Flexible website management tools like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) have truly improved web design and web development for web users.
This is a great thing for non-technical users planning to start a website that is relatively easy to manage.
Prior to “blogging” and the introduction of sophisticated CMS applications, if you needed to build a site built for your business, you had to wait until both the website development and web design processes were completely done. This could take weeks, even months!
The introduction of WordPress themes have changed all this. In this post, you will learn what WordPress themes are, how WP themes save you and your business money on website development costs, and how WordPress themes help you easily customize your website.
A Revolution In Web Design
More website owners will benefit from a revolutionary change in website design that started many years ago. If you are a business owner, you may want to learn more about this, because it can save you thousands of dollars on web development or web design costs.
Let’s briefly go over how things worked in “traditional” website development before CMS solutions like WordPress were introduced:
The first step would be to meet with a web development company or designer for a brief. Next, the “web design” had to be discussed and agreed upon. This required spending time with a professional website designer going over areas of the web site such as the layout, colours, formats, page elements, content, etc.
Each page of your site then had to be individually created with the elements and scripts coded into your page content. All of the pages were then assembled into a website 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, graphic images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything had been tested and was working how it was supposed to (and looking the way a client had wanted it to look), was the website considered to be finished and ready for sign off.
Then, website “templates” came along”. A web template allows ”look and feel” elements of the website to be worked on separately from the page content. Having ready-made templates helped make developing web sites faster and resulted in reduced costs of production. This also enabled web developers and designers to work with smaller businesses with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of businesses using “template-based” websites increased, templates were developed that could provide various custom options, like color palettes, the ability to select different styles, formats, header, footer and navigation elements, page layouts, etc …
As websites and website editing software evolved, website templates also began transforming into web templating “systems” that allow website owners to control the visual elements of a 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
WordPress themes improve the concept of a web templating system much further.
The WP theme system controls every aspect of your site’s design. It lets you add a “skin” over your entire site in a similar way that a web template system does but it gives you complete control over the management, presentation and customization aspects of all template options.
As WordPress puts 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 the above states, a unique feature of WordPress is that the way your web site displays to site visitors does not affect the management of your content.
In simple terms, what this means is that themes let you modify the appearance of your website as much and as often as you want without affecting your site’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if you have configured WordPress site for e-commerce, changing the entire look of your site with another theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the site. All e-commerce features, plugin settings and product information will remain intact, but the site will look completely different.
This is huge! Why?
Because when your site is built using WordPress, you no longer have to wait until your website’s design is done. You can get your website built simply and get started with any WP theme you want, and modify the entire look, feel and design of your WordPress site in mere minutes, whenever you want … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WP site without requiring any web code programming knowledge. Just choose any WordPress theme you want, install it on your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your web design and customize elements like header images, layout, style settings and more with just a few mouse clicks …
Because WordPress is distributed as open source software, website design companies can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WordPress templating system.
This means that loads of high quality WordPress themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. Themes are generally distributed for Free under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they can be purchased as Premium (i.e. paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent WordPress themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As more businesses turn to WordPress for publishing and managing their content online, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider range of uses.
Themes vary from simple-looking, to designs that are visually impressive and would normally cost thousands of dollars to create. Surprisingly, most premium WordPress themes can be bought quite cheaply, especially when compared to what you would have been charged if a web designer had to code it from scratch.
You can view several theme galleries that include various examples of great premium themes in this post:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits And Advantages Of Using WordPress Themes
Here are just some of the benefits of using WordPress themes over using traditional web template design:
Fast And Easy Installation
Themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the free WordPress theme repository at WordPress.org) directly from your WP dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a thriving community of professional theme developers who make thousands of quality WordPress Themes available to users. And many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent look across all of your blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your site’s content. This means you can change themes as often as you need without deleting your website’s data.
- Many themes provide built-in features and options that allow you to customize your theme’s layout and design elements and create a unique look to suit your preferences.
- Many WordPress 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, import and install WordPress Themes automatically within your dashboard.
- Themes helps you save hundreds of dollars on website development costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally quite affordable.
About Responsive WordPress Theme Design
Many theme designers are now developing “responsive” themes.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically reconfigure the layout to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. laptops, tablets, smart phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different platforms. Users can scroll, read and load a site on various device browsers without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring the website owner to install additional themes.
Note: When searching for WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your web site works across all devices, it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore probably complies with the latest standards of web design coding.
We hope that the above overview has helped you gain a clearer understanding of themes, what themes are, how they can help you save money on website development costs, and how themes make customizing your web design easy.
To learn where to search for the best WordPress themes for your blog, go here:
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
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