The introduction of web management applications like the WordPress CMS platform has truly simplified web design and web development for business users.
This is great for non-technical users planning on getting an online presence that they can fully manage.
Prior to blogging and the introduction of advanced CMS software, if you wanted a professional site, you normally had to wait until both the web development and web design processes were fully completed. This process could mean weeks, sometimes even months of waiting!
The development of WordPress themes helped change all this. In this post, we will explore what themes are, how themes save your business money on web design costs, and how themes allow you to easily customize your site.
Web Design Evolution
More website owners today are benefiting from a revolutionary change in website design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a small business, you may want to learn about this, because it can save you a lot of time and money on web development or website design costs.
Very briefly, this is how things worked in “traditional” web design before CMS systems like WordPress were developed:
The first step would be to meet with a website developer or designer for a brief. Next, the “web design” itself had to be decided upon. This required time and money being spent with someone with web design skills going over elements of the site such as the, colours, styles, visual elements, content, etc.
Every page of your website then had to be individually created with all of the elements and codes inserted into your page content. The pages were then assembled into a web site using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with every other file required to make your website work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and worked the way it was intended to (and looking the way the client had wanted it to look), was the website deemed to have been finished and ready for delivery.
Then, website “templates” were introduced”. Web templates allow the presentation of the website to be worked on separately from content on the page. Having templates helped make the process of developing websites faster and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also enabled web developers to work with businesses with less money to spend on marketing …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more businesses started using “template-based” websites, web templates started being created that provided clients with various customizable features, like the ability to switch colours, styles, layouts
As websites and web editor software evolved, website templates also began to evolve into website template “systems” that permit users to manage the design components of their web site.
And then, WordPress came along and helped to kick off a new web revolution …
(WordPress – A Content Publishing Revolution)
To learn more about content management systems and the benefits of the WordPress CMS, see the tutorial below:
WordPress Themes
WordPress themes push web template systems one step further.
A WP theme controls every aspect of your website design. It allows you to add a “skin” over your entire site similarly to what a web template system does but it provides users with complete control over the management, appearance and customization aspects of the template settings.
As WordPress puts it …
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 stated in the quote above, one of the unique features of a WordPress theme is that the way your website looks to site visitors is controlled separately from how your website is configured in the backend to handle areas like content management and functionality.
In simple terms, what this means is that a WordPress theme lets you change the look and feel of your website as much and as often as you want without modifying your website’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if you have configured WP website for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the web site. All e-commerce features, plugin settings and product information will remain unaffected, but your site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because when your website is powered with WordPress, you no longer have to wait until your website’s design is completed. You can get your website built quickly and start with any WP theme you want, and completely edit the look, feel and design of your site in a few minutes, whenever you decide … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WP site with no web code programming skills required. Simply choose any theme you like, install it on your site and activate it. WordPress lets you change your website design and customize elements like headers, layout, style settings and more in a few seconds …
As WordPress is made available as open source software, website designers from all over the world can create themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that thousands of great WP themes are made available to WordPress users. WP are generally distributed for FREE under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or sold as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress development team maintains a FREE theme directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of great themes for free …
(WordPress.org – WP Themes Directory)
As more users turn to WordPress for publishing and managing their content online, more designers are now starting to develop themes for a wider audience of web users.
Themes range from simple-looking, to designs that are visually stunning and could typically cost hundreds to thousands of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, WP themes can be bought quite cheaply, especially when compared to what it would have cost you if a website designer had to build it from scratch.
You can see several theme galleries that include many examples of great premium WP themes in this article:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WP Themes – Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits of choosing WordPress themes over choosing traditional website design:
Ready To Start Using In No Time
Themes are quite easy to install on your site. Just upload a zip file containing the plugin to your Plugins folder via your administrator section 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 large online community of professional website developers who contribute thousands of quality WP Themes available to users. Many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent “look and feel” across all of the blog’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your website’s content. This allows you change themes as often as you need without deleting your website’s content.
- Many themes come with built-in functionality and settings that allow you to easily customize your site’s style and design elements to create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many themes are built using a framework that allows users to upgrade themes to a newer theme version without losing any unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically right within your site’s administration interface.
- Themes lets you save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on website design costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WordPress themes are typically quite inexpensive.
Responsive Theme Design
Many WP theme designers are now developing “responsive” themes for the WP CMS platform.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically reconfigure the layout to display smoothly over different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as different platforms) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different types of devices. Users can navigate, read and display the site on different devices without having to resize anything, or requiring the website owner to have installed additional browser elements.
Note: When selecting, WordPress themes, we recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your website will display correctly on all of your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards, practices and techniques of web design and coding.
Hopefully, this article has provided you with a good understanding of WP themes, what themes are, how themes help your business save money, and how WP themes make customizing your web design easy.
To learn where to find the best WP themes for your website or blog, go here:
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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