive and activate them.

4. Import the Demo Content

The Agency theme comes with demo content which you can use to speed up the setup of your agency website. As you can see from the screenshot below, there will be a notice in your WordPress dashboard with the option to import this demo content.

To start, press the One Click Demo Import button, select all the checkboxes, and then click Import Demo Data. Wait for the import process to finish and then you can proceed to replace the page contents and add your branding to your site.

5. Replace Contents With Your Own

Since the Agency theme uses WPBakery Page Builder, replacing the content is easy. All you've got to do is go to Pages > All pages, hover over the page you want to edit, and select Edit with WPBakery Page Builder.

When you’re done editing the page, simply save your changes and repeat this process with other pages.

To edit the portfolio items, you’ll need to go to Portfolio > All items. Hover over any portfolio item and select Edit. You can then add images, describe the project in more detail, and add any other information that you feel is important and would be beneficial for your visitors.

You can also edit how the portfolio displays on the homepage by editing the portfolio section with the WPBakery Page Builder and modifying the number of items per row, enabling or disabling the filter option, and more.

6. Customize Visual Appearance

The last step is to customize the visual appearance of your theme. If you’re working with The Agency theme, you’ll find those options by going to Appearance > Customize.

Here, you can tweak the colors, control which widgets display where, adjust the menus, upload your own logo image, and more.

When you’re done making changes, click Publish, and you’re done. Congratulations, your site is now live and ready to bring you more clients.

Top Five Features To Make a Great Creative Agency Website

If you want to take your site to the next level, there are a few features you’ll need to ensure are present on your web design agency site.

1. Make Sure Your Agency Site Is Responsive

The most important feature is the responsiveness of your website. Considering more and more people are using their phones and tablets to browse the Internet, you need to make sure your site looks and works great even on smaller screens. Luckily, almost every WordPress theme is responsive out of the box nowadays.

2. Improve Your Page Loading Times

Another important feature is the loading time of your website. Anything lower than 2 seconds and you run the risk of visitors abandoning your site and going to your competitors. Test how fast your site is using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and follow their recommendations to improve page loading times.

3. Add a Lead Capture Form or a Newsletter Sign Up Form

Instead of using a traditional contact form on your site, consider replacing it with a lead capture form where you ask visitors which services or packages they're interested in and to share information about their project.

You can also add a newsletter sign up form for visitors who aren't quite ready to start their website project. You can offer them a free download in exchange for their email address and nurture the relationship until they're ready to make the investment.

4. Don’t Omit Portfolio or Testimonials

Your website should show potential clients your design skills and knowledge as well as demonstrate that your previous clients have walked away happy with the finished project. As such, including portfolio and testimonials will help you build trust and credibility which can help visitors to get an understanding of your work process and encourage them to hire you.

5. Provide Information on Pricing Packages

Lastly, you’ll want to make sure to include pricing packages for your creative services. This will help you weed out clients that wouldn’t be a good fit and ensure that there are no surprises when it’s time to collect payment.

Four Resources to Help You Get the Most Out of Your Agency Website

Aside from the tips above, there are a few other ways to make your agency website stand out. Here are a few resources that'll help you set up your website and your design agency for success.

1. 20+ Best Agency WordPress Themes 

Use this theme roundup to start your search for the perfect agency WordPress theme for your site. You’ll find plenty of themes with attractive designs and you’ll notice that some of them have also been optimized for SEO and fast loading times. Don’t forget to check out even more WordPress agency themes on ThemeForest.   

Here's a link to the resource to help you learn more:

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  WordPress
  
  
  20+ Best Agency WordPress Themes: For Creative Site Designs in 2018
  
  
  Brenda Barron

2. How to Set Up Your Own Web Design Agency

If you’re just thinking about starting your own web design agency and striking out on your own, there are a few things you’ll need to learn a few new skills and make other adjustments as well. In this article, you’ll find the best tips and advice from established web design agency owners. Learn more about setting up a web design agency in this tutorial:

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  Business
  
  
  How to Set Up Your Own Web Design Agency: Tips From the Pros
  
  
  Andrew Blackman

3. How to Structure a Creative Agency

If you’re ready to bring on more people to your creative website agency, you’ll need to make changes to your workflows and establish systems that'll help new hires understand who is responsible for what. Use this article to guide you through the process and make sure your agency continues to grow. This post discusses how to set up a creative agency:

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  Freelance
  
  
  How to Structure a Creative Agency
  
  
  Thursday Bram

4. How to Find Enough Work to Keep an Entire Agency Busy

Finally, you need to keep clients rolling in if you want to stay profitable. The advice in this post will help you avoid the feast and famine cycle and implement effective strategies that'll keep your entire team busy with projects. Learn more:

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  Agency
  
  
  How to Find Enough Work to Keep an Entire Agency Busy
  
  
  Thursday Bram

Create an Agency Website With a WordPress Agency Template Quickly

A creative agency WordPress theme is a great choice for creating your site when you don’t have time to design and code your site from scratch or if you're a web designer rather than a web developer. Get started on your site by finding the perfect web design agency template for WordPress and then use our tutorial to install WordPress and set up your new theme and website.