Oriented ZnO nanorods were grown directly on fluorine doped tin oxide substrates by a single bath electrodeposition process. A pulse potential at the beginning of growth improved the density and orientation of the nanorods. Pulse potential grown ZnO nanorod films showed better harvesting of visible light and enhanced the light driven water splitting performance in comparison to nanorods grown without any pulse potential. To further improve the water splitting activity, the nanorods were decorated with gold-palladium nanoparticles by sputtering. This caused visible light absorption to increase due to a plasmonic effect and the photoelectrochemical water splitting performance to further double. This further enhancement was also attributed to a catalytic effect as well as a reduction in charge transfer resistance.