Flexible content publishing tools like WordPress have truly improved web design and web development for business owners.
This is a great thing for entrepreneurial-minded people thinking of getting a website that they can easily manage themselves.
Before blogging and the introduction of sophisticated content management systems, if you needed to build a professional site built for your business, you normally would have to wait until both the web development and website design processes were completely done. This could mean waiting around for many weeks, sometimes even months!
WordPress themes changed all this. In this post, you will learn what WordPress themes are, how themes save your business money on web development costs, and how themes let you easily customize your website.
A Revolution In Web Design
More website owners today have benefited from an evolution in website design that has been going for many years now. If you are a business owner, you may want to learn more about this, because it could save your business thousands of dollars on web development or website design costs.
Let’s briefly go over how things typically worked in “traditional” web development before CMS applications like WordPress were introduced:
First, you would discuss your project with a website development firm or web designer. After this, the actual design would be discussed and agreed upon. This required time and money being spent with a professional website designer going over areas of the site such as the, colors, styles, page elements, content, etc.
Every page of your site then had to be individually created with all the design elements and scripts coded around your page content. All pages were then assembled into a website using links and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with all other files required to make your site work – script libraries, images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything passed testing and functioned the way it should (and looking how a client had wanted it to look), was the web site deemed to have been finished and ready to go live.
Then, web design “templates” were developed”. A website template allows design elements of the web site to be worked on separately from content on the page. Having templates helped to make the process of site development faster and resulted in lowered production costs. This also allowed web development firms to work with businesses and clients with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more small businesses began adopting “template-based” web design services, web templates started being created that provided clients with expanding customization options, like the ability to choose different colors, styles, layouts
As websites and web editing software evolved, website templates also began evolving into website template ”systems”, which enabled users to control their web site’s visual elements.
Then, WordPress came along and helped to start a new digital 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 drives website template systems even further.
The WP theme system controls and unifies every aspect of your web site design. It lets you add a “skin” over your site in a similar way that a web template system does but it also also provides users with more control over the management, presentation and ability to customize all 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 the above quote states, a unique and revolutionary feature of the WP theme is that the way your website displays to visitors is kept independent of your site’s content management settings.
Basically, what this means is that a WP theme lets you modify the look and feel of your website as much and as often as you want without touching your site’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if you have set up WP website for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your web site. All e-commerce features, site settings and product information will remain intact, but your site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because when your site is powered by WordPress, you no longer have to wait until your website’s design is completed. You can get your business website built quickly and start with any WP theme you like, and then customize the entire look, feel and design of your site in a few minutes, whenever you want … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your WP site without requiring any website code programming knowledge. Just pick a WordPress theme you want, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress lets you change your website design and modify elements like headers, layout, styling options and more in a few seconds …
Since WordPress is made available as open source software, commercial website design companies can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP template system.
This means that loads of high quality WordPress themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. Themes are normally distributed for FREE under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or sold as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of great WordPress themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now focusing on developing themes for a wider audience of web users.
WordPress themes range from professional-looking, to designs that are simply breathtaking and would easily cost many hundreds of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, most premium themes are really inexpensive to buy.
You can view several WP theme galleries containing many examples of great WP themes in this post:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WP Themes – Benefits & Advantages
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of choosing WordPress themes over using traditional web template design:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
Themes are really easy to install on your site. Just upload a zip file that contains the plugin to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the theme repository at WordPress.org) directly from within your WordPress admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a thriving community of professional web designers who contribute thousands of great-looking, high quality WordPress Themes available to users. Thousands of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent “look and feel” across all of your site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This allows you swap the “look and feel” of your site as often as you like without deleting your settings.
- Many themes provide additional built-in functionality and settings that let you customize your theme’s style, layout and design properties and create a unique look to suit your preferences.
- Many themes are built using a framework that enables you to update the theme to a newer theme version without losing any unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically directly from within the dashboard.
- WordPress themes helps you save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on website development costs. Free WordPress themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally very inexpensive.
Responsive Themes
Many theme designers are now creating themes that incorporate “responsive” design.
A responsive theme allows websites 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 each device type. Users can navigate, read and load the site on most if not all device platforms without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to have installed additional browser tools.
Note: When downloading WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that the content and layout of your site will display correctly on all devices, it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards and practices of web design and web coding.
I hope that the above overview has given you a better understanding of themes, what themes are, how WordPress themes can help you save money, and how themes let you easily customize your website.
To learn where to find great themes for your website or blog, visit this page: Where To Find Great Premium And Free Responsive WordPress Themes Online.
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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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