Powerful web site publishing systems like the WordPress CMS have truly simplified web design and web development for business users.
This is great for entrepreneurial-minded people thinking of building a website that they can manage.
Before “blogging” and the introduction of sophisticated CMS tools, if you needed a site, you would have to wait until both the web development and website design processes were fully completed. This process could take weeks, even months!
The introduction of WordPress themes have changed all this. In this post, we take a look at what WP themes are, how they save your business money on web design costs, and how themes allow you to easily customize your website.
Web Site Design Evolution
Businesses are benefiting from a revolutionary change in website design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a business, you will want to know about this, because it could save your business a lot of time and money on web development or web design costs.
Let’s briefly review what normally took place before CMS software like WordPress were introduced:
The first step would be to discuss your requirements with a web developer or designer. After this, the actual “web design” would be decided upon. This meant spending time with a professional web designer going over design elements of the web site like the, colours, styles, visual elements, content, etc.
Each page of your website then had to be hand-coded with all of your design elements and scripts coded around the content. All the pages were then assembled into a website using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with every other file required to make your website work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything passed testing and was functioning how it should (and looking how a client had imagined it to look), was the website considered to have been completed and ready for sign off.
The next step in the evolution of website design was the introduction of “web templating elements”. Web templates allow the ”look and feel” of the website to be created separately from content on the page. Having templates helped to speed up the process of developing websites and resulted in lowered production costs. This also allowed web development agencies to expand their services to include businesses and clients with smaller budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more web site development companies began adopting “template-based” web design services, templates started being created that provided clients with various customization features, such as color palettes, the ability to pick different formats or page layouts, and so on.
As web sites and website editor software developed, website templates also began to transform into web templating ”systems”, permitting users to customize their web site’s design elements.
Then, a “blogging” software called WordPress was developed 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:
About WordPress Themes
A WordPress theme pushes the idea of a website template system much further.
A WP theme controls and integrates 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 it also also provides you with complete control over the management and customization aspects of template settings.
As WordPress describes in its official 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 and revolutionary features of the WP theme is that the way your web site displays to site visitors externally does not affect your site’s content management aspects.
Basically, what this means is that you can modify the design of your website as much and as often as you want without affecting 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 your web site. All e-commerce features, settings and product information will remain intact, but the site will look completely different.
This is huge! Why?
Because with WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your site to be completed. You can get your business website built simply and get started with any theme you want, and then edit the entire look, feel and design of your WordPress site in minutes, whenever you decide … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your site with no web code programming knowledge required. Just choose a WP theme you like, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress lets you change your web design and modify elements like header images, page layout, styling options and more with just a couple of mouse clicks …
Because WordPress is distributed as open source software, thousands of web design companies can design themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WordPress templating system.
This means that loads of high quality WP themes are made available to WP users. WordPress are generally distributed for FREE under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (i.e. paid) WP themes.
The WordPress team maintains a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which allows WordPress users to access thousands of excellent web templates at no cost …
(WordPress.org – Theme Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress soars, more designers are now focusing on creating themes for a wider audience of web users.
Themes range from professional-looking, to jaw-dropping designs that are simply beautiful and would typically cost thousands of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, most premium themes are really inexpensive to buy.
You can see several WordPress theme galleries that include stunning examples of great premium WP themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits Of Themes
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over choosing web building tools that require traditional website design:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
WordPress themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the free theme directory at WordPress.org) directly inside your WordPress site’s admin area.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a thriving community of professional website designers who, collectively, contribute thousands of quality WP Themes available to users. Thousands of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent “look and feel” across all your blog’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, layouts, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This makes it possible to swap the “look and feel” of your web site or blog as often as you like without deleting the website’s underlying content.
- Many WP themes come with additional built-in functionality and options that let you customize your site’s style, layout and design elements to create a unique look to suit your preferences.
- Many themes are built using a framework that allows users to upgrade themes to a newer theme version without losing its unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, import, install and update WordPress Themes automatically directly from the dashboard.
- WordPress themes allow WordPress users to save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on website design costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally quite inexpensive.
Responsive Themes
Many theme designers are now creating themes that incorporate “responsive” web design.
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, iPads, mobile phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for different platforms. Users can scroll, read and display the site on all devices without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to install additional browser tools.
Note: When selecting, WordPress themes, we strongly recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your website will display correctly on all of your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore probably complies with the latest standards and practices of web design and coding.
We hope that this overview has given you a clearer understanding about themes, what themes are, how WP themes help your business save money on web design costs, and how themes make it easy to customize your site.
To learn where to search for the best themes for your website or blog, see this page: How To Find The Best Premium And Free WordPress Web Themes On The Web.
***
"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
***