The introduction of web publishing tools like WordPress has effectively simplified web design and web development for business users.
This is great for business owners planning to start an online business presence that they can fully manage by themselves.
Before “blogging” and the development of easy-to-use CMS software, if you wanted a professional business web site, you normally had to wait until both the web development and website design processes were completely done. This process could take many weeks, even months!
WordPress themes changed all this. In this blog post, we explain what themes are, how WP themes save your business money on website development costs, and how themes make it easy to customize your WordPress site.
Web Site Design Revolution
Businesses, especially small businesses, will benefit from a tremendous change in web design that started a number of years ago. If you own a business, you will want to learn about this, because it can save you a lot of time and money on web development or website design costs.
Let’s briefly go over how things used to work in “traditional” web design before WordPress was developed:
First, you would discuss your project with a web development company or website designer. After that, the actual “web design” itself had to be decided upon. This meant spending time with someone with web design skills going over elements of the website like the layout, colours, styles, visual elements, content, etc.
Each page of your site then had to be individually created with all your design elements and codes scripted into the content. All the pages were then assembled together into a web site using links and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with all other files needed to make your site work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything had been tested and worked the way it was supposed to (and looking how the client had imagined it to look), was the site considered to have been completed and ready for sign off.
The next stage in the evolution of web design was the introduction of “website templating elements”. A web site template allows the presentation of the web site to be created separately from content on the page. The development of template elements helped make the process of creating web sites faster and resulted in lowered production costs. This also allowed website developers to expand their services to include smaller businesses and clients with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more small businesses started adopting “template-based” websites, templates were introduced that provided clients with various customizable features, like the option to switch colors, styles, layouts
As websites and web building tools evolved, web templates also began evolving into web template “systems” that let users customize the design elements of a site.
Then, a “blogging” application called 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 take website template systems much further.
The WP theme system controls the design aspects of your website. It allows you to add a “skin” to your site in a similar way that a template system does but it provides users with complete control over the management and customization of 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 stated above, a unique feature of the WordPress theme is that how your site displays to site visitors is a completely separate thing from how your website works internally to handle areas like content management and functionality.
In plain English terms, what this means is that themes let you modify the appearance of your website as much and as often as you want without touching your website’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if your website has been configured for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your web site. All e-commerce features, settings and product information will remain intact, but your site will look completely different.
Why is this great for business owners?
Because with WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your website to be done. You can get your business website built simply and start with any WP theme you want, and completely edit the look, feel and design of your WordPress site in minutes, whenever you choose … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your WordPress site without requiring any website code editing knowledge. Just choose any theme you want, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your site’s design and modify elements like header images, page layout, style settings and more in a few seconds …
Since WordPress is distributed as open source software, professional website design companies all around the world can design themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WP templating system.
This means that thousands of high quality WP themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. WordPress are usually distributed for Free under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress team maintains a FREE directory of WordPress themes which allows WordPress users to download, access and install thousands of excellent themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org – Free Theme Directory)
As more businesses turn to WordPress for publishing and managing their content online, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider audience of WordPress site owners.
Themes range from functional-looking, to dynamic designs that are visually spectacular and could typically cost many hundreds of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, most WordPress themes are really inexpensive to purchase.
You can see several WordPress theme galleries that include various examples of themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits Of Using WP Themes
Here are just some of the many benefits of using WordPress themes over choosing traditional web design:
Ready To Start Using In Very Little Time
WordPress themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WordPress theme directory at WordPress.org) directly inside your WP dashboard.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a thriving online community of commercial theme designers and design companies who contribute thousands of great WP Themes available to WordPress users. And many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent “look and feel” across all your site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your blog’s content. This means you can swap WordPress themes as often as you want without changing the underlying content of your website.
- Many themes come with built-in features and options that allow you to easily customize the theme’s style, layout and design elements and create a unique look to suit your taste.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that enables users to update the theme to newer versions without losing any unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically directly from within the dashboard.
- WP themes lets you save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on web design costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are normally quite affordable.
Responsive WordPress Theme Design
Many WordPress theme designers are now developing WordPress 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. computers, tablets, smart phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each device type. Users can scroll, read and load your site on different devices without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to have installed additional browser tools.
Note: When purchasing WordPress themes, we recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your web site will display correctly on your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards of web design.
Hopefully, the above overview has given you a better understanding about themes, what WordPress themes are, how they can help you and your business save money, and how WordPress themes make it easy to customize your website.
To learn where to search for great themes for your blog, visit this post: Finding Great Premium And Free WordPress Web Themes On The Web.
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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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