Advanced web site management platforms like the WordPress CMS platform have truly improved web design and web development for anyone wanting a website.
This is a great thing for entrepreneurial-minded people planning to start or build a website that is relatively simple, easy and inexpensive to manage.
Before “blogging” and the introduction of powerful CMS technologies, if you needed to build a professional web site for your business, you would have to wait until both the web development and web design processes were completely done. This process could mean weeks, even sometimes many months of waiting!
The introduction of WordPress themes changed all this. In this blog post, you will learn what themes are, how WP themes save you money on website development costs, and how WordPress themes help you easily customize your site.
Website Design Evolution
More website owners have benefited from a tremendous revolution in website design that has been going for many years now. If you own a small business, you will want to know about this, because it could save your business thousands of dollars on web development or web design costs.
In a nutshell, here’s what used to happen before software like WordPress came along:
First, you would discuss your requirements with a website development company or designer. After this, the design itself would be discussed and agreed upon. This involved spending time with a professional website designer discussing things of your website such as the layout, colors, styles, graphic elements, content, etc.
Every page of your site then had to be hand-coded with all your elements and scripts coded into your page content. All pages were then assembled together into a web site using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with all other files required to make your site work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything passed testing and performed the way it should (and looking the way the client had imagined it to look), was the web site considered as being completed and ready for delivery.
The next stage in the evolution of web design was the introduction of “website templating elements”. Web site templates allow ”look and feel” elements of the web site to be created separately from content on the page. Having template elements helped speed up the web development process and resulted in reduced costs of production. This also allowed website designers to service business clients and clients with smaller budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more small businesses began using “template-based” web design services, templates were introduced that offered various customizable features, such as the option to choose different colours, styles, layouts
As web sites and website editing applications developed, web templates also began evolving into website template “systems” that permitted users to control the visual elements of a website.
And then, a “blogging” software called WordPress was introduced and helped to start a new business website 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 take the idea of a web templating system much further.
A WordPress theme controls and integrates the design elements of your web site. It allows you to add a “skin” to your site similarly to what a website template system does but also gives you complete control over the management and customization of the template features.
As described in the official WordPress 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 WordPress is that the way your site appears to site visitors on the outside does not affect how your content is managed.
In plain English terms, what this means is that WordPress themes let you modify the design of your website as often as you want without affecting your site’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if you have set up your site for e-commerce, changing the entire look of the site with another theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your website. All e-commerce features, plugin 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 need to wait until your website’s design is completed. You can get your business website built simply and get started with any theme you want, and customize the entire look, feel and design of your site in a few seconds, whenever you want … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site without the need of website code editing skills. Just choose any theme you like, install it on your site and activate it. WordPress lets you change your entire site’s web design and customize elements like header images, page layout, styling options and more in less than a few minutes …
Since WordPress is made available as open source software, commercial web designers all around the world can design themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that thousands of high quality WordPress themes are made available to WordPress users. Themes are generally distributed for Free under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or sold as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress development team maintains a FREE directory of WP themes which gives WordPress users access thousands of great website templates at $0 cost …
(WordPress.org – Theme Directory)
As more businesses turn to WordPress for online publishing, more designers are now focused on creating themes for a wider range of users.
Themes range from bare-looking, to designs that are visually breathtaking and would typically cost many hundreds of dollars to create. Surprisingly, themes are quite inexpensive.
You can view a number of theme galleries that include various examples of great themes in this page:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits & Advantages Of Using WordPress Themes
Here are just some of the many benefits of using WordPress themes over choosing applications that require traditional web template design:
Ready To Go To Work In Very Little Time
WordPress themes are really easy to install on your site. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your admin user section and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the theme repository at WordPress.org) directly from within your WP site’s admin area.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a thriving online community of commercial web developers and development companies who, collectively, contribute thousands of great-looking, high quality WP Themes available to WP users. Many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent design across all the blog’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This means you can change themes as often as you need without disturbing your underlying content.
- Many WordPress themes provide built-in functionality and settings that let you easily customize your theme’s layout, style and design properties to create a unique look to suit your taste.
- Many themes are built using a framework that enables users to upgrade themes to newer versions without losing any unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress lets you search, import, install and update WordPress Themes automatically directly from within your dashboard.
- Themes allow WP users to save hundreds of dollars on web design costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are normally very affordable.
About Responsive Theme Design
Many WordPress theme developers are now creating “responsive” WP themes.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly across different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different devices (e.g. PCs, iPads, smart phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each platform. Users can navigate, read and display the site on all devices without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to install additional display elements.
Note: When searching for WordPress themes, we strongly recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your web site will work correctly across 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 website design and coding.
I hope that the above article has provided you with a clearer overview of WP themes, what themes are, how themes help your business save money, and how WP themes make it easy to customize a site.
In the next article on basic features and functionality of WordPress, we show you where to find great WP themes for your website or blog.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
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