Flexible web site publishing technologies like the WordPress CMS platform have effectively simplified web design and web development for anyone wanting to start a website.
This is a great thing for entrepreneurial-minded people wanting a website that is simple, easy and inexpensive to manage.
Prior to “blogging” and the introduction of powerful CMS applications, if you needed a professional business web site, you normally would have to wait until both the web development and website design processes were completely done. This process could take weeks, sometimes even many months!
WordPress themes changed all this. In this blog post, we take a look at what WordPress themes are, how themes can help your business save money on website design costs, and how WP themes let you easily customize your site.
Evolution In Web Design
More businesses today are benefiting from a tremendous revolution in web design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a small business, you may want to know about this, because it can save your business thousands of dollars on website development or web design costs.
Very briefly, here’s what happened before WordPress came along:
First, you would meet with a website development firm or web designer for a brief. After that, the actual design of your site itself had to be decided upon. This involved time and money being spent with a professional web site designer going over elements of the website such as the, colours, formats, graphic elements, content, etc.
Every page of your web site then had to be hand-coded with the design elements and codes written into the content. The pages were then assembled into a web site using links and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with every other file needed to make your website work – script libraries, images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and was functioning the way it was intended to (and looking the way the client had imagined it to look), was the site deemed as being finished and ready to go live.
The next phase in the evolution of web design was the introduction of “website templating elements”. Web site templates allow design elements of the website to be created separately from the page content. The development of template elements helped to speed up the process of developing websites and resulted in reduced costs of production. This also enabled web site designers to work with small businesses with less money to spend on marketing …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of small businesses adopting “template-based” web design services increased, web templates were created that offered clients with different custom features, like color palettes, the ability to specify different styles, formats, elements, layouts, etc …
As websites and web building tools developed, website templates also started transforming into web templating ”systems”, letting website owners control the visual aspects of a web site.
Then, a “blogging” application called WordPress came along 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:
The WordPress Theme
WordPress themes improve web templating systems further.
A WP theme controls and unifies all of the design aspects of the web site. It allows you to add a “skin” to your site similarly to what a template system does but it also also provides you with more control over the management, presentation and customization aspects of all template options.
As the official WordPress site states …
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, one of the unique features of WordPress is that the way your website appears to visitors externally is kept independent of the management of your content.
In simple terms, what this means is that WP themes let you change the appearance of your site as much and as often as you like without modifying your website’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if you have configured WP site for e-commerce, changing the entire look of your site with a different theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your website. All e-commerce features, site settings and product information will remain unaffected, but your site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because when you use 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 start with any WP theme you like, and edit the entire look, feel and design of your website in mere minutes, whenever you decide … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your site without requiring web code development skills. Just pick any WP theme you like, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress lets you change your website design and customize elements like header images, layout, styling options and more in a few seconds …
As WordPress is open source software, website design companies from all over the world can design themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WordPress templating system.
This means that loads of great WordPress themes are made available to WP users. Themes are usually distributed for Free under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they can be purchased as Premium (paid) WP themes.
The WordPress team maintains a FREE directory of WP themes which gives WordPress users access thousands of great WP themes for free …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As more businesses turn to WordPress for online publishing, more designers are now focusing on creating themes for a wider range of applications.
Themes vary from functional-looking, to stylish designs that are visually stunning and could typically cost many hundreds of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, WordPress themes can be bought fairly inexpensively, especially when compared to what you would have been charged if a website designer had to build it from scratch.
You can view a number of WordPress theme galleries containing many examples of great WP themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Themes – Benefits & Advantages
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over choosing traditional website design:
WP Theme Installation Is Easy
Themes are really easy to install on your site. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your admin login and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WP theme directory at WordPress.org) directly from within your WP site’s admin area.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a growing online community of commercial web designers who make thousands of great WordPress Themes available to WordPress users. And many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent design across all of the site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This allows you replace WP themes as often as you like without modifying the blog information.
- Many WP themes come with built-in features and settings that enable you to easily customize your theme’s style, layout and design elements and create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many WP themes are built using a framework that allows users to upgrade themes to newer versions without losing any unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically within the dashboard.
- Themes lets you save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on web design costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are typically quite inexpensive.
About Responsive Theme Design
Many WordPress theme developers are now developing “responsive” themes for the WordPress CMS.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically reconfigure the layout to display smoothly over different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as across different platforms) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different types of devices. Users can navigate, read and load a site on a range of device browsers without having to resize anything, or requiring the website owner to install additional themes.
Note: When selecting, WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your web site will display correctly across all of your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore should comply with the latest standards of web design and web coding.
We hope this article has given you a clearer understanding of themes, what themes are, how WordPress themes help your business save money, and how WordPress themes let you easily customize a website.
To learn where to search for the best WP themes for your website or blog, click here:
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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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