Flexible content management applications like the WordPress CMS have truly simplified web design and web development for business users.
This greatly benefits individuals or businesses that want a website that they can manage themselves.
Before “blogging” and the development of user-friendly content management systems, if you needed to get a professional site for your business, you typically had to wait until both the web development and website design processes were completely done. This could take weeks, sometimes even months!
The introduction of WordPress themes changed all this. In this post, you will learn what themes are, how WordPress themes can help your business save money on web design costs, and how WordPress themes help you easily customize your WP site.
A Revolution In Web Design
Businesses are benefiting from a revolutionary change in website design that started many years ago. 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 web design costs.
Let’s review how things typically worked in “traditional” website development before a CMS application like WordPress was introduced:
First, you would discuss your project with a web developer or designer. Next, the design of the website itself would be discussed and agreed upon. This required time and money being spent with someone with web design skills discussing areas of your web site such as the, colors, formats, visual elements, content, etc.
Each page of your site then had to be individually created with all your design elements and codes scripted into your content. All of the 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 site work – script libraries, images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and functioned how it was supposed to (and looking how a client had imagined it to look), was the site deemed as being finished and ready to go live.
Then, web design “templates” came along”. A web site template allows design elements of the web site to be worked on separately from content on the page. Having template elements helped to speed up the process of developing web sites and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also enabled website developers to service business clients with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of web site development companies choosing “template-based” websites increased, web templates were developed to provide a number of customization features, like colour palettes, the ability to pick different formats and layouts, etc …
As web sites and web editor tools developed, web templates also began transforming into web template “systems” that let users customize the visual elements of their website.
Then, a “blogging” application called WordPress came along and helped to kick off a new digital 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:
About WordPress Themes
A WordPress theme expands website template systems one step further.
A WP theme controls every aspect of your website design. It lets you add a “skin” over your site much like a web template system does but also gives you complete control over the management and customization of your template settings.
As WordPress states in its official web 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 a WP theme is that how your web site appears to visitors on the outside is controlled separately from the way your content is managed.
In plain English terms, what this means is that themes let you modify the look and feel of your website as often as you want without modifying your website’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if you have set up WordPress website for e-commerce, changing the entire look of your site with another theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your website. All e-commerce features, site settings and product information will remain unaffected, but the site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer have to wait until your site’s web design is done. You can get your website built quickly and get started with any WP theme you want, and then completely change the look, feel and design of your website in mere minutes, whenever you decide … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your WordPress site with no web code programming knowledge necessary. Simply pick any theme you like, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your site’s design and modify elements like header images, layout, style settings and more in a few seconds …
Because WordPress is made available as open source software, professional website design companies can create themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WordPress templating system.
This means that thousands of great WP themes are made available to WordPress users. WP are generally distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or sold as Premium (i.e. paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress development team maintains a FREE directory of WP themes which allows WordPress users to access thousands of excellent WordPress themes completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – WordPress Themes Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress increases, more designers are now starting to develop themes for a wider range of uses.
Themes range from minimal-looking, to fancy designs that are quite beautiful and would typically cost thousands of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, themes can be purchased quite cheaply, especially when you compare the price to what it would have cost you if a website designer had to build it from scratch.
You can view several WordPress theme galleries that include various examples of great WordPress themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Themes – Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using WordPress themes over choosing web development applications that require traditional website design:
Ready To Use In Minutes
Themes are really easy to install on your site. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WP administrator account and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WordPress theme directory at WordPress.org) directly inside your WP site’s admin area.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a large community of professional website designers who contribute thousands of professional WordPress Themes available to WP users. Many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent design across all of the site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your site’s content. This allows you swap the “look and feel” of your website as often as you need without disturbing your content.
- Many themes provide additional features and settings that let you customize the theme’s layout, style and design properties and create a unique look to suit your preferences.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that enables users to upgrade the theme to newer theme versions without losing any customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically within the admin panel.
- WordPress themes allow WP users to save hundreds of dollars on web development costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically quite inexpensive.
Responsive Theme Design
Many theme developers are now creating “responsive” themes.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as across different platforms) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different platforms. Users can navigate, read and display the site on a range of devices without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring the website owner to have installed additional display elements.
Note: When downloading WordPress themes, we recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your web site will display correctly across all of your visitors’ devices, but 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 and coding.
I hope that this post has provided you with a good overview of WordPress themes, what themes are, how themes help you save money, and how WP themes make customizing your web design easy.
To learn where to search for great themes for your website, go here:
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