The introduction of flexible website management tools like the WordPress CMS platform has truly simplified web design and web development for anyone wanting a website.
This is a great thing for business owners thinking about building an online business presence that they can manage themselves.
Before blogging and the development of powerful and simple CMS tools, if you needed to get a web site for your business, you normally had to wait until both the website development and web design processes were fully completed. This could mean waiting around for many weeks, sometimes even months!
WordPress themes helped change all this. In this article, we explore what themes are, how they save your business money on website development costs, and how themes make it easy to customize your site.
The Evolution Of Web Site Design
More businesses today are benefiting from a revolution in website design that started a number of years ago. If you are a small business owner, you will want to know more about this, because it could save you a lot of time and money on web development or website design costs.
Let’s take a look at what used to happen before WordPress came along:
First, you would meet with a website developer or web designer for a brief. Then, the actual design of your site would be discussed and agreed upon. This meant spending time and money with a professional web site designer discussing design elements of the website like the, colours, formats, page elements, content, etc.
Each page of your web site then had to be hand-coded with the elements and scripts coded into the content. The pages were then assembled together into a web site using hyperlinks 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 after everything passed testing and worked the way it was supposed to (and looking the way a client had wanted it to look), was the site deemed as being completed and ready to go live.
Then, website “templates” came along”. Web templates allow design elements of the web site to be worked on separately from the page content. The development of ready-made templates helped make the process of building websites faster and resulted in reduced production costs. This also enabled website development agencies to expand their services to include business clients and clients with smaller budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of businesses choosing “template-based” websites increased, web templates started being introduced to offer a number of customizable features and options, such as the ability to choose different colours, styles, layouts
As websites and web editor tools evolved, web templates also started to transform into web templating ”systems”, letting users and web designers customize the design components of their site.
And then, a “blogging” software called WordPress came along and helped to start a new website 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 expand web templating systems one step further.
A WP theme 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 template system does but it provides users with complete control over the management and customization aspects of template options.
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 above, a unique and revolutionary feature of the WP theme is that how your website appears to visitors on the outside is a completely separate system from the management of your content.
In plain English terms, what this means is that WP themes let you change the appearance of your site as often as you like without touching your site’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if you have configured your website for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the site. All e-commerce features, site and plugin settings and product information will remain intact, but your site will look completely different.
Why is this really great for small business owners?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your site to be done. You can get your business website built simply and get started with any WordPress theme you like, and then modify the entire look, feel and design of your site in a few seconds, whenever you decide … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your WordPress site without having website coding knowledge. Simply choose a WP theme you want, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress lets you change your web design and modify elements like headers, page layout, styling options and more with just a few mouse clicks …
Because WordPress is distributed as open source software, commercial web designers all around the world can design themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that thousands of great WordPress themes can be downloaded by WP users. WordPress are normally distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or sold as Premium (i.e. paid) WP themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE theme directory which allows WordPress users to download, access and install thousands of excellent website templates at no cost …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now focused on developing themes for a wider range of applications.
Themes vary from bare-looking, to designs that are quite stunning and would normally cost thousands of dollars to create. Surprisingly, most WP themes are really inexpensive to buy.
You can see several WP theme galleries containing stunning examples of great WordPress themes in this page:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits & Advantages Of Themes
Here are just a few of the benefits of choosing WordPress themes over choosing tools that require traditional web design:
Fast Installation
WP themes are quite easy to install on your site. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WP admin user area and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the themes repository at WordPress.org) directly from your WordPress admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a growing online community of commercial website developers and development companies who contribute thousands of excellent WP Themes available to users. And many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent design across all of the blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, layouts, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This makes it possible to replace themes as often as you need without affecting your blog’s underlying information.
- Many themes come with additional built-in functionality and options that let you customize your site’s style, layout and design properties and create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many themes are built using a framework that enables you to update themes to newer versions without losing any customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress lets you search, import and install WordPress Themes automatically inside your site’s administration interface.
- Themes lets you save thousands of dollars on website development costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WordPress themes are typically very inexpensive.
Responsive WP Themes
Many WordPress theme developers are now creating “responsive” themes for the WP CMS.
A responsive theme allows a website to automatically resize to display smoothly across different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. laptops, iPads, smart phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for each device type. Users can navigate, read and display the site on a range of device platforms without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to install additional themes.
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 website displays well across your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore probably complies with the latest standards and practices of website design and web coding.
Hopefully, this overview has given you a clearer understanding of WP themes, what WordPress themes are, how themes help you and your business save money, and how themes make it easy to customize a site.
In our next article on understanding basic WP features, we show you where to search for great WP themes for your website.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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