Advanced content management systems like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) have effectively simplified web design and web development for anyone wanting a website.
This is a great thing for business owners wanting to start a digital presence that is relatively easy to manage.
Prior to “blogging” and the development of powerful CMS tools, if you wanted to build a web site for your business, you would have to wait until both the web development and web design processes were fully completed. This process could mean waiting for many weeks, sometimes even many months!
WordPress themes helped change all this. In this blog post, you will learn what themes are, how themes help you save money on website development costs, and how themes let you easily customize your WP site.
A Revolution In Website Design
More website owners have benefited from a revolution in website design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a small business, you may want to learn about this, because it could save your business thousands of dollars on website development and web design costs.
Let’s take a look at what happened before WordPress were introduced:
The first step would be to discuss your project with a website developer or designer. After that, the design of the site itself would be discussed and agreed upon. This involved spending time and money with a professional web site designer discussing things of your web site like the layout, colours, styles, graphic elements, content, etc.
Each page of your web site then had to be hand-coded with your elements and scripts coded into the content. The pages were then assembled into a web site using links and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with all other files needed to make your website work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything passed testing and performed the way it was supposed to (and looking the way a client had imagined it to look), was the web site deemed to have been completed and ready to go live.
Then, website “templates” were developed”. A website template allows ”look and feel” elements of the web site to be worked on separately from the page content. The introduction of templates helped speed up the process of developing websites and resulted in reduced costs of production. This also allowed web development agencies to work with businesses and clients with less money to spend on marketing …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of small businesses using “template-based” web design services increased, templates started being developed that could offer different customization features, such as the option to choose different colours, styles, layouts
As websites and web editor tools developed, website templates also started to evolve into website template “systems” that allow website owners to control their website’s visual components.
And then, WordPress came along and helped to kick off a new online 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:
The WordPress Theme
WordPress themes expand website template systems further.
A WP theme controls the design elements of the web site. It allows you to add a “skin” over your site similarly to what a template system does but also gives you complete control over the management and ability to customize 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 stated in the quote above, one of the unique features of WordPress is that the way your website appears to site visitors externally in no way affects the management of your content.
In simple terms, what this means is that a WP theme lets you change the appearance of your website as much and as often as you like without modifying your website’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if WP website has been configured for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the web site. All e-commerce features, site settings and product information will remain intact, but your site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because when your website is built using WordPress, you no longer need to wait until your site’s web design is completed. You can get your business website built simply and get started with any theme you like, and modify the entire look, feel and design of your site in minutes, whenever you want … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site without needing any web code programming knowledge. Simply pick a WP theme you want, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your web design and customize elements like header images, page layout, typography and more in minutes …
Since WordPress is open source software, thousands of web design companies can design themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP template system.
This means that loads of high quality 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 (paid) themes.
The WordPress development team maintains a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which allows WordPress users to download, access and install thousands of excellent website templates at $0 cost …
(WordPress.org – Free Theme Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now focusing on creating themes for a wider audience of WordPress users.
WordPress themes vary from corporate-looking, to fancy designs that are breathtaking and would normally cost hundreds to many thousands of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, most premium WordPress themes can be bought fairly cheaply, especially when compared to what you would have been charged if a web designer had to create it from scratch.
You can view several theme galleries containing many examples of great premium WordPress themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits And Advantages Of Using Themes
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over choosing traditional website design:
Easy And Quick To Install
WP themes are really easy to install on your site. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin user login 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 admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a thriving community of professional theme developers who make thousands of professional WP Themes available to WordPress users. And many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent design across all of your blog’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your blog’s content. This allows you change WordPress themes as often as you like without modifying the site information.
- Many WordPress themes come with additional built-in functionality and options that let you customize the site’s style and design elements and create a unique look to suit your taste.
- Many WP themes are built using a framework that lets you upgrade the theme to newer versions without losing its unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically inside your site’s administration interface.
- WP themes helps you save hundreds of dollars on web design costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally very inexpensive.
Responsive Themes
Many theme designers are now creating themes that incorporate “responsive” web design.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly across different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different devices (e.g. laptops, iPads, mobile phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different platforms. Users can navigate, read and load the site on all devices without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring the website owner to have installed additional display elements.
Note: When purchasing WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that the content and layout of your site displays well on all of your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore should comply with the latest standards, practices and techniques of website design and coding.
We hope this overview has given you a better understanding about WordPress themes, what WP themes are, how themes help you and your business save money, and how WordPress themes make customizing your web design easy.
To learn where to search for great themes for your blog, click here:
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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