Advanced website management technologies like WordPress have truly simplified web design and web development for web users.
This is a great thing for individuals or businesses planning to run a digital presence that they can manage.
Before blogging and the development of user-friendly content management systems, if you needed to build a web site built for your business, you would have to wait until both the web development and website design processes were fully completed. This could mean weeks, even sometimes months of waiting around!
The development of WordPress themes helped change all this. In this blog post, you will learn what WP themes are, how WordPress themes can help you save money, and how themes let you easily customize your site.
Evolution In Web Site Design
More website owners are benefiting from a revolution in website design that started many years ago. If you are a business owner, you will want to learn more about this, because it could save your business a lot of time and money on web development or website design costs.
In a nutshell, here’s what happened before WordPress were developed:
First, you would discuss your project with a web developer or website designer. After this, the design itself had to be discussed and agreed upon. This involved spending time with a professional web site designer discussing areas of your website like the, colors, styles, graphic elements, content, etc.
Every page of your site then had to be individually created with all the elements and scripts coded into your content. All pages were then assembled together into a web site using hyperlinks and custom coded 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 after everything had been tested and was working how it was supposed to (and looking the way the client had imagined it to look), was the site deemed to have been finished and ready for sign off.
The next stage in the evolution of business website design was the introduction of “web templating elements”. Website templates allow design elements of the website to be created separately from content on the page. The introduction of ready-made templates helped speed up the process of developing web sites and resulted in reduced production costs. This also enabled web site developers to service businesses and clients with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of website development agencies adopting “template-based” web design services increased, web templates were developed to provide various customizable features and options, such as the ability to choose different colors, styles, layouts
As websites and web editor tools evolved, web templates also started evolving into website templating “systems” that allowed users to customize their site’s visual aspects.
And then, WordPress came along 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:
The WordPress Theme
A WordPress theme expands the concept of a web templating system one step further.
A WordPress theme controls and unifies the design elements of a website. It allows you to add a “skin” to your site much like a template system does but it also also provides users with more control over the management, presentation and customization of all template options.
As stated 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, one of the unique and revolutionary features of a WordPress theme is that the way your website displays to site visitors externally is managed independently of the way your website works in the backend to handle areas like content management and functionality.
Basically, what this means is that you can change the design of your website as much and as often as you want without touching your website’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if you have set up WordPress website for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the site. All e-commerce features, settings and product information will remain intact, but your site will look completely different.
Why is this such a big deal?
Because with WordPress, you no longer need to spend weeks or months waiting for your website design to be completed. You can get your website built quickly and get started with any WP theme you like, and customize the entire look, feel and design of your website in mere seconds, whenever you want … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WordPress site without requiring web code editing skills. Just pick a theme you like, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your entire site’s web design and customize elements like headers, layout, typography and more with just a few mouse clicks …
Because WordPress is made available as open source software, website designers anywhere in the world can design themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that loads of great WordPress themes are made available to WP users. WordPress are usually distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or sold as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress development team maintains a FREE directory of WordPress themes which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent themes completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now focused on creating themes for a wider audience of web users.
WP themes vary from professional-looking, to designs that are impressive and would normally cost thousands of dollars to create. Surprisingly, themes can be purchased fairly cheaply, especially when compared to what it would have cost you if a website designer had to build it from scratch.
You can view a number of WP theme galleries containing many examples of great premium themes in this post:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits And Advantages Of Using Themes
Here are just a few of the benefits of choosing WordPress themes over using web development tools that require traditional web template design:
Ready To Start Using In Very Little Time
WP themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the themes directory at WordPress.org) directly from within your WP dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a growing online community of professional theme developers who, collectively, contribute thousands of great-looking, high quality WordPress Themes available to WordPress users. Many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent “look and feel” across all the site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This allows you change the “look and feel” of your site as often as you like without disturbing your settings.
- Many WordPress themes provide built-in features and settings that enable you to customize the theme’s layout and design properties and create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many themes are built using a framework that enables you to upgrade the theme to newer versions without losing its unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, import and install WordPress Themes automatically from your site’s administration interface.
- Themes helps you save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on website design costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are typically very affordable.
Responsive WordPress Theme Design
Many WordPress theme designers are now creating “responsive” WordPress themes.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly across different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different platforms) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each device type. Users can navigate, read and load your site on most device platforms without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring the website owner to have installed additional display elements.
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 website displays well on your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards and practices of website design.
I hope that this post has provided you with a better overview of themes, what WP themes are, how themes help you save money, and how WP themes make customizing your web design easy.
In the next blog post in the article series on basic WP features, we show you where to find great WP themes for your blog.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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