What is WPAstra?
The design and structure of your website can either attract or drive back visitors. Especially for start-ups, their website’s appearance can be a leading factor in being recognized.
Though other issues can make visitors leave your site, website design dramatically affects the mood of the users. Its elements include loading speed, appearance, navigation, and compatibility across all devices.
A good design introduces your site and purpose clearly. It should always look professional because you want to be trustworthy. This will remain constant whatever device or browser is being used.
You might wonder where you can get themes or designs for your website. If you publish your content with WordPress, this article will introduce you to one of the largest collections of WordPress Themes, namely Astra.
What is Astra?
Astra is a place where you can get popular WordPress themes for any industry. It is designed for the site to load in just 0.5 seconds and only takes less than 50kb of storage. You can also customize it to add a hint of personalization. You don't have to worry about optimizing your site because it is compatible with major page builders.
In 2020, it reached more than 1 million active installs. Now, most of its customers are in the United States, India, and France. There are more than 1.6 million websites that trust Astra.
Features
Astra is known for its performance and versatility among beginners and professionals. It offers various features to help you build the best website for your brand.
Optimizing your Performance
When you talk about a site’s performance, you primarily think of its loading speed.
Astra helps you attain a faster performance by preventing resources that delay the browser from rendering page content to your screen using Vanilla JavaScript.
Moreover, it has a built-in self-hosted Google Fonts feature. This is significant because you can choose from a wide selection of font styles without worrying about slower loading speed. Instead of requesting Google for the font every time your page loads, it will only send the request once, allowing you to save it on your local server. With this, you can preload the local font, which prepares the font beforehand. You have to take note that updating is not automatic; thus, you have to refresh the fonts saved on your local server.
Aside from these things, ultimately, it uses optimized codes to keep a high-quality performance.
Customizing your Design
Website Design must be appropriate to your industry and brand. It takes well-defined choices to create a site that represents your business.
You don’t have to be limited because Astra specializes in customization. There are options for layouts, header, and footer, transparent header, and sidebars. If you want to use Astra Pro, you can manage different types of headers, mega menus, font styles, and colors.
It is user-friendly for it has video tutorials, articles, and a 24/7 support team to equip you in using these tools.
One advantage of using Astra is that it is compatible with WooCommerce. In simple terms, WooCommerce turns your WordPress website into an e-commerce site. It will be a significant growth strategy for your online business.
Integrations
Besides WooCommerce, Astra is compatible with major plugins – LifterLMS, Schema, LearnDash, and SEO Tools.
LifterLMS – provides Distraction Free Checkout and Distraction-Free Learning.
Schema Markup – integrates SEO fundamental tools with your websites to increase ranking and visibility on search engine results.
LearnDash – offers clean and simple designs and interfaces without the custom code.
SEO Tools – provide SEO-friendly templates with their inbuilt schema markups.
Widgets
Widgets are helpful when you want to view important details at a glance. Astra provides widgets for addresses, social icons, and info lists.
Pricing
You can choose from 4 plans to start creating your website and grow your online business. Your plan must cater to your goals and needs in order to progress. You choose to pay for a year or for a lifetime.
Astra – this is a free plan; however, you can only access some colors, background, fonts, and spacing options. It also includes only 2 HTML elements.
Astra Pro –you can access the main features discussed above. You can also have full access to the plugins under integrations. Its rate is 49 USD annually.
Essential Bundle – this mainly focuses on the page builder you use. On top of Astra Pro, you can choose from more than 180 Premium templates for your website. You can also access the WP Portfolio plugin and one-page builder addon. You can get it for 169 USD annually.
Growth Bundle – basically, this offers everything required to create a beautiful and SEO-friendly site. This is also suitable for entrepreneurs. On top of the Essential Bundle, you can access Convert Pro and Schema Pro plugins. You can also have Beaver Builder, Elementor, and other tools. For only 249 USD annually, your site can be a growing eCommerce store.
Final Thoughts
Website Design is integral to the success of a website. With Astra, customization becomes simple while keeping a good site performance. Even as beginners, you can make a professional website that will stand out among others.
The plans are also straightforward. All you have to do is to align it with your plan. You can unlock a lot of features without all the technicalities and codes.
Astra has proven its competence across different industries and brands. Now, it is your turn to start using Astra to create your own fast, lightweight, and high-quality website.
