The development of content publishing tools like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) has truly improved web design and web development for web users.
This greatly benefits non-technical users planning to build a website that is relatively easy to manage.
Before blogging and the introduction of powerful and effective CMS tools, if you wanted a professional business web site, you had to wait until both the website development and website design processes were fully completed. This process could mean weeks, even months of waiting for the work to be done!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this post, we take a look at what WP themes are, how themes can help you save money on web development costs, and how themes make it easy to customize your site.
A Revolution In Web Site Design
More businesses are benefiting from a tremendous change in web design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you are a business owner, you may want to know about this, because it can save you a lot of time and money on website development or website design costs.
In a nutshell, here’s what happened before WordPress came along:
The first step would be to meet with a website developer or designer for a brief. After this, the actual ”look and feel” of your website itself would be discussed and agreed upon. This involved time being spent with someone with web site design skills discussing design elements of the web site such as the, colors, formats, page elements, content, etc.
Every page of your website then had to be individually created with all of your elements and codes scripted into the content. The pages were then assembled into a website using links and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with every other file required to make your site work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and worked the way it should (and looking the way a client had imagined it to look), was the site deemed to have been finished and ready to go live.
Then, web design “templates” came along”. Web templates allow the design of the web site to be worked on separately from the page content. Having templates helped to make creating websites faster and resulted in lowered production costs. This also enabled web developers and designers to expand their services to include smaller business clients and clients with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of small businesses choosing “template-based” web design services increased, web templates were introduced to offer clients with a number of customization features and options, such as the option to switch colours, styles, layouts
As web sites and web editor tools developed, website templates also started transforming into website templating ”systems”, letting website owners customize the design components of a site.
And then, WordPress came along and helped to start a new digital 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 the idea of a web template system much further.
A WordPress theme controls every aspect of your website design. It allows you to add a “skin” to your site in a similar way that a template system does but also provides users with complete control over the management, appearance and customization of all template settings.
As WordPress states in its 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, one of the unique features of WordPress is that the way your web site looks to site visitors in no way affects the management of your content.
Basically, what this means is that a WordPress theme lets you modify the appearance of your website as often as you like without touching your site’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if you have set up WordPress site for e-commerce, changing the entire look of the site with another theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the website. All e-commerce features, site settings and product information will remain intact, but your site will look completely different.
This is huge! Why?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer need to wait until your site’s web design is completed. You can get your website built simply and get started with any theme you want, and modify the entire look, feel and design of your WordPress site in seconds, whenever you choose … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WordPress site without requiring website code development skills. Simply pick any WordPress theme you want, install it on your site and activate it. WordPress lets you change your site’s design and modify elements like headers, layout, style settings and more in minutes …
As WordPress is made available as open source software, thousands of website designers anywhere in the world can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP templating system.
This means that loads of great WP themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. Themes are usually distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or sold as Premium (paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress development team maintains a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent WP themes completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – WordPress Theme Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider range of applications.
Themes range from simple-looking, to designs that are impressive and could easily cost hundreds to thousands of dollars to create. Surprisingly, most premium themes are really inexpensive.
You can view a number of WP theme galleries containing stunning examples of themes in this page:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WordPress Themes – Benefits And Advantages
Here are just some of the benefits of choosing WordPress themes over choosing web development tools that require traditional web template design:
WordPress Theme Installation Is Easy
WordPress themes are quite easy to install on your site. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the themes repository at WordPress.org) directly from your WP dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a thriving online community of commercial web designers and design companies who make thousands of excellent WordPress Themes available to WordPress users. Many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent design across all of your site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This makes it possible to change themes as often as you need without deleting the website’s content.
- Many WP themes provide additional 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 WordPress themes are built using a framework that lets you upgrade themes to newer theme versions without losing any customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically right inside the site’s administration interface.
- WordPress themes lets you save hundreds of dollars on website design costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WordPress themes are normally very inexpensive.
Responsive WordPress Theme Design
Many theme developers are now creating “responsive” themes for WordPress.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. laptops, tablets, smart phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different platforms. Users can navigate, read and display a site on most if not all device browsers without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring the website owner to have installed additional browser elements.
Note: When selecting, WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your website displays well across all devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards of web design and coding.
We hope the above overview has helped you gain a better understanding of themes, what themes are, how WordPress themes can help you save money, and how WP themes make customizing websites easy.
To learn where to search for great themes for your blog, go here:
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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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