The introduction of web site management systems like WordPress has effectively improved web design and web development for business owners.
This is great news for non-technical users that want to own a digital presence that they can manage themselves.
Before blogging and the introduction of advanced CMS tools, if you needed a website, you would have to wait until both the website development and web design processes were completely done. This process could take many weeks, sometimes even months!
WordPress themes changed all this. In this post, we explore what WP themes are, how they can help you save money, and how themes help you easily customize your site.
Web Site Design Revolution
More businesses are benefiting from a great change in web design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you are a small business owner, you may want to know about this, because it can save your business thousands of dollars on web development and website design costs.
Let’s review how things used to work in “traditional” web development before software like WordPress was introduced:
The first step would be to discuss your project with a web site development company or designer. Next, the “web design” itself would be decided upon. This required spending time and money with someone with website design skills going over things of your website like the, colors, styles, graphic elements, content, etc.
Each page of your web site then had to be individually created with all your elements and scripts coded around your content. All pages were then assembled together into a web site using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with all other files 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 was supposed to (and looking how the client had wanted it to look), was the site deemed as being completed and ready to go live.
The next stage in the evolution of web design was the introduction of “website templating elements”. A web template allows design elements of the website to be created separately from the page content. Having ready-made templates helped make the process of building web sites faster and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also enabled website development firms to expand their services to include small business clients with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more small businesses began choosing “template-based” web design services, templates were introduced that offered different custom options, like colour palettes, the ability to pick different formats and elements, and so on.
As web sites and website editing applications evolved, web templates also began evolving into web template ”systems”, letting website owners manage their site’s design elements.
And then, a “blogging” tool called WordPress came along and helped to kick off a new 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:
The WordPress Theme
WordPress themes push web template systems even further.
The WordPress theme system controls and integrates the design areas of the website. It lets you add a “skin” to your site much like a web template system does but also gives you complete control over the management, appearance 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 the above states, a unique and revolutionary feature of WordPress is that the way your website appears to visitors externally is managed separately from the management of your content.
In plain English terms, what this means is that a WP theme lets you change the look and feel of your website as much and as often as you want without affecting your site’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 your 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 with WordPress, you no longer have to wait until your website’s design is completed. You can get your business website built simply and get started with any WordPress theme you want, and customize the entire look, feel and design of your WordPress site in mere seconds, whenever you choose … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your WP site with no web code development skills required. Simply choose a WP theme you like, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your web design and modify elements like headers, page layout, typography and more with just a couple of mouse clicks …
Since WordPress is made available as open source software, web design companies can design themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that loads of great WP themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. WordPress are generally distributed for Free under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or sold as Premium (paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which allows WordPress users to access thousands of great WordPress themes at $0 cost …
(WordPress.org – WP Themes Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress increases, more designers are now focused on developing themes for a wider range of uses.
Themes vary from professional-looking, to artsy designs that are quite beautiful and would normally cost thousands of dollars to design. Surprisingly, most themes are really inexpensive.
You can see several theme galleries that include stunning examples of themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits Of Using WordPress Themes
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over choosing traditional website design:
Easy, Quick And Simple To Install
Themes are really easy to install on your site. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WordPress themes repository at WordPress.org) directly from within your WordPress site’s admin area.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a growing online community of commercial web designers and design companies who, collectively, make thousands of professional WordPress Themes available to users. Many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent design across all your blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your site’s content. This means you can replace the “look and feel” of your web site as often as you want without affecting the site information.
- Many WP themes provide built-in features and settings that let you customize the site’s layout, style and design elements to create a unique look to suit your preferences.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that lets users upgrade the theme to a newer theme version without losing its unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically inside the admin panel.
- WordPress themes helps you save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on web design costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are normally quite affordable.
About Responsive WordPress Theme Design
Many theme designers are now developing “responsive” WordPress themes.
A responsive theme allows a website to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly over different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different platforms) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for different platforms. Users can scroll, read and display a site on a range of device platforms without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to install additional browser tools.
Note: When downloading WordPress themes, we recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your web site works on all of your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore probably complies with the latest standards of web design and coding.
Hopefully, this overview has helped you gain a clearer understanding about WP themes, what themes are, how WordPress themes can help you save money on website development costs, and how themes make customizing websites easy.
In our next article on helping you understand features and functionality of WordPress, we show you where to search for the best WordPress themes for your website.
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"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
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