Powerful web site management technologies like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) have effectively improved web design and web development for business owners.
This is a great thing for individuals or businesses planning to run an online business presence that they can easily manage by themselves.
Prior to blogging and the development of advanced CMS solutions, if you needed to build a professional website for your business, you typically would have to wait until both the web development and web design processes were completely done. This process could take weeks, sometimes even months!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this article, you will learn what themes are, how WordPress themes save you and your business money on website design costs, and how WP themes allow you to easily customize your website.
Web Site Design Revolution
More website owners today are benefiting from a tremendous revolution in website design that started a number of years ago. If you own a small business, you will want to learn more about this, because it could save you a lot of time and money on web development and web design costs.
Let’s review how things used to work in “traditional” web development before WordPress was introduced:
First, you would meet with a web developer or website designer for a brief. Next, the actual “web design” would be decided upon. This required time and money being spent with someone with web design skills going over design elements of your website such as the, colors, formats, graphic elements, content, etc.
Every page of your site then had to be individually created with all your design elements and scripts coded into the page content. The pages were then assembled together into a web site using links and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with every other file needed to make your site work – script libraries, graphic images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and functioned how it was intended to (and looking the way the client had imagined it to look), was the site deemed as being finished and ready for delivery.
Then, website “templates” were introduced”. A web template allows the ”look and feel” of the web site to be worked on separately from content on the page. The development of templates helped to make the process of developing web sites faster and resulted in lowered production costs. This also enabled web designers to work with smaller businesses and clients with less money to spend on marketing …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of businesses adopting “template-based” websites increased, templates were created that could offer a number of custom options, such as color palettes, the ability to specify different formats and header, footer and navigation elements, etc …
As web sites and web editor software evolved, website templates also began transforming into web template “systems” that let users and website developers customize the visual aspects of a site.
And then, WordPress came along and helped to start 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:
WordPress Themes
A WordPress theme expands the concept of a website template system one step further.
The WordPress theme system controls all of the design areas of a web site. It allows you to add a “skin” over your entire site similarly to what a web template system does but also provides you with more control over the management and customization aspects of 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, a unique and revolutionary feature of WordPress is that the way your site looks to visitors externally is controlled separately from your site’s functional aspects (e.g. content management and functionality).
Basically, what this means is that you can modify the design of your website as often as you want without touching your website’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 the site with a different theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your website. All e-commerce features, settings and product information will remain unaffected, but your site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your website design to be completed. You can get your business website built simply and start with any theme you like, and change the entire look, feel and design of your website in mere minutes, whenever you decide … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your WordPress site with no website design skills necessary. Simply pick any WP theme you like, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your entire site’s web design and customize elements like headers, layout, style settings and more with just a few mouse clicks …
Since WordPress is open source software, thousands of website designers can design themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WP templating system.
This means that loads of high quality WP themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. Themes are usually distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they can be purchased as Premium (paid) WP themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE theme directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent themes completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider range of applications.
Themes vary from functional-looking, to designs that are quite spectacular and would normally cost thousands of dollars to design. Surprisingly, most WordPress themes are quite inexpensive to buy.
You can view several theme galleries that include stunning examples of great themes in this post:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits And Advantages Of WordPress Themes
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over choosing applications that require traditional website design:
WP Theme Installation Is Easy And Fast
WP themes are quite easy to install on your site. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin user section and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WordPress themes directory at WordPress.org) directly inside your WordPress site’s admin area.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a thriving online community of commercial website designers and design companies who make thousands of excellent WordPress Themes available to WordPress users. And many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent design across all your site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your blog’s content. This allows you replace themes as often as you like without disturbing the site’s settings.
- Many WordPress themes provide additional features and settings that let you easily customize the theme’s layout, style and design elements and create a unique look to suit your taste.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that allows users to upgrade the theme to newer theme versions without losing any customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically directly from your dashboard.
- WP themes helps you save hundreds of dollars on web design costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are normally very inexpensive.
Responsive WP Themes
Many theme developers are now developing WordPress themes that incorporate “responsive” design.
A responsive theme allows websites to automatically resize to display smoothly across different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different devices (e.g. PCs, iPads, cell phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each platform. Users can navigate, read and load the site on most device browsers without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring the website owner to install additional display elements.
Note: When selecting, WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that the content and layout of your site will display correctly across your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards of website design coding.
We hope that the above article has given you a good overview of themes, what themes are, how WordPress themes can help you and your business save money on web design costs, and how themes make customizing sites easy.
To learn where to find great themes for your website or blog, go here:
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