Advanced content management systems like the WordPress CMS platform have truly simplified web design and web development for anyone wanting a website.
This is great for individuals or businesses wanting to start a web presence that is relatively easy to manage.
Before “blogging” and the development of powerful content management systems, if you needed a professional web site, you would have to wait until both the web development and website design processes were fully completed. This process could mean waiting for weeks, sometimes even months!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this blog post, you will learn what themes are, how WP themes can help you save money on website design costs, and how themes let you easily customize your site.
Web Site Design Revolution
More website owners have been benefiting from a tremendous change in website design that started many years ago. If you are a small business owner, you may want to learn more about this, because it can save you thousands of dollars on web development or web design costs.
In a nutshell, here’s what used to happen before WordPress came along:
The first step would be to meet with a website development firm or web site designer for a brief. After this, the “web design” itself had to be discussed and agreed upon. This meant spending time with a professional web designer going over design elements of the site like the layout, colours, formats, graphic elements, content, etc.
Each page of your website then had to be hand-coded with all of your elements and codes scripted into the page content. The pages were then assembled together into a web site using hyperlinks and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with all other files needed to make your site work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and performed the way it was intended to (and looking the way the client had wanted it to look), was the website deemed as being completed and ready for delivery.
Then, website “templates” came along”. A web template allows the ”look and feel” of the web site to be worked on separately from content on the page. Having ready-made templates helped to speed up the web site creation process and resulted in lowered production costs. This also enabled web site developers to expand their services to include smaller businesses with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more website development firms started choosing “template-based” websites, templates started being introduced that offered different customization features and options, like color palettes, the ability to pick different styles or header, footer and navigation elements, and so on.
As web sites and website editor applications developed, web templates also began to evolve into web templating “systems” that enable users to customize their website’s design aspects.
And 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:
WordPress Themes
A WordPress theme expands the idea of a website template system further.
The WordPress theme system controls and unifies the design elements of a web site. It allows you to add a “skin” over your entire site in a similar way that a web template system does but it also also gives you complete control over the management, appearance and customization of all template options.
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 and revolutionary feature of the WordPress theme is that the way your site appears to visitors is an entirely different thing from how your website is configured internally to handle areas like content management and functionality.
Basically, what this means is that themes let you change the appearance of your site as often as you like without affecting your website’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if WP site has been configured for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the website. All e-commerce features, plugin settings and product information will remain unaffected, but the site will look completely different.
Why is this important?
Because when your site is powered by WordPress, you no longer have to wait until your site’s web design is done. You can get your business website built quickly and get started with any theme you want, and completely change the look, feel and design of your site in mere minutes, whenever you want … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your site with no web code programming skills necessary. Simply choose any theme you want, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your web design and customize elements like headers, page layout, styling options and more in less than a few minutes …
Since WordPress is made available as open source software, hundreds of web designers anywhere in the world can create themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WordPress templating system.
This means that thousands of great WP themes are made available to WordPress users. Themes are generally distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or sold as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE theme directory which allows WordPress users to download and access, thousands of great WP themes completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – WP Themes Directory)
As more users turn to WordPress for online publishing, more designers are now focused on developing themes for a wider audience of WordPress site owners.
Themes vary from minimal-looking, to quirky designs that are visually breathtaking and would normally cost many hundreds of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, WordPress themes are very inexpensive to buy.
You can see a number of WP theme galleries that include stunning examples of great themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WordPress Themes – Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over choosing applications that require traditional web template design:
Easy Installation
Themes are very easy to install on your site. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your admin user account and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the free WordPress theme repository at WordPress.org) directly from within your WordPress dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a thriving online community of professional website designers and design companies who, collectively, make thousands of great WordPress Themes available to users. And many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent “look and feel” across all of your blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your web site’s content. This makes it possible to swap the “look and feel” of your website as often as you want without changing the site’s data.
- Many themes come with built-in features and options that let you customize the site’s style, layout and design elements and create a unique look to suit your taste.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that enables users to update the theme to newer theme versions without losing any customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, import, install and update WordPress Themes automatically within the site’s administration interface.
- Themes helps you save thousands of dollars on web design costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WordPress themes are normally quite inexpensive.
About Responsive Theme Design
Many WP theme designers are now developing “responsive” themes for the WordPress CMS.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically readjust the web layout 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 platform. Users can scroll, read and load the site on different devices without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to have installed additional browser tools.
Note: When purchasing WordPress themes, we recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your web site will display correctly on all of your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards, practices and techniques of website design.
I hope that this article has provided you with a clearer understanding of WP themes, what WordPress themes are, how WordPress themes help you and your business save money on web development costs, and how themes make it easy to customize a WP site.
To learn where to search for the best WordPress themes for your website, go here:
***
"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
***