The development of web publishing platforms like the WordPress CMS has truly simplified web design and web development for business owners.
This is a great thing for businesses that want to own an online presence that is easy to manage.
Prior to “blogging” and the development of advanced CMS applications, if you needed a professional business web site, you had to wait until both the website development and web design processes were fully completed. This process could take weeks, sometimes even months!
The introduction of WordPress themes helped change all this. In this post, you will learn what WordPress themes are, how they can help you save money, and how WordPress themes help you easily customize your WordPress site.
Website Design Evolution
Businesses are benefiting from a revolutionary change in website design that started a number of years ago. 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 how things worked in “traditional” web development before systems like WordPress came along:
First, you would discuss your requirements with a web site development company or website designer. After this, the actual design itself had to be decided upon. This involved time being spent with someone with web site design skills discussing elements of your web site such as the, colours, formats, graphic elements, content, etc.
Every page of your site then had to be individually created with your elements and codes written into your content. The pages were then assembled into a website using hyperlinks and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with all other files needed to make your website work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything passed testing and was working how it was supposed to (and looking the way a client had imagined it to look), was the website considered as being completed and ready for delivery.
Then, website “templates” came along”. A website template allows design elements of the web site to be worked on separately from content on the page. Having templates helped to make website development faster and resulted in reduced production costs. This also allowed web developers and designers to work with businesses and clients with smaller budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more businesses started choosing “template-based” websites, web templates were designed to offer clients with expanding customizable features, like the option to switch colours, styles, layouts
As web sites and website building software developed, website templates also began to evolve into web templating “systems” that allow website owners to customize the design elements of their website.
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:
About WordPress Themes
WordPress themes push web template systems further.
The WP theme system controls the design aspects of your website. It lets you add a “skin” over your site much like a web template system does but it also also gives you complete control over the management, presentation and customization aspects of template settings.
As WordPress explains in its web site …
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, a unique feature of a WP theme is that how your website appears to site visitors is kept independent of the management of your content.
In simple terms, what this means is that WP themes let you modify the look and feel of your website as often as you want without modifying your website’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if your site has been configured for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your website. All e-commerce features, plugin settings and product information will remain intact, but the site will look completely different.
Why is this such a big deal?
Because with WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your site to be completed. You can get your website built quickly and start with any WP theme you want, and change the entire look, feel and design of your WordPress site in a few seconds, whenever you decide … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your site with no website code editing knowledge required. Simply choose any theme you like, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress lets you change your website design and modify elements like header images, page layout, styling options and more in minutes …
Because WordPress is made available as open source software, hundreds of website designers can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP templating system.
This means that loads of high quality WP themes are made available to WP users. WP are usually distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or sold as Premium (i.e. paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE directory of WP themes which allows WordPress users to access thousands of excellent web templates at no cost …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress increases, more designers are now focused on developing themes for a wider audience of web users.
Themes vary from professional-looking, to dynamic designs that are visually breathtaking and could easily cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars to create. Surprisingly, most premium WP themes can be purchased very inexpensively, especially when you compare the cost to what it would have cost you if a website designer had to develop it from scratch.
You can view a number of WP theme galleries containing various examples of great WordPress themes in this post:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Themes – Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over choosing website development tools that require traditional website design:
Easy, Fast And Simple To Install
Themes are really easy to install on your site. Simply upload a zip file that contains the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WordPress administrator area and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the free WP theme repository at WordPress.org) directly from your WP admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a thriving community of professional theme developers and development companies who, collectively, contribute thousands of quality WordPress Themes available to users. Many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent “look and feel” across all your blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your website’s content. This means you can swap themes as often as you need without modifying your settings.
- Many WP themes provide additional features and settings that enable you to easily customize your site’s layout, style and design properties to create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that allows users to update themes to newer versions without losing any customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, import, install and update WordPress Themes automatically within your admin panel.
- Themes allow WordPress users to save thousands of dollars on website development costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WordPress themes are typically very affordable.
Responsive WP Theme Design
Many WP theme developers are now creating “responsive” WordPress themes.
A responsive theme allows a website to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly over different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. computers, iPads, cell phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for each device type. Users can navigate, read and load the site on most device platforms without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to install additional browser elements.
Note: When downloading WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your web site works across your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore probably complies with the latest standards of website design.
I hope this basic overview has given you a better understanding of themes, what themes are, how themes can help you and your business save money, and how WP themes let you easily customize a web site.
In our next blog post in the article series on understanding basic WordPress features, we show you where to search for great themes for your blog.
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