Powerful web management applications like the WordPress CMS have truly simplified web design and web development for anyone wanting a website.
This greatly benefits businesses planning on getting an online presence that they can easily manage themselves.
Prior to “blogging” and the development of user-friendly CMS technologies, if you needed to build a website built for your business, you normally would have to wait until both the website development and web design processes were fully completed. This process could mean waiting around for weeks, even many months!
The introduction of WordPress themes have changed all this. In this blog post, we explore what themes are, how themes help you and your business save money on web design costs, and how themes make it easy to customize your website.
Web Site Design Revolution
More website owners today are benefiting from a revolution in website design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a business, you may want to know more about this, because it can save your business a lot of time and money on website development or web design costs.
Let’s briefly take a look at what used to happen before solutions like WordPress were developed:
First, you would meet with a website developer or designer for a brief. After that, the actual design of the website itself would be discussed and agreed upon. This involved spending time with a professional web designer going over areas of the website such as the layout, colors, styles, graphic elements, content, etc.
Each page of your site then had to be hand-coded with all of your design elements and codes scripted into the content. The pages were then assembled into a web site using links and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with all other files required to make your site work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything passed testing and was performing the way it was intended to (and looking how the client had wanted it to look), was the website deemed as being completed and ready for delivery.
Then, website “templates” were developed”. A web site template allows the presentation of the website to be created separately from the page content. Having templates helped speed up the web site creation process and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also allowed web developers and designers to expand their services to include smaller business clients with smaller budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more small businesses started adopting “template-based” websites, templates started being created to offer a number of customizable features, like the option to choose different colors, styles, layouts
As websites and website editing applications developed, web templates also started to transform into web templating ”systems”, letting website owners and website designers control the visual aspects of a site.
And then, WordPress came along and helped to kick off 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:
About WordPress Themes
WordPress themes improve the concept of a web templating system much further.
The WP theme system controls the design areas of the website. It lets you add a “skin” over your site much like a website template system does but it also also provides you with complete control over the management, appearance and customization of all template settings.
According to 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 above, a unique feature of a WordPress theme is that how your site looks to site visitors on the outside does not affect the way your website is configured in the backend to handle areas like content management and functionality.
Basically, what this means is that you can modify the design of your website as much and as often as you like without modifying your site’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if your site has been set up for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your site. All e-commerce features, settings and product information will remain unaffected, but your site will look completely different.
Why is this such a big deal?
Because with WordPress, you no longer have to wait until your website’s design is done. You can get your website built simply and start with any theme you like, and modify the entire look, feel and design of your site in mere seconds, whenever you decide … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your WordPress site without needing web design skills. Simply choose any theme you like, install it on your site and activate it. WordPress lets you change your entire site’s web design and modify elements like header images, layout, typography and more with just a few mouse clicks …
Because WordPress is made available as open source software, thousands of website designers can design themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WP template system.
This means that loads of great WP themes are made available to WP users. WP are usually distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (i.e. paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which allows WordPress users to download and access, thousands of excellent themes completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – Free WordPress Theme Directory)
As more users turn to WordPress for publishing and managing their digital presence, more designers are now starting to develop themes for a wider audience of web users.
Themes range from bare-looking, to designs that are breathtaking and could normally cost hundreds to many thousands of dollars to design. Surprisingly, WordPress themes are really inexpensive to buy.
You can see a number of theme galleries that include many examples of great premium themes in this page:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits Of WP Themes
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of choosing WordPress themes over using traditional website design:
Easy And Quick To Install
WP themes are really easy to install on your site. Simply upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WordPress theme directory at WordPress.org) directly inside your WordPress dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a growing online community of commercial website designers and design companies who contribute thousands of professional WordPress Themes available to WordPress users. Thousands of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent “look and feel” across all the blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your website’s content. This makes it possible to replace WP themes as often as you like without disturbing the blog content.
- Many WP themes come with additional functionality and settings that enable you to customize your site’s layout, style and design properties and create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that allows you to upgrade themes to newer versions without losing its unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically inside the admin panel.
- WP themes allow WP users to save thousands of dollars on website design costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WordPress themes are typically quite affordable.
Responsive Theme Design
Many theme developers are now developing themes that incorporate “responsive” functionality.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly over different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different platforms) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different platforms. Users can scroll, read and load your site on a range of devices without having to resize anything, or requiring the website owner to install additional themes.
Note: When downloading WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your web site will display correctly on all devices, it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore should comply with the latest standards and practices of website design and coding.
I hope that this basic overview has given you a better understanding of themes, what themes are, how they help you and your business save money on web development costs, and how WP themes make customizing websites easy.
To learn where to find great WP themes for your website, visit this page: How To Find Great Free And Paid Responsive WordPress Themes On The Net.
***
"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
***