The introduction of web management platforms like WordPress has truly improved web design and web development for website owners.
This is a great thing for businesses thinking of building a website that is simple and easy to manage.
Prior to “blogging” and the development of easy-to-use content management systems, if you needed a professional business website, you normally had to wait until both the web development and web design processes were fully completed. This process could take weeks, even months!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this post, we look at what WP themes are, how they save your business money on website development costs, and how themes let you easily customize your site.
A Revolution In Website Design
Businesses, especially small businesses, are benefiting from a revolution in web design that started a number of years ago. If you own a business, you will want to know more about this, because it can save you thousands of dollars on website development or web design costs.
Let’s take a look at how things worked in “traditional” website development before WordPress came along:
The first step would be to discuss your requirements with a web site developer or designer. Then, the actual design had to be discussed and agreed upon. This meant spending time with a professional website designer going over design elements of your site like the layout, colours, formats, page elements, content, etc.
Each page of your website then had to be hand-coded with all the design elements and codes written into the page content. The pages were then assembled 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 elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything passed testing and functioned how it should (and looking how the client had imagined it to look), was the site considered to be finished and ready for sign off.
The next phase in the evolution of business web design was the introduction of “web templates”. A web site template allows ”look and feel” elements of the website to be worked on separately from content on the page. Having templates helped make developing web sites faster and resulted in reduced costs of production. This also enabled web developers and designers to work with small businesses with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more small businesses started choosing “template-based” web design services, web templates started being developed to offer clients with various customization options, such as colour palettes, the ability to select different styles, formats, header, footer and navigation elements, page layouts, etc …
As websites and web editor software developed, website templates also started evolving into web template ”systems”, letting website owners customize the design components of a website.
Then, WordPress came along and helped to start 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:
WordPress Themes
A WordPress theme drives web templating systems even further.
The WordPress theme system controls every aspect of your site’s design. It allows you to add a “skin” over your entire site in a similar way that a web template system does but it provides you with complete control over the management, presentation and ability to customize template options.
As stated in 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 the above quote states, a unique and revolutionary feature of WordPress is that the way your web site looks to visitors externally is controlled separately from the management of your content.
Basically, what this means is that you can change the design of your website as often as you want without touching your site’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if WP site has been configured for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your website. All e-commerce features, settings and product information will remain intact, but the site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because when your site is powered by WordPress, you no longer have to wait until your site’s web design is done. You can get your website built simply and start with any WP theme you want, and then completely modify the look, feel and design of your site in a few minutes, whenever you choose … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WordPress site without requiring any website code editing skills. Simply choose any WordPress theme you like, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your site’s design and modify elements like headers, page layout, typography and more in a few seconds …
Since WordPress is open source software, hundreds 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 are made available to WP users. WordPress are normally distributed for Free under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or sold as Premium (paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE theme directory which allows WordPress users to download and access, thousands of great themes at $0 cost …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now focusing on creating themes for a wider audience of WordPress site owners.
Themes range from simple-looking, to artsy designs that are quite stunning and could typically cost thousands of dollars to create. Surprisingly, most premium WordPress themes can be bought quite cheaply, especially when compared to what it would have cost you if a website designer had to develop it from scratch.
You can view a number of theme galleries containing various examples of great premium WordPress themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WordPress Themes – Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits of choosing WordPress themes over choosing tools that require traditional web design:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
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 themes repository at WordPress.org) directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a thriving online community of commercial theme designers who, collectively, make thousands of fantastic WordPress Themes available to WP users. Many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent look across all of the site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, layouts, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your web site’s content. This allows you swap the “look and feel” of your site as often as you need without affecting the settings.
- Many themes come with additional features and settings that enable you to customize the theme’s style, layout and design properties and create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many themes are built using a framework that enables users to update the theme to newer versions without losing its unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, import and install WordPress Themes automatically directly from within the admin panel.
- Themes lets you save thousands of dollars on website design costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are normally quite inexpensive.
Responsive Theme Design
Many theme developers are now creating “responsive” WordPress themes.
A responsive theme allows websites to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly over different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. PCs, iPads, cell phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different platforms. Users can navigate, read and display a site on most device browsers without having to resize anything, 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 your web site will display correctly on your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore probably complies with the latest standards of web design and coding.
We hope that this post has given you a good understanding of themes, what themes are, how WP themes can help you and your business save money on web development costs, and how WP themes let you easily customize your WordPress site.
To learn where to find great WordPress themes for your blog, visit this page: How To Find Great Free And Paid Responsive WordPress Themes Online.
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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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