The introduction of powerful web management systems like the WordPress CMS has truly improved web design and web development for business owners.
This is great for entrepreneurial-minded people planning to build a digital presence that they can fully manage by themselves.
Before “blogging” and the introduction of easy-to-use CMS technologies, if you wanted a professional business web site, you typically had to wait until both the web development and web design processes were fully completed. This could mean waiting for weeks, even months!
The development of WordPress themes have changed all this. In this post, you will learn what themes are, how themes help your business save money, and how WP themes make it easy to customize your WP site.
Web Design Evolution
More website owners have benefited from a revolution in web design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a business, you will want to learn about this, because it can save you thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.
Let’s review how things typically worked in “traditional” web design before software like WordPress came along:
First, you would discuss your project with a web developer or designer. After this, the design itself would be decided upon. This required time and money being spent with a professional web designer going over things of the website such as the, colours, styles, visual elements, content, etc.
Each page of your site then had to be individually created with all of the design elements and scripts coded into the content. All the pages were then assembled into a website using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with every other file needed to make your website work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything passed testing and performed the way it was intended to (and looking the way a client had imagined it to look), was the site deemed to be completed and ready to go live.
Then, web design “templates” came along”. A web site template allows ”look and feel” elements of the web site to be created separately from content on the page. The introduction of templates helped to speed up the process of developing web sites and resulted in reduced production costs. This also allowed web designers to expand their services to include business clients with smaller budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of small businesses choosing “template-based” websites increased, templates started being introduced that provided clients with various customizable features, like the ability to choose different colours, styles, layouts
As web sites and web editing software developed, web templates also started transforming into web template ”systems”, which allowed users to manage their web site’s visual aspects.
Then, a “blogging” application called 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
WordPress themes drive the idea of a website template system one step further.
A WordPress theme controls the design aspects of a website. It allows you to add a “skin” over your site similarly to what a web template system does but also provides users with complete control over the management, presentation and customization aspects of all template settings.
As the official WordPress site described 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 feature of WordPress is that the way your site appears to visitors externally in no way affects the management of your content.
In plain English terms, what this means is that a theme lets you modify the design of your site as much and as often as you like without affecting your site’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if WordPress website has been configured for e-commerce, changing the entire look of the site with a different theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your site. All e-commerce features, settings and product information will remain intact, but your site will look completely different.
Why is this such a big deal?
Because when your website is powered with WordPress, you no longer need to spend weeks or months waiting for your website to be completed. You can get your website built quickly and start with any WordPress theme you like, and then customize the entire look, feel and design of your website in minutes, whenever you want … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site without having web design skills. Just pick any WordPress theme you want, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress lets you change your site’s design and customize elements like header images, page layout, style settings and more in a few seconds …
Since WordPress is distributed as open source software, hundreds of website design companies can design themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WP template system.
This means that thousands of great WordPress themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. Themes are normally distributed for Free under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or sold as Premium (paid) WP themes.
The WordPress development team maintains a FREE theme directory which allows WordPress users to download, access and install thousands of great WordPress themes at $0 cost …
(WordPress.org – Free Theme Directory)
As more users turn to WordPress for online publishing, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider range of uses.
Themes range from corporate-looking, to elegant designs that are simply breathtaking and could normally cost many hundreds of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, themes are fairly inexpensive.
You can view a number of theme galleries containing various examples of great themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WP Themes – Benefits And Advantages
Here are just a few of the benefits of choosing WordPress themes over using traditional web template design:
Ready To Go To Work In Very Little Time
WordPress themes are quite easy to install on your site. Simply upload a zip file that contains the plugin to your Plugins 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 within your WP admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a large community of commercial theme developers and development companies who make thousands of professional WP Themes available to WP users. Thousands of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent “look and feel” across all of your site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This allows you replace the “look and feel” of your website as often as you need without disturbing your underlying content.
- Many WordPress themes come with additional functionality and settings that let you customize the theme’s layout and design elements to create a unique look to suit your taste.
- Many WP themes are built using a framework that allows you to upgrade the theme to newer versions without losing its unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, import, install and update WordPress Themes automatically right inside the dashboard.
- Themes lets you save hundreds of dollars on web development costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically very affordable.
About Responsive Theme Design
Many theme designers are now developing themes that incorporate “responsive” functionality.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly across different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as different platforms) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each platform. Users can navigate, read and load a site on various devices without having to resize anything, 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 will work correctly across all 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 coding.
I hope that this post has provided you with a better understanding of WP themes, what themes are, how WP themes help you save money, and how WP themes make it easy to customize a web site.
To learn where to search for the best themes for your website, visit this post: Finding Great Premium And Free WordPress Themes Online.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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