The introduction of advanced website publishing systems like the WordPress CMS platform has truly simplified web design and web development for web users.
This is a great thing for business owners planning to start a website that is easy to manage.
Before blogging and the development of sophisticated content management systems, if you needed to build a professional website for your business, you would have to wait until both the website development and website design processes were fully completed. This could take many weeks, even many months!
WordPress themes changed all this. In this blog post, you will learn what WordPress themes are, how WP themes save you money on website design costs, and how themes make it easy to customize your website.
A New Development In Web Design
Businesses will benefit from a change in web design that started many years ago. If you own a small business, you may want to know about this, because it can save you thousands of dollars on web development or website design costs.
In a nutshell, this is what typically happened before applications like WordPress came along:
The first step would be to meet with a website developer or web site designer for a brief. After this, the ”look and feel” of your site had to be decided upon. This meant spending time and money with a professional website designer going over things of the website such as the, colors, formats, page elements, content, etc.
Each page of your web site then had to be hand-coded with your elements and scripts coded into the content. The pages were then assembled into a website using links and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with all other files required to make your website work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything passed testing and performed how it was supposed to (and looking how a client had imagined it to look), was the website considered to have been completed and ready for delivery.
The next step in the evolution of web design was the introduction of “website templates”. A web template allows ”look and feel” elements of the website to be created separately from content on the page. Having ready-made templates helped to speed up the website creation process and resulted in lowered production costs. This also enabled web site designers to work with business clients with less money to spend on marketing …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more small businesses started adopting “template-based” websites, web templates started being designed that provided a number of customization features and options, like the option to choose different colors, styles, layouts
As websites and website building tools evolved, web templates also began to evolve into web template “systems” that allowed users to control the design aspects of their web site.
And then, a “blogging” software called WordPress was introduced and helped to start 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:
The WordPress Theme
A WordPress theme drives the idea of a website template system even further.
The WordPress theme system controls and unifies all of the design areas of the web site. It allows you to add a “skin” over your site much like a website template system does but it also also provides users with more control over the management, presentation and customization aspects of template features.
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 stated above, one of the unique and revolutionary features of WordPress is that the way your site looks to visitors on the outside does not affect your site’s functional aspects (e.g. content management and functionality).
In simple terms, what this means is that you can modify the design of your website as much and as often as you like without touching your website’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if you have set up your website 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 unaffected, but the site will look completely different.
Why is this important?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer need to wait until your site’s web design is done. You can get your website built quickly and get started with any theme you like, and then completely customize the look, feel and design of your site in minutes, whenever you want … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site without needing any web design knowledge. Just pick any theme you like, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your website design and customize elements like headers, layout, styling options and more in a few seconds …
Since WordPress is open source software, website designers all around the world can design themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WordPress templating system.
This means that thousands of high quality WordPress themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. Themes are usually distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they can be purchased as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of great WP themes completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – Theme Directory)
As more businesses turn to WordPress for online publishing, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider audience of WordPress site owners.
Themes range from simple-looking, to designs that are simply beautiful and would normally cost hundreds to many thousands of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, themes can be bought very inexpensively, especially when compared to what it would have cost you if a website designer had to build it from scratch.
You can see several theme galleries containing various examples of WordPress themes in this post:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits & Advantages Of WP Themes
Here are just a few of the benefits of choosing WordPress themes over using website development tools that require traditional website design:
Be Up And Running In Very Little Time
WordPress themes are really easy to install on your site. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the themes directory at WordPress.org) directly from your WP dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a thriving online community of professional theme developers and development companies who contribute thousands of professional WordPress Themes available to users. Many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent look across all your site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, layouts, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your website’s content. This means you can replace themes as often as you like without disturbing your website’s information.
- Many themes come with built-in functionality and settings that allow you to customize your site’s layout, style and design properties and create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many themes are built using a framework that enables users to update themes to newer theme versions without losing any unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically directly from within your site’s administration interface.
- Themes lets you save hundreds of dollars on web development costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WordPress themes are typically quite affordable.
About Responsive Theme Design
Many WordPress theme designers are now creating WordPress themes that incorporate “responsive” web design.
A responsive theme allows a website to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly over different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as different platforms) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different types of devices. Users can scroll, read and load the site on most if not all device platforms without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to install additional browser tools.
Note: When searching for WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your website will work correctly on your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore probably complies with the latest standards, practices and techniques of web design.
Hopefully, this overview has helped you gain a clearer understanding of themes, what themes are, how they can help your business save money on web design costs, and how themes make customizing websites easy.
In our next blog post in the article series on helping you understand features and functionality of WordPress, we show you where to search for great themes for your blog.
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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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