Whether your site is a blog, online store, digital portfolio, or something else, the header is extremely important for many reasons. You also want to keep your website 99% secure and keep your load speed usually under 1 second and it might be a challenge loading a custom header and achieving those goals. With the new default WordPress themes, you can find awesome header images and even add featured videos. But you want your own site to stand out and be customized for your audience. Though WP offers good tutorials, not very many focus on implementing a header. We are going to give you some pointers.
Custom Header
A lot of default themes in WordPress let you upload your very own custom header image. However, unless they match an exact dimension, they won’t fit or work well. Newer themes allow you to resize, rotate, and crop your image, but there can still be limitations. It is smart to download an image and use the prompt “save as”. Once you do this you can pull the dimensions for your own site then fit an image you want exactly. If you can’t save an image, you can always inspect it from whatever search engine you are using then find the link to the header and open it there.
What if you want a custom header for each webpage? Not a problem, just use the free plug-in, WP Header Image and it allows you to do just that. You can install it under settings > wp header image. Also, youtube tutorials are always a go-to for anyone learning something new.
Using Header WordPress Plugin
A great was yo gain more control over your header and its settings are to use the plug-in Popping Sidebar & Widgets. This allows you to create a little section of content that you control and can input. The widgets also work on your choice of a page, template, post, category, tag, WooCommerce, BuddyPress, and even WPML languages.
Edit Header Using Code
Every WordPress headers in themes have default settings made via code that come with them. You can edit them by not being afraid to copy and paste in the coding. On the dashboard, you can go into the editor through Appearance. All the files are located on the right side, you will see one named header.php. Once you make changes within there, you can go into the styles.css and find the header section to change the styles. A great exapmle of this is on This site, Little Rocks Bankruptcy Laws. The header is clean with a great quality image and slider action as well as a few prompts but not too many to clutter the area.
Use Best Practices
After you have your feet wet with customizing headers, you want the design to be beautiful and stand out. Most of the time, a stock image won’t do the job. Using illustration is a good way to grab the attention of your visitors. Incorporate a matching background to make it look like the site is one big illustration.
Visit this site, to get ideas from some amazing bloggers with customized, great looking headers. Some of them might not fit your site perfectly but can spark an idea for you and get the creative juices flowing.
No two headers are the same and should not be. The main purpose is to give visitors some eye candy on what your site is about. It should blend with the rest of your site and not be cluttered with too many prompts, popups, and other unnecessary things. WordPress has a great support group and can help you if you are still having problems in the creative process. You can also sign up for blogs and newsletters that give tips and tricks for WordPress related items.