The development of website publishing systems like the WordPress CMS has effectively improved web design and web development for business users.
This is a great thing for entrepreneurial-minded people planning to run a website that is easy to manage.
Before blogging and the development of powerful content management systems, if you needed to get a professional site for your business, you would have to wait until both the web development and website design processes were completely done. This process could mean waiting around for many weeks, even many months!
WordPress themes changed all this. In this article, you will learn what themes are, how themes save your business money on website development costs, and how themes allow you to easily customize your website.
Website Design Revolution
Businesses will benefit from a change in website design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a small business, you will want to learn more about this, because it can save you a lot of time and money on web development or web design costs.
In a nutshell, here’s what used to happen before WordPress came along:
First, you would meet with a website developer or website designer for a brief. After that, the ”look and feel” of your web site itself had to be discussed and agreed upon. This involved time being spent with a professional website designer going over design elements of the web site such as the layout, colors, formats, page elements, content, etc.
Every page of your site then had to be individually created with the design elements and codes scripted into the page content. The pages were then assembled into a website using links and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with all other files needed to make your site work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything had been tested and worked the way it was supposed to (and looking the way the client had wanted it to look), was the site considered to be finished and ready to go live.
Then, web design “templates” were developed”. Website templates allow presentation elements of the website to be worked on separately from the page content. The development of templates helped to speed up the web site development process and resulted in lowered production costs. This also enabled website developers to service business clients with smaller budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of businesses choosing “template-based” web design services increased, templates started being created that could offer expanding customization features and options, such as color palettes, the ability to select different styles and layouts, etc …
As web sites and web editor applications developed, website templates also started to evolve into web templating “systems” that let website owners and web designers control their site’s visual components.
Then, a “blogging” software called WordPress was introduced and helped to kick off a new web 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 much further.
The WP theme system controls and integrates the design aspects of your web site. It allows you to add a “skin” to your entire site much like a website template system does but it gives you complete control over the management, presentation and ability to customize all template settings.
According to 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 above, a unique and revolutionary feature of the WordPress theme is that how your web site appears to site visitors in no way affects how your content is managed.
Basically, what this means is that themes let you modify the appearance of your website as much and as often as you want without touching your site’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if WordPress website has been set up for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the website. All e-commerce features, settings and product information will remain intact, but your site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because when your website is powered by WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your website design to be completed. You can get your website built simply and start with any WordPress theme you want, and then completely edit the look, feel and design of your website in seconds, whenever you choose … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WordPress site with no web design knowledge necessary. Just choose a WP theme you like, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your web design and modify elements like header images, page layout, styling options and more with just a few mouse clicks …
Because WordPress is open source software, thousands of website designers can create themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WordPress templating system.
This means that thousands of great WordPress themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. Themes are usually distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or sold as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE directory of WP themes which gives WordPress users access thousands of great website templates for free …
(WordPress.org – WordPress Theme Directory)
As more users turn to WordPress for online publishing, more designers are now starting to develop themes for a wider audience of web users.
WP themes vary from simple-looking, to designs that are quite impressive and would typically cost many hundreds of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, most premium WP themes are really inexpensive.
You can see several WP theme galleries containing many examples of great premium WordPress themes in this post:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WordPress Themes – Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits of choosing WordPress themes over using traditional web design:
Installation Is Easy
Themes are really easy to install on your site. Just upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WP theme directory at WordPress.org) directly inside your WordPress dashboard.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a thriving online community of professional theme designers and design companies who contribute thousands of excellent WP Themes available to users. Many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent look across all of the blog’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your web site’s content. This makes it possible to swap WP themes as often as you need without changing the site content.
- Many WP themes provide additional built-in features and options that allow you to easily customize the site’s layout, style and design properties and create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that allows you to upgrade themes to a newer theme version without losing any unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically right within the dashboard.
- WordPress themes allow users to save thousands of dollars on website design costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WordPress themes are normally very affordable.
Responsive WordPress Themes
Many theme designers are now developing WordPress themes that incorporate “responsive” functionality.
A responsive theme allows websites to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly over different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different devices (e.g. laptops, iPads, mobile phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for different platforms. Users can scroll, read and display the site on various device platforms without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring the website owner to have installed additional themes.
Note: When downloading WordPress themes, we strongly recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your website displays well across all devices, it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore should comply with the latest standards, practices and techniques of web design.
Hopefully, this overview has given you a better understanding of WordPress themes, what WP themes are, how they can help your business save money, and how themes make it easy to customize a site.
In the next article in our article WordPress newbies on helping you understand features and functionality of WordPress, we show you where to find the best themes for your website.
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