The development of advanced web site publishing platforms like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) has effectively improved web design and web development for web users.
This is great for non-technical users planning to start a website that they can manage.
Before blogging and the development of easy-to-use content management systems, if you needed to get a site for your business, you had to wait until both the web development and web design processes were fully completed. This could mean weeks, even many months of waiting around!
The development of WordPress themes changed all this. In this post, we explain what WordPress themes are, how they save you money on web development costs, and how WordPress themes let you easily customize your website.
Website Design Evolution
Website owners are benefiting from a great change in web design that has been going for a number of years now. If you own a small business, you will want to learn about this, because it can save your business thousands of dollars on website development and website design costs.
Let’s briefly take a look at how things typically worked in “traditional” web design before CMS software like WordPress came along:
The first step would be to meet with a web developer or designer for a brief. Then, the actual “web design” had to be decided upon. This required time being spent with a professional website designer discussing elements of your website like the, colours, styles, page elements, content, etc.
Every page of your web site then had to be individually created with the elements and scripts coded into your content. All the pages were then assembled together into a web site using links and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with every other file required to make your website work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and functioned the way it was intended to (and looking the way a client had imagined it to look), was the site deemed to be completed and ready for delivery.
Then, website “templates” were developed”. Web site templates allow design elements of the website to be created separately from the page content. The development of template elements helped to make the process of creating websites faster and resulted in reduced production costs. This also allowed website developers and designers to work with businesses with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of small businesses using “template-based” websites increased, web templates were developed to provide clients with different custom settings, like the ability to choose different colours, styles, layouts
As websites and website editing applications evolved, website templates also started to transform into web template “systems” that let users and website designers manage the visual elements of their website.
Then, WordPress came along and helped to start a new 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:
WordPress Themes
A WordPress theme drives web template systems even further.
A WordPress theme controls every aspect of your web site design. It allows you to add a “skin” to your site in a similar way that a template system does but it provides users with more control over the management and customization aspects of all template options.
As WordPress describes in its official 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, one of the unique features of WordPress is that how your website displays to visitors externally is a completely different system from how your website is configured internally to handle areas like content management and functionality.
In plain English terms, what this means is that a WP theme lets you modify the look and feel of your site as often as you like without touching your site’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if you have set up your website 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.
This is important. Why?
Because with WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your website to be completed. You can get your business website built simply and get started with any WP theme you like, and then completely modify the look, feel and design of your WordPress 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 having website coding skills. Simply pick any WordPress theme you like, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your site’s design and customize elements like headers, page layout, style settings and more with just a few mouse clicks …
Because WordPress is distributed as open source software, web designers can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP templating system.
This means that thousands of high quality WP themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. Themes are usually distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or sold as Premium (paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE theme directory which allows WordPress users to access thousands of excellent WordPress themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org – WP Themes Directory)
As more users turn to WordPress for publishing and managing their content online, more designers are now focusing on developing themes for a wider audience of WordPress site owners.
WP themes range from corporate-looking, to elegant designs that are breathtaking and could easily cost hundreds to thousands of dollars to create. Surprisingly, most premium WordPress themes can be bought very inexpensively, especially when you compare the price to what it would have cost you if a web designer had to build it from scratch.
You can view several WP theme galleries containing many examples of great premium WP themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits Of WP Themes
Here are just a few of the benefits of choosing WordPress themes over using tools that require traditional web template design:
Easy, Fast & Simple To Install
WordPress themes are very easy to install on your site. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WP admin user area and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the themes repository at WordPress.org) directly from your WordPress admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a large community of commercial web designers who make thousands of quality WordPress Themes available to WordPress users. Thousands of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent design across all of your site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your website’s content. This means you can replace themes as often as you want without affecting your website’s content.
- Many themes come with additional built-in functionality and settings that allow you to easily customize your site’s style and design properties and create a unique look to suit your taste.
- Many WP themes are built using a framework that allows you to upgrade themes to newer versions without losing any customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically right inside your site’s administration interface.
- WordPress themes lets you save thousands of dollars on web development costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are typically quite affordable.
About Responsive WP Theme Design
Many WordPress theme developers are now developing WP themes that incorporate “responsive” functionality.
A responsive theme allows websites to automatically resize to display smoothly over different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different platforms) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for each platform. Users can scroll, read and display your site on most if not all device browsers without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to have installed additional themes.
Note: When purchasing WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your website displays well across all of your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore should comply with the latest standards and practices of web design coding.
I hope that this overview has given you a better understanding about themes, what themes are, how they help your business save money, and how WordPress themes allow you to easily customize your website.
In our next blog post in the article series for non-technical users on helping you understand WP features, we show you where to find the best WordPress themes for your website or blog.
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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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