Powerful content publishing systems like WordPress have truly improved web design and web development for business users.
This is a great thing for entrepreneurial-minded people planning to run a website that they can fully manage themselves.
Before “blogging” and the development of powerful and simple content management systems, if you wanted to get a professional web site for your business, you normally would have to wait until both the web development and web design processes were completely done. This could mean weeks, even sometimes months of waiting for the work to be done!
WordPress themes changed all this. In this article, we explore what themes are, how themes help you save money, and how themes help you easily customize your site.
Web Design Evolution
More website owners today are benefiting from a revolutionary change in web design that started several years ago. If you are a small business owner, you will want to know about this, because it can save you thousands of dollars on web development or web design costs.
In a nutshell, this is what happened before WordPress came along:
The first step would be to meet with a website development company or website designer for a brief. After that, the actual “web design” itself would be decided upon. This meant spending time and money with a professional website designer discussing design elements of your site such as the layout, colours, formats, page elements, content, etc.
Every page of your site then had to be hand-coded with all of the design elements and codes inserted into your page content. All of the pages were then assembled into a website using links and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with every other file needed to make your site work – script libraries, graphic images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and performed the way it was intended to (and looking the way the client had imagined it to look), was the website deemed to have been completed and ready to go live.
The next step in the evolution of business web design was the introduction of “website templates”. Web templates allow ”look and feel” elements of the website to be worked on separately from the page content. Having ready-made templates helped make building websites faster and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also allowed web site development firms to work with smaller businesses and clients with less money to spend on marketing …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of web site development firms choosing “template-based” web design services increased, templates were designed to offer clients with different customizable features and options, such as the option to choose different colors, styles, layouts
As web sites and website building applications evolved, web templates also began transforming into web template ”systems”, enabling users to manage their website’s design components.
And then, a “blogging” software called WordPress came along and helped to start a new online publishing revolution …
(WordPress – A Content Publishing Revolution)
To learn more about content management systems and the benefits of the WordPress CMS, see the tutorial below:
The WordPress Theme
A WordPress theme takes the concept of a web template system much further.
The WP theme system controls and unifies all of the design aspects of your web site. It allows you to add a “skin” over your site similarly to what a template system does but it also also gives you more control over the management, appearance and customization of your site’s template features.
According to the official WordPress site …
A WordPress Theme is a collection of files that work together to produce a graphical interface with an underlying unifying design for a weblog. These files are called template files. A Theme modifies the way the site is displayed, without modifying the underlying software. Themes may include customized template files, image files (*.jpg, *.gif), style sheets (*.css), custom Pages, as well as any necessary code files (*.php).
(source: WordPress.org)
As the above quote states, one of the unique and revolutionary features of a WordPress theme is that how your web site displays to site visitors externally is an entirely separate thing from how your content is managed.
In simple terms, what this means is that a theme lets you modify the look and feel of your site as often as you want without modifying your website’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if your website has been set up for e-commerce, changing the entire look of your site with a different theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your site. All e-commerce features, site and plugin settings and product information will remain unaffected, but the site will look completely different.
Why is this important?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer need to spend weeks or months waiting for your site to be done. You can get your website built simply and start with any WP theme you like, and completely modify the look, feel and design of your WordPress site in a few seconds, whenever you decide … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WordPress site with no web coding knowledge necessary. Simply pick a WP theme you like, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress lets you change your site’s design and customize elements like header images, page layout, style settings and more in minutes …
Because WordPress is open source software, web design companies from all over the world can create themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that thousands of high quality WP themes are made available to WP users. WP are normally distributed freely under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or sold as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress team maintains a FREE directory of WP themes which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent web templates for free …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As more users turn to WordPress for publishing and managing their content online, more designers are now focused on developing themes for a wider range of uses.
Themes range from bare-looking, to dynamic designs that are simply breathtaking and would easily cost hundreds to many thousands of dollars to design. Surprisingly, most WP themes can be bought very cheaply, especially when you compare the price to what it would have cost you if a website designer had to create it from scratch.
You can view several WP theme galleries that include stunning examples of themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits Of Using Themes
Here are just some of the benefits of using WordPress themes over choosing traditional web template design:
Be Up And Running In No Time
WP themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WP themes directory at WordPress.org) directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a growing community of commercial web developers who, collectively, contribute thousands of professional WP Themes available to users. Many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent look across all of your site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your site’s content. This allows you replace themes as often as you like without disturbing your settings.
- Many WordPress themes provide additional built-in features and options that enable you to customize the site’s layout, style and design elements to create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many themes are built using a framework that enables users to upgrade the theme to newer theme versions without losing any customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, import and install WordPress Themes automatically within the dashboard.
- WordPress themes allow users to save thousands of dollars on website development costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally quite affordable.
About Responsive WordPress Theme Design
Many WordPress theme designers are now developing “responsive” themes.
A responsive theme allows websites to automatically reconfigure the layout to display smoothly across different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. laptops, tablets, mobile phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different types of devices. Users can navigate, read and display the site on a range of devices without having to resize anything, or requiring the website owner to install additional browser tools.
Note: When purchasing WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your web site displays well across all devices, it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore probably complies with the latest standards of website design and coding.
We hope this post has helped you gain a clearer understanding of WordPress themes, what WP themes are, how themes help your business save money on web design costs, and how WordPress themes let you easily customize your WP site.
In the next blog post on basic features and functionality of WordPress, we show you where to find great WP themes for your blog.
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