Flexible website publishing tools like the WordPress CMS have truly improved web design and web development for web users.
This greatly benefits individuals or businesses planning to start a web presence that is easy to manage.
Prior to blogging and the development of advanced content management systems, if you needed a business web site, you would have to wait until both the web development and website design processes were fully completed. This process could mean waiting for many weeks, sometimes even months!
The development of WordPress themes have changed all this. In this article, we explain what themes are, how WordPress themes help you and your business save money, and how themes help you easily customize your website.
A Revolution In Web Design
Businesses will benefit from an evolution in website design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a small business, you will want to learn about this, because it can save your business a lot of time and money on web development and website design costs.
Let’s go over how things worked in “traditional” website development before solutions like WordPress came along:
First, you would meet with a website developer or designer for a brief. Then, the actual “web design” itself would be decided upon. This involved spending time and money with someone with web design skills going over areas of the site such as the layout, colors, styles, page elements, content, etc.
Every page of your site then had to be individually created with all of the elements and codes inserted into your page content. All the pages were then assembled 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, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything passed testing and worked the way it should (and looking how the client had wanted it to look), was the web site deemed as being finished and ready for delivery.
The next phase in the evolution of website design was the introduction of “website templating elements”. Website templates allow the presentation of the website to be created separately from the page content. The development of ready-made templates helped to make the process of site development faster and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also allowed web developers to service business clients and clients with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of web development firms choosing “template-based” web design services increased, templates started being introduced that provided clients with expanding customizable options, like colour palettes, the ability to select different styles and page layouts, etc …
As websites and web building tools evolved, web templates also started evolving into website template ”systems”, letting users control the visual components of a website.
And then, WordPress was developed and helped to kick off a new web 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 take web templating systems further.
A WP theme controls and integrates the design aspects of your web site. It allows you to add a “skin” to your entire site in a similar way that a website template system does but it also also gives you complete control over the management, appearance and ability to customize template features.
According to 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 stated above, a unique and revolutionary feature of a WP theme is that the way your website displays to site visitors is an entirely different thing from the way your website functions internally to handle areas like content management and functionality.
In simple terms, what this means is that a WP theme lets you change the design of your website as often as you want without modifying your website’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if you have configured WP site for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your web site. All e-commerce features, site and plugin settings and product information will remain unaffected, but your site will look completely different.
Why is this such a big deal?
Because with WordPress, you no longer have to wait until your website’s design is done. You can get your business website built quickly and get started with any WP theme you want, and then completely edit the look, feel and design of your site in a few seconds, whenever you choose … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site without having website code editing knowledge. Simply pick a WordPress theme you like, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your web design and customize elements like headers, page layout, style settings and more in minutes …
Since WordPress is open source software, website designers from all over the world can create themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WP template system.
This means that thousands of great WordPress themes can be downloaded by WP users. Themes are normally distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they can be purchased as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE theme directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of great WP themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org – WP Themes Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider range of uses.
WP themes range from minimal-looking, to clever designs that are stunning and would easily cost many hundreds of dollars to create. Surprisingly, WordPress themes are really inexpensive.
You can view a number of WP theme galleries that include stunning examples of great WordPress themes in this page:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Themes – Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of choosing WordPress themes over choosing website development applications that require traditional web template design:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
Themes are really easy to install on your site. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your administrator account 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 WP admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a large community of professional website designers who, collectively, contribute thousands of great-looking, high quality WP Themes available to WP users. Thousands of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent look across all of the site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This means you can swap themes as often as you like without affecting your content.
- Many themes provide additional features and options that allow you to customize the theme’s layout and design properties to create a unique look to suit your taste.
- Many WP themes are built using a framework that allows you to upgrade themes to a newer theme version without losing any customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically directly from within your admin panel.
- Themes allow WordPress users to save hundreds of dollars on web design costs. Free WordPress themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically very affordable.
Responsive WP Themes
Many theme designers are now creating “responsive” WordPress themes.
A responsive theme allows websites to automatically reconfigure the layout to display smoothly over different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. PCs, tablets, mobile phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for different types of devices. Users can navigate, read and load your site on all devices without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to install additional display elements.
Note: When downloading WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your website works on your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore should comply with the latest standards, practices and techniques of website design and web coding.
I hope that the above article has provided you with a good understanding of themes, what themes are, how themes help you save money, and how WP themes let you easily customize a website.
To learn where to search for great WordPress themes for your website or blog, click here:
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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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