Powerful content management technologies like the WordPress CMS platform have effectively simplified web design and web development for anyone wanting to start a website.
This is great for individuals or businesses wanting to start a digital presence that they can manage.
Before blogging and the introduction of advanced CMS tools, if you wanted a professional business web site, you had to wait until both the web development and website design processes were fully completed. This could mean weeks, even months of waiting around!
The development of WordPress themes helped change all this. In this article, we explain what themes are, how WP themes can help your business save money, and how WP themes let you easily customize your site.
A New Development In Web Site Design
More businesses have been benefiting from a tremendous revolution in web design that has been going for several years now. If you own a small business, you may want to learn more about this, because it could save you thousands of dollars on website development or web design costs.
In a nutshell, here’s how things used to work in “traditional” web design before WordPress came along:
The first step would be to meet with a website developer or designer for a brief. After that, the design of the web site would be decided upon. This required spending time with a professional web designer going over areas of the web site such as the, colors, styles, graphic elements, content, etc.
Every page of your web site then had to be hand-coded with all of your design elements and scripts coded into the content. All the pages were then assembled into a web site using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with all other files needed to make your website work – script libraries, images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything had been tested and was performing the way it was supposed to (and looking the way the client had imagined it to look), was the site considered to have been finished and ready for sign off.
Then, website “templates” came along”. A web template allows design elements of the web site to be worked on separately from the page content. Having templates helped make developing web sites faster and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also enabled web development firms to expand their services to include business clients with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of web development companies adopting “template-based” web design services increased, templates were introduced that provided clients with various custom settings, such as color palettes, the ability to select different content styles, formats, elements, layouts, and so on.
As websites and web building applications evolved, website templates also started transforming into website template ”systems”, letting website owners and web developers customize their web site’s visual elements.
And then, WordPress came along and helped to start 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 drive web template systems much further.
A WordPress theme controls every aspect of your web site design. It allows you to add a “skin” over your entire site in a similar way that a web template system does but also gives you complete control over the management, presentation and ability to customize template settings.
As the official WordPress site described it …
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 feature of the WordPress theme is that how your website displays to site visitors on the outside is an entirely different system from the management of your content.
In simple terms, what this means is that a WordPress theme lets you change the design of your website as often as you want without modifying your site’s content and all the functionality you’ve built 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 your website. All e-commerce features, site and plugin settings and product information will remain unaffected, but your site will look completely different.
Why is this great for small business owners?
Because with WordPress, you no longer need to spend weeks or months waiting for your website to be completed. You can get your website built simply and get started with any theme you want, and edit the entire look, feel and design of your site in seconds, whenever you choose … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your site without needing web code editing skills. Just choose any theme you want, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your web design and modify elements like header images, page layout, style settings and more in minutes …
As WordPress is distributed as open source software, thousands of web designers can design themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WP template system.
This means that loads of great WP themes are made available to WordPress users. Themes are normally distributed freely under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or sold as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which allows WordPress users to access thousands of great web templates for free …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now starting to develop themes for a wider range of users.
WordPress themes vary from minimal-looking, to dynamic designs that are visually stunning and could typically cost hundreds to thousands of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, WP themes can be purchased very cheaply, especially when compared to what you would have been charged if a website designer had to create it from scratch.
You can see a number of WP theme galleries containing various examples of great premium WordPress themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Themes – Benefits & Advantages
Here are just a few of the benefits of choosing WordPress themes over choosing traditional web template design:
Very Easy To Install
WordPress themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload it to your Plugins 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 your WP admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a large online community of professional website designers and design companies who, collectively, contribute thousands of quality WordPress Themes available to users. Thousands of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent design across all of the blog’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your web site’s content. This makes it possible to change themes as often as you need without disturbing your site content.
- Many WP themes provide additional built-in features and settings that enable you to easily customize your site’s style, layout and design properties to create a unique look to suit your preferences.
- Many WP themes are built using a framework that enables you to upgrade themes to a newer theme version without losing its unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically inside your admin panel.
- WordPress themes allow users to save thousands of dollars on web design costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally quite inexpensive.
Responsive Themes
Many WordPress theme designers are now creating “responsive” WordPress themes.
A responsive theme allows a website to automatically reconfigure the layout to display smoothly over different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as across different devices (e.g. computers, iPads, smart phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each platform. Users can scroll, read and load the site on a range of device platforms without having to resize anything, or requiring the website owner to have installed additional browser tools.
Note: When purchasing WordPress themes, we strongly recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your website will work correctly across all devices, it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore probably complies with the latest standards and practices of web design coding.
I hope the above article has provided you with a good overview of WP themes, what themes are, how they can help you save money, and how WordPress themes allow you to easily customize your site.
In our next article on helping you understand features and functionality of WordPress, we show you where to find great themes for your website or blog.
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