The introduction of web site management tools like the WordPress CMS has effectively simplified web design and web development for anyone wanting a website.
This is great for businesses thinking about getting a digital presence that they can easily manage by themselves.
Prior to “blogging” and the development of user-friendly CMS software, if you wanted to build a professional site for your business, you normally had to wait until both the web development and web design processes were completely done. This could mean waiting for many weeks, sometimes even months!
WordPress themes changed all this. In this article, you will learn what WordPress themes are, how they can help you save money on website design costs, and how themes help you easily customize your website.
Web Design Evolution
Businesses have benefited from a change in web design that has been going for many years now. If you are a business owner, you will want to know more about this, because it can save you thousands of dollars on website development and web design costs.
In a nutshell, here’s what normally happened before system like WordPress came along:
First, you would discuss your project with a website development firm or web designer. After that, the design itself would be discussed and agreed upon. This required time and money being spent with a professional web designer discussing elements of your site like the, colours, styles, page elements, content, etc.
Every page of your website then had to be hand-coded with all of your elements and scripts coded into your page content. All the pages were then assembled together into a website using hyperlinks and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with every other file needed to make your website work – script libraries, images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything passed testing and performed the way it should (and looking how the client had wanted it to look), was the website considered to have been finished and ready for delivery.
Then, website “templates” came along”. A web site template allows the ”look and feel” of the website to be worked on separately from the page content. The development of templates helped to make the process of site creation faster and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also enabled web development agencies to expand their services to include businesses with less money to spend on marketing …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more small businesses started using “template-based” web design services, web templates were developed that could offer a range of customization options, such as colour palettes, the ability to pick different styles, formats, elements, page layouts, etc …
As websites and web editing tools evolved, website templates also started to transform into web templating “systems” that enabled website owners and website developers to customize their web site’s visual aspects.
And then, a “blogging” tool called 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:
The WordPress Theme
A WordPress theme takes the idea of a website templating system even further.
The WordPress theme system controls every aspect of your site’s design. It allows you to add a “skin” over your entire site much like a template system does but it provides users with complete control over the management and customization of all template settings.
As WordPress has described in its official website …
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 states, a unique feature of WordPress is that how your web site appears to visitors does not affect your site’s content management aspects.
In simple terms, what this means is that you can change the appearance 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 your site has been configured for e-commerce, changing the entire look of the site with a different theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your site. All e-commerce features, site settings and product information will remain unaffected, but your site will look completely different.
This is huge! Why?
Because with WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your site to be done. You can get your website built quickly and start with any WP theme you want, and then customize the entire look, feel and design of your website in minutes, whenever you choose … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your site without the need of web design knowledge. Just pick a WP theme you want, install it on your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your web design and modify elements like headers, page layout, style settings and more in less than a few minutes …
Since WordPress is open source software, commercial website design companies can design themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that loads of great WordPress themes are made available to WP users. Themes are generally distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
The WordPress team maintains a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which allows WordPress users to download, access and install thousands of great website templates for free …
(WordPress.org – WordPress Themes Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now starting to develop themes for a wider audience of WordPress site owners.
Themes vary from simple-looking, to elegant designs that are visually stunning and would typically cost thousands of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, themes are quite inexpensive to buy.
You can view several WP theme galleries that include stunning examples of great premium themes in this page:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Themes – Benefits And Advantages
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of choosing WordPress themes over choosing traditional web design:
Be Up And Running In No Time
WordPress themes are really easy to install on your site. Just upload a zip folder that contains the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your admin user account and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the themes directory at WordPress.org) directly inside your WordPress admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a thriving online community of professional website designers and design companies who contribute thousands of high quality WP Themes available to WP users. Thousands of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent “look and feel” across all your blog’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your blog’s content. This makes it possible to change WP themes as often as you like without modifying your settings.
- Many WordPress themes come with additional built-in functionality and options that enable you to easily customize your theme’s layout, style and design elements and create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that enables you to upgrade the theme to newer versions without losing any unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically right inside the admin panel.
- WordPress themes allow users to save hundreds of dollars on web design costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are typically very inexpensive.
About Responsive WP Themes
Many WP theme designers are now creating WP themes that incorporate “responsive” functionality.
A responsive theme allows a website to automatically reconfigure the layout to display smoothly over different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. laptops, tablets, cell phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for each platform. Users can navigate, read and display the site on all device browsers without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to install additional browser tools.
Note: When searching for WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your web site displays well 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 website design and web coding.
Hopefully, this overview has given you a clearer understanding about WP themes, what themes are, how they help your business save money on website design costs, and how WP themes make it easy to customize a website.
In the next blog post in the article series on understanding basic WordPress features, we show you where to find the best themes for your 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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