The development of web site publishing technologies like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) has truly simplified web design and web development for business users.
This is a great thing for business owners that want a website that they can manage by themselves.
Prior to “blogging” and the introduction of powerful and simple CMS technologies, if you wanted a professional site, you typically would have to wait until both the website development and website design processes were fully completed. This could mean weeks, even sometimes months of waiting around!
The development of WordPress themes have changed all this. In this article, we explore what WordPress themes are, how they can help you and your business save money on web design costs, and how WP themes let you easily customize your WordPress site.
A Revolution In Web Site Design
Businesses are benefiting from an evolution in web design that has been going for several years now. If you are a business owner, you will want to learn about this, because it can save your business thousands of dollars on web development or website design costs.
Let’s briefly take a look at what normally happened before WordPress came along:
The first step would be to discuss your requirements with a web site developer or web designer. Next, the actual design of your web site itself would be discussed and agreed upon. This meant time and money being spent with someone with website design skills going over elements of your website like the layout, colours, styles, visual elements, content, etc.
Each page of your web site then had to be hand-coded with all of your design elements and codes scripted into the content. All pages were then assembled together into a web site using links and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with all other files needed to make your website work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and functioned how it should (and looking the way a client had imagined it to look), was the website considered to have been completed and ready to go live.
Then, website “templates” came along”. A web template allows the presentation of the website to be worked on separately from content on the page. The introduction of template elements helped make site development faster and resulted in lowered production costs. This also enabled website designers to expand their services to include small business clients with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of website development agencies using “template-based” websites increased, templates were created that offered clients with various customization features and options, like the option to choose different colors, styles, layouts
As web sites and web editing applications developed, website templates also began to transform into web templating “systems” that let website owners control the visual aspects of their site.
And then, WordPress was developed and helped to start a new content management 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 pushes web template systems further.
A WP theme controls and integrates every aspect of your site’s design. It lets you add a “skin” to your entire site similarly to what a template system does but also gives you complete control over the management, presentation and ability to customize all template options.
As the official WordPress site describes 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 in the quote above, one of the unique features of the WordPress theme is that the way your web site appears to site visitors is managed independently of your site’s functional aspects (e.g. content management and functionality).
In simple terms, what this means is that a theme lets you modify the appearance of your website as much and as often as you like without modifying your website’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if WordPress site has been configured for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the web site. All e-commerce features, site settings and product information will remain intact, but the site will look completely different.
Why is this important?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer need to spend weeks or months waiting for your site to be completed. You can get your website built quickly and get started with any WordPress theme you like, and completely modify the look, feel and design of your website in seconds, whenever you choose … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your WordPress site with no web code editing knowledge necessary. Simply choose a WordPress theme you like, install it on your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your site’s design and customize elements like header images, layout, style settings and more with just a few mouse clicks …
Because WordPress is distributed as open source software, commercial web design companies can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that thousands of high quality WP themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. WP are generally distributed freely under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (i.e. paid) WP themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE directory of WP themes which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent themes for free …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress increases, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider range of uses.
WP themes range from bare-looking, to designs that are quite impressive and could typically cost thousands of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, most premium WP themes are quite inexpensive.
You can view several theme galleries containing various examples of great WordPress themes in this page:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WP Themes – Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of choosing WordPress themes over choosing website building tools that require traditional web template design:
Easy Installation
WordPress themes are quite easy to install on your site. Simply upload a zip file that contains the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your admin account and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WP themes repository at WordPress.org) directly from your WP dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a thriving online community of commercial theme designers and design companies who, collectively, make thousands of great WordPress Themes available to users. Thousands of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent look across all the site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your web site’s content. This makes it possible to swap the “look and feel” of your templates as often as you need without deleting your site’s settings.
- Many themes provide additional built-in features and settings that enable you to easily 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 allows users to upgrade the theme to newer theme versions without losing any customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, import, install and update WordPress Themes automatically from the admin panel.
- Themes helps you save hundreds of dollars on web development costs. Free WordPress themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WordPress themes are normally very affordable.
Responsive Theme Design
Many theme designers are now developing “responsive” themes.
A responsive theme allows a website to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. PCs, tablets, smart phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for different platforms. Users can scroll, read and load a site on a range of devices without having to resize anything, 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 a responsive theme ensure that the content and layout of your site will work correctly on all 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.
I hope the above article has given you a better understanding of themes, what themes are, how themes help you save money on web development costs, and how WP themes make customizing websites easy.
To learn where to search for great WP themes for your website, click here:
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