The introduction of web management systems like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) has effectively improved web design and web development for business owners.
This is a great thing for individuals or businesses wanting a website that they can easily manage by themselves.
Prior to “blogging” and the introduction of easy-to-use content management systems, if you needed a website, you would have to wait until both the web development and web design processes were fully completed. This process could mean weeks, even sometimes many months of waiting!
The introduction of WordPress themes helped change all this. In this article, you will learn what WordPress themes are, how WP themes save you and your business money on website design costs, and how WP themes help you easily customize your site.
Revolutionary Web Site Design
Businesses, especially small businesses, have benefited from a tremendous revolution in website design that has been going for several years now. If you own a small business, you will want to learn about this, because it could save you thousands of dollars on website development or web design costs.
In a nutshell, this is how things used to work in “traditional” web development before software like WordPress came along:
First, you would discuss your project with a web development agency or designer. After this, the ”look and feel” of your web site would be decided upon. This meant time being spent with a professional website designer discussing design elements of the website such as the layout, colors, formats, visual elements, content, etc.
Every page of your site then had to be hand-coded with the design elements and codes written into the 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 all other files required to make your site work – script libraries, graphic images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything passed testing and was working how it was supposed to (and looking the way the client had wanted it to look), was the website considered to have been completed and ready for sign off.
Then, web design “templates” were developed”. Web site templates allow ”look and feel” elements of the website to be worked on separately from content on the page. The development of ready-made templates helped make creating websites faster and resulted in reduced production costs. This also allowed web designers to service smaller business clients and clients with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more web development companies began adopting “template-based” web design services, templates were introduced to offer clients with various customizable options, like color palettes, the ability to pick different formats or layouts, etc …
As web sites and web building tools developed, website templates also began to evolve into website template ”systems”, allowing website owners and website designers to control their site’s visual components.
And then, a “blogging” software called WordPress was introduced 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:
About WordPress Themes
A WordPress theme drives web templating systems much further.
The WordPress theme system controls the design areas of the web site. It allows you to add a “skin” over your site in a similar way that a website template system does but also provides you with more control over the management, appearance and customization aspects of your template options.
As the official WordPress site explains …
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 WP theme is that the way your website looks to site visitors is kept independent of the way your website is configured internally to handle areas like content management and functionality.
Basically, what this means is that themes let you modify the design of your website as much and as often as you want without affecting your website’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if WP website has been set up for e-commerce, changing the entire look of your site with another theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your web site. All e-commerce features, plugin settings and product information will remain unaffected, but your site will look completely different.
This is huge! Why?
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 business website built quickly and start with any theme you like, and edit the entire look, feel and design of your site in minutes, whenever you want … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your WordPress site without requiring any web code development skills. Simply choose a WP theme you want, install it on your site and activate it. WordPress lets you change your entire site’s web design and modify elements like headers, layout, style settings and more in a few seconds …
As WordPress is distributed as open source software, professional website design companies can design themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WordPress templating system.
This means that thousands of great WordPress themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. WP are usually distributed for FREE under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or sold as Premium (paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE theme directory which allows WordPress users to download and access, thousands of excellent themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org – WP Theme Directory)
As more users turn to WordPress for publishing and managing their content online, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider range of users.
WP themes vary from professional-looking, to quirky designs that are visually breathtaking and would typically cost many hundreds of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, most premium themes can be purchased very cheaply, especially when you compare the price to what it would have cost you if a web designer had to develop it from scratch.
You can see several theme galleries containing various examples of great premium themes in this article:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Themes – Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using WordPress themes over choosing tools that require traditional web design:
Quick Installation
WordPress themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the free theme repository at WordPress.org) directly from within your WP dashboard.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a growing online community of professional web designers and design companies who make thousands of fantastic WordPress Themes available to WordPress users. And many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent look across all the blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your web site’s content. This allows you replace the “look and feel” of your website as often as you want without modifying the underlying content of your web site.
- Many themes provide additional functionality and options that enable you to easily customize the theme’s layout, style and design properties and create a unique look to suit your taste.
- Many themes are built using a framework that lets you update the theme to newer theme versions without losing any unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, import, install and update WordPress Themes automatically directly from your site’s administration interface.
- WordPress themes lets you save hundreds of dollars on website development costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically quite inexpensive.
About Responsive Themes
Many theme developers are now creating “responsive” WordPress themes.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically reconfigure the layout to display smoothly over different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different platforms) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for different platforms. Users can scroll, read and load your site on different device browsers without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to install additional browser elements.
Note: When downloading WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your web site works across your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore should comply with the latest standards and practices of web design and coding.
Hopefully, the above overview has helped you gain a clearer understanding about themes, what WP themes are, how they help you save money on website design costs, and how WP themes let you easily customize a web site.
To learn where to find the best WordPress themes for your website or blog, see this post: Finding Great Free And Paid WordPress Templates For Your Business Web Site Or Blog.
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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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