Whether you use domestic CMS platforms such as DedeCMS and PHPCMS, older systems such as Drupal and Joomla, or WordPress, which is currently the most popular platform internationally, you can ultimately achieve the same result when building a company website. In practical terms, building a company website with WordPress means developing a WordPress corporate theme. What makes a corporate theme different from other WordPress themes is mainly its page layouts, page structures, and the types of content it needs to manage.
Common content modules in a WordPress corporate theme
First, a corporate theme always needs a navigation menu. That navigation usually includes modules such as the homepage, about us, news, products or services, case studies, careers, contact information, and an online message or inquiry page.
- The homepage usually contains a banner slider that uses a few visually strong images to present the company slogan or flagship products. Below that, there is often a news list, a featured product list, a company introduction, contact information, and so on. In other words, the homepage usually condenses the navigation structure and highlights the most important parts of those sections on a single page.
- The news list page is generally either a list of headlines or a combination of images, post titles, and two or three lines of summary text.
- The case studies section is usually a list of case images, and its presentation is often very similar to the product list described below.
- The product list is usually a page showing product images together with product names. If the site involves online sales, it may also include product prices and related ecommerce functions.
- The careers section is similar to a news list or product list page. It is typically a list showing several job openings.
- As for the About Us, Contact Information, and Online Message sections, they are usually standard single pages.
Development ideas for a WordPress corporate theme
Use post types to manage different kinds of data
Unlike a blog theme, a WordPress corporate theme may contain a richer range of content types, such as news, products, and sometimes case studies. The data structure for each type of content is often different. In that situation, the most convenient approach is to use WordPress custom post types and create a dedicated post type for each data category.
Use custom field methods to add the special data for each content type
In addition to standard fields such as the title, main content, categories, tags, and featured image, each type of content may also need extra data, for example:
- Products may need data such as origin, brand, price, and dimensions.
- Case studies may need a client name, case images, and a completion date.
- Job postings may need education requirements, work experience requirements, and job responsibilities.
If that data only needs to appear inside the main body content, the most direct method is simply to add it there. But sometimes we need to style that data in a special way, and in that case placing it directly into the content is not convenient to manage. We can instead use custom field plugins such as Metabox, Piklist, or Advanced Custom Fields to add those custom data fields. On the front end, we can display them directly with WordPress’s standard get_post_meta function.
Common plugins used when developing a corporate theme
- List pages usually need a pagination system, so the wp-pagenavi numeric pagination plugin is commonly used.
- If you need to show view counts, the wp-pageviews plugin is useful.
- For custom field management, the plugins mentioned above are common choices: Metabox, Piklist, and Advanced Custom Field.
- Because of WordPress performance concerns, we usually need to add a static caching plugin. A common recommendation is wp super cache.
- SEO is essential for the long-term operation of a website, and among WordPress SEO plugins, Yoast SEO is still one of the strongest options.
For the plugins listed above, use only one plugin from each category. Do not use two or more plugins of the same type at the same time. If they conflict and cause data loss, the consequences can be serious.
After the corporate theme is developed, we usually need to train one or two site managers at the company. Because WordPress backend operations are very simple, that training work is also straightforward and is usually easy to grasp after one or two demonstrations.
