The introduction of powerful content publishing technologies like the WordPress CMS has truly simplified web design and web development for web users.
This greatly benefits entrepreneurial-minded people wanting an online business presence that they can fully manage themselves.
Before “blogging” and the development of sophisticated content management systems, if you wanted a professional website, you typically had to wait until both the web development and website design processes were completely done. This process could mean waiting around for many weeks, sometimes even months!
WordPress themes helped change all this. In this post, we explain what themes are, how themes can help your business save money on web design costs, and how themes make it easy to customize your site.
Website Design Evolution
More website owners today have benefited from a revolution in website design that started many years ago. If you are a small business owner, you may want to know about this, because it can save your business a lot of time and money on website development or website design costs.
In a nutshell, this is what typically took place before a CMS software like WordPress was introduced:
The first step would be to meet with a website development firm or designer for a brief. After that, the ”look and feel” of your site had to be decided upon. This involved time being spent with someone with web site design skills discussing design elements of the website such as the layout, colours, styles, page elements, content, etc.
Every page of your website then had to be individually created with all your elements and codes written into your page content. The pages were then assembled into a website using hyperlinks and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with all other files needed to make your site work – script libraries, images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything had been tested and performed the way it was intended to (and looking the way the client had imagined it to look), was the web site considered to be completed and ready to go live.
Then, web design “templates” came along”. Web site templates allow ”look and feel” elements of the website to be worked on separately from content on the page. The introduction of ready-made templates helped to speed up the website development process and resulted in lowered production costs. This also enabled web development firms to work with business clients and clients with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of businesses choosing “template-based” websites increased, web templates started being introduced that could offer various custom options, such as color palettes, the ability to specify different content styles or elements, etc …
As web sites and web building software evolved, web templates also began to evolve into website template ”systems”, enabling website owners and website developers to manage their web site’s design aspects.
Then, WordPress came along and helped to kick off a new online 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
WordPress themes push web template systems even further.
The WP theme system controls every aspect of your website design. It lets you add a “skin” to your entire site in a similar way that a template system does but also provides you with more control over the management and ability to customize all template features.
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 feature of a WordPress theme is that the way your web site appears to site visitors externally is controlled separately from the way your content is managed.
In plain English terms, what this means is that you can modify the design of your site as often as you want without touching your site’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if you have configured WP website 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 the site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your website to be completed. You can get your website built quickly and start with any theme you like, and completely edit the look, feel and design of your WordPress site in minutes, whenever you decide … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your WordPress site with no web code editing knowledge necessary. Simply choose any WP theme you want, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress lets you change your entire site’s web design and modify elements like headers, page layout, typography and more in less than a few minutes …
As WordPress is distributed as open source software, web designers can design themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WP templating 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, or sold as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress development team maintains a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent WordPress themes completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – WP Themes Directory)
As more users turn to WordPress for online publishing, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider range of applications.
WP themes vary from professional-looking, to elegant designs that are beautiful and would easily cost many hundreds of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, WordPress themes are really inexpensive.
You can see a number of WP theme galleries that include various examples of WordPress themes in this article:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits And Advantages Of Themes
Here are just a few of the benefits of using WordPress themes over choosing traditional website design:
Ready To Start Using In Minutes
WP themes are really easy to install on your site. Just upload a zip file containing the plugin to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the themes repository at WordPress.org) directly from within your WordPress site’s admin area.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a thriving community of professional website designers and design companies who, collectively, contribute thousands of professional WP Themes available to users. And many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent design across all the site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, layouts, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your web site’s content. This allows you replace the “look and feel” of your web site or blog as often as you need without disturbing your website’s content.
- Many WordPress themes come with additional built-in features and options that let you customize your theme’s style, layout and design properties and create a unique look to suit your preferences.
- Many WP themes are built using a framework that enables users to update themes to newer theme versions without losing any unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically right within your dashboard.
- Themes lets you save thousands of dollars on website design costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WordPress themes are typically quite inexpensive.
Responsive Themes
Many WordPress theme designers are now creating themes that incorporate “responsive” functionality.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly over different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as across different platforms) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each platform. Users can scroll, read and load a site on different devices without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to install additional browser elements.
Note: When purchasing WordPress themes, we strongly recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your web site works across all of your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards of web design coding.
Hopefully, the above article has provided you with a good understanding of WordPress themes, what themes are, how WordPress themes can help your business save money on website development costs, and how WP themes make customizing web sites easy.
To learn where to find great themes for your website or blog, visit this page: Where To Look For Great Free And Premium WordPress Web Themes On The Web.
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