Flexible web site publishing applications like WordPress have effectively simplified web design and web development for non-technical website owners.
This greatly benefits individuals or businesses planning on getting a website that they can easily manage themselves.
Before “blogging” and the development of easy-to-use content management systems, if you wanted to get a site built for your business, you would have to wait until both the web development and web design processes were fully completed. This process could take weeks, sometimes even months!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this post, we look at what themes are, how WP themes help you save money, and how themes allow you to easily customize your site.
Web Design Revolution
Businesses, especially small businesses, are benefiting from an evolution in website design that has been going for a number of years now. If you are a business owner, you will want to learn about this, because it can save you thousands of dollars on web development or web design costs.
In a nutshell, this is what used to happen before applications like WordPress came along:
The first step would be to discuss your project with a website development agency or designer. Then, the actual “web design” itself had to be decided upon. This meant spending time with a professional web designer discussing elements of the website like the layout, colours, styles, visual elements, content, etc.
Every page of your web site then had to be hand-coded with all your elements and scripts coded into your content. All the pages were then assembled together into a web site using links and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with all other files needed to make your site work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and functioned how it should (and looking the way the client had wanted it to look), was the site considered as being finished and ready to go live.
Then, web design “templates” came along”. A website template allows presentation elements of the website to be created separately from the page content. The introduction of ready-made templates helped make the process of web site development faster and resulted in reduced costs of production. This also enabled web site developers and designers to expand their services to include small business clients and clients with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more businesses started adopting “template-based” web design services, templates started being created that could offer a range of customizable options, such as the option to choose different colours, styles, layouts
As websites and web building tools developed, web templates also started to evolve into web template ”systems”, allowing website owners to manage their site’s visual elements.
And then, a “blogging” application called WordPress was introduced and helped to start a new digital 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:
About WordPress Themes
WordPress themes push the concept of a website template system further.
A WP theme controls the design elements of a website. It allows you to add a “skin” to your entire site in a similar way that a web template system does but it also also gives you complete control over the management, presentation and customization of all template features.
As the official WordPress site states …
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 feature of the WordPress theme is that the way your website displays to site visitors is a completely different thing from the management of your content.
In simple terms, what this means is that you can modify the appearance of your site as often as you want without touching your site’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if WordPress site has been set up for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your web site. All e-commerce features, settings and product information will remain unaffected, but the site will look completely different.
Why is this such a big deal?
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 simply and get started with any theme you want, and edit the entire look, feel and design of your WordPress site in a few seconds, whenever you want … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WordPress site without having website code programming skills. Just choose a theme you want, install it on your site and activate it. WordPress lets you change your site’s design and customize elements like header images, layout, styling options and more in minutes …
Since WordPress is made available as open source software, professional website design companies can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that loads of great WordPress themes are made available to WP users. Themes are normally distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (paid) WP themes.
The WordPress development team maintains a FREE directory of WP themes which allows WordPress users to download and access, thousands of excellent WP themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org – Free WP Theme Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now focusing on creating themes for a wider range of uses.
WP themes range from simple-looking, to designs that are visually impressive and could normally cost hundreds to many thousands of dollars to design. Surprisingly, most premium themes can be purchased very cheaply, especially when compared to what you would have been charged if a web designer had to create it from scratch.
You can see a number of WordPress theme galleries that include many examples of themes in this post:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Themes – Benefits & Advantages
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over using traditional website design:
Really Easy To Install
Themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload a zip file that contains the plugin to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WP themes repository at WordPress.org) directly from your WordPress admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a large community of professional theme developers and development companies who, collectively, contribute thousands of excellent WordPress Themes available to users. Many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent design across all the site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your website’s content. This means you can replace WP themes as often as you want without modifying the underlying content of your blog.
- Many themes come with built-in features and options that let you customize your site’s style, layout and design elements to create a unique look to suit your preferences.
- Many themes are built using a framework that enables you to update the theme to newer theme versions without losing any unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically directly from within the dashboard.
- WP themes helps you save hundreds of dollars on website development costs. Free WordPress themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally very affordable.
About Responsive WP Themes
Many theme developers are now developing WP themes that incorporate “responsive” web design.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly over different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as across different devices (e.g. PCs, iPads, mobile phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for different types of devices. Users can scroll, read and display a site on all devices without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to install additional themes.
Note: When purchasing WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your web site works across all of your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards and practices of website design and coding.
I hope that this post has given you a better overview of WP themes, what themes are, how WP themes help you save money on web design costs, and how WP themes make customizing web sites easy.
In our next article in our article series on helping you understand WordPress features, we show you where to find the best WP themes for your blog.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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