How to build a responsive WordPress website

Start with a theme that explicitly supports responsive layouts. Check its header, navigation, buttons, columns, forms, and blog templates at narrow widths before you add much content. A theme that only looks good on its demo homepage can still fail when you add longer headings, larger images, or extra menu items.

Use a staging site or make a backup before changing the theme. Decide which pages you need, such as Home, About, Services, Blog, and Contact, so you can test the complete navigation rather than one attractive page.

For a block theme, go to Appearance > Editor and open Styles. Set the site-wide colours, typography, layout width, and spacing before styling individual pages. Global styles help headings, buttons, and paragraphs stay consistent across templates. WordPress documents these controls for block themes using WordPress 5.9 or later.

Keep the main content width moderate and use a font size that remains readable on a phone. Avoid setting large fixed widths or excessive side padding, because those are common causes of horizontal scrolling on mobile.

Use Group, Stack, Row, Columns, Cover, Image, Heading, Buttons, and Navigation blocks to assemble pages. Let columns stack on small screens where the theme supports it, and keep important content in a sensible reading order. Do not place text inside images or depend on two side-by-side columns for information that must be read in sequence.

Insert images from the Media Library and choose an appropriate display size instead of placing a full-resolution original everywhere. WordPress generates responsive image markup with srcset and sizes, allowing browsers to select a more suitable image width.

Open the editor’s View menu and preview the page at Desktop, Tablet, and Mobile widths. You can also resize the preview canvas between the presets, which helps expose awkward intermediate widths.

On block themes that support it, enable responsive editing and adjust supported typography, spacing, dimensions, and layout settings separately for tablet or mobile. WordPress’s current responsive-style controls are available in block themes and use separate viewport values; a mobile change does not automatically inherit a tablet override.

Keep mobile changes limited. Hiding duplicate blocks by device can leave both versions in the page code, so do not use device visibility controls for private or sensitive information.

Preview the front end in a new browser tab, then check it on a real phone and tablet if possible. Test the logo link, navigation, submenu, search, contact form, buttons, image galleries, embedded videos, cookie notices, and checkout if you sell products.

Look for text that runs off the screen, images that overflow, buttons that are too close together, headings that wrap badly, and menus that cannot be opened or closed. If a mobile menu creates a blank area or horizontal scroll, inspect padding and margins on the menu and its parent container first. A custom CSS rule or JavaScript error can also hide or disable the menu toggle.

Clear any page, browser, or CDN cache after changes and test again. If the desktop view updates but the phone view does not, cached CSS or a mobile-specific theme setting is often the cause.

If you want the fast route, install and activate Larch, then import one of its demo layouts. Replace the demo logo, colours, text, images, and menus rather than rebuilding every section from an empty page.

Larch is a multipurpose responsive theme with demo imports, visual layout controls, multiple header and footer options, and compatibility with common page builders and WooCommerce. It can shorten the design stage, but you still need to review the imported pages at mobile widths, remove unused demo content, check forms and menus, and confirm that every image and link is yours.