The development of flexible web site publishing systems like the WordPress CMS platform has truly improved web design and web development for anyone wanting a website.
This is terrific news for businesses thinking of building a web presence that they can fully manage.
Prior to blogging and the development of powerful and simple content management systems, if you needed to get a professional web site built for your business, you would have to wait until both the web development and web design processes were fully completed. This could mean waiting for weeks, sometimes even many months!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this post, you will learn what themes are, how themes help you and your business save money on web design costs, and how themes let you easily customize your site.
Web Site Design Revolution
Website owners will benefit from a tremendous revolution in web design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a small business, you may want to know about this, because it can save your business a lot of time and money on web development and web design costs.
In a nutshell, this is how things used to work in “traditional” web design before tool like WordPress was introduced:
The first step would be to meet with a web development company or website designer for a brief. After this, the actual ”look and feel” of the web site itself would be discussed and agreed upon. This involved time and money being spent with a professional web designer going over elements of the site like the, colors, formats, graphic elements, content, etc.
Every page of your website then had to be hand-coded with your design elements and scripts coded around the page content. All pages were then assembled together into a website using links and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with all other files needed to make your website work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything passed testing and performed how it was intended to (and looking how the client had imagined it to look), was the site considered to be completed and ready for delivery.
Then, web design “templates” were developed”. A web site template allows design elements of the website to be worked on separately from the page content. Having ready-made templates helped make site development faster and resulted in reduced costs of production. This also enabled web site developers to service business clients and clients with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more small businesses started using “template-based” websites, web templates started being developed that could provide clients with different customizable options, such as color palettes, the ability to pick different content styles or header, footer and navigation elements, and so on.
As websites and website editor software evolved, web templates also started transforming into web templating “systems” that permit users and web designers to manage the design elements of their website.
And then, WordPress came along and helped to kick off a new content management 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 pushes web templating systems one step further.
A WordPress theme controls and integrates the design areas of your website. It allows you to add a “skin” over your entire site much like a web template system does but it also also gives you more control over the management, appearance and ability to customize template options.
As the official WordPress site 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 above, one of the unique and revolutionary features of the WordPress theme is that how your website looks to visitors externally is a separate thing from the management of your content.
In plain English terms, what this means is that you can modify the look and feel of your site 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, changing the entire look of your site with a different theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the website. All e-commerce features, plugin 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 website’s design is done. You can get your website built quickly and get started with any WordPress theme you like, and then completely change the look, feel and design of your WordPress site in a few minutes, whenever you choose … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WP site with no website code programming skills required. Simply choose any WP theme you like, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your site’s design and modify elements like header images, layout, styling options and more with just a couple of mouse clicks …
Because WordPress is open source software, website designers can design themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WP template system.
This means that thousands of great WP themes are made available to WordPress users. WordPress are usually distributed for FREE under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or sold as Premium (i.e. paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE directory of WP themes which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent web templates at $0 cost …
(WordPress.org – Free WordPress Theme Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider audience of web users.
WordPress themes range from functional-looking, to stylish designs that are quite breathtaking and could typically cost many hundreds of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, most premium themes can be purchased quite cheaply, especially when you compare the cost to what it would have cost you if a web designer had to code it from scratch.
You can view a number of theme galleries that include many examples of great WordPress themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WordPress Themes – Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of choosing WordPress themes over choosing traditional web template design:
Be Up And Running In No Time
WP themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload a zip file that contains 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 WP themes directory at WordPress.org) directly from within your WP dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a growing community of professional web designers and design companies who make thousands of great-looking, high quality WP Themes available to users. Thousands of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent design across all of the site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, layouts, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This allows you change the “look and feel” of your web site as often as you like without changing your underlying content.
- Many themes come with built-in functionality and settings that allow you to easily customize the site’s style and design properties and create a unique look to suit your taste.
- Many WP themes are built using a framework that enables you to upgrade themes to newer theme versions without losing its unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, import, install and update WordPress Themes automatically inside the admin panel.
- Themes allow users to save hundreds of dollars on website development costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically quite inexpensive.
Responsive WP Theme Design
Many WP theme developers are now creating themes that incorporate “responsive” web design.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically resize to display smoothly over different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as across different platforms) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for different platforms. Users can navigate, read and load the site on various device platforms without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to install additional themes.
Note: When searching for WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your web 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 web design and web coding.
Hopefully, the above article has given you a clearer overview of WordPress themes, what WP themes are, how WP themes can help you and your business save money on web development costs, and how WordPress themes let you easily customize your WordPress site.
To learn where to search for the best WordPress themes for your website, see this page: Where To Search For Great Free And Premium WordPress Web Templates For Your Business.
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