Powerful web publishing systems like WordPress have effectively simplified web design and web development for web users.
This is a great thing for entrepreneurial-minded people wanting to start a website that they can easily manage by themselves.
Prior to blogging and the development of powerful and simple content management systems, if you needed to get a professional website built for your business, you typically had to wait until both the web development and web design processes were fully completed. This could mean weeks, even sometimes months of waiting!
The development of WordPress themes changed all this. In this post, we explain what WP themes are, how WP themes can help you save money, and how themes allow you to easily customize your website.
Web Site Design Evolution
More businesses will benefit from a revolution in web design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a business, you will want to know more about this, because it could save you thousands of dollars on website development and website design costs.
Let’s review what used to happen before WordPress came along:
The first step would be to discuss your requirements with a web development agency or designer. Then, the “web design” would be discussed and agreed upon. This involved time being spent with a professional web site designer discussing design elements of the site such as the, colors, formats, graphic elements, content, etc.
Each page of your website then had to be individually created with the design elements and codes scripted into the page content. All of the pages were then assembled together into a website using links and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with all other files required to make your website work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and performed how it was supposed to (and looking how the client had imagined it to look), was the web site considered to be finished and ready to go live.
The next phase in the evolution of business website design was the introduction of “website templating elements”. A web site template allows the presentation of the web site to be created separately from content on the page. Having ready-made templates helped to make the process of website development faster and resulted in reduced production costs. This also enabled web site development firms to work with smaller business clients with smaller budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more web development agencies began using “template-based” web design services, web templates were designed to offer a number of customizable features, like colour palettes, the ability to specify different content styles, formats, elements, page layouts, and so on.
As websites and website editor tools evolved, website templates also started to evolve into web templating ”systems”, letting users control the design elements of a site.
And then, a “blogging” software called WordPress was developed and helped to start a new business 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:
About WordPress Themes
WordPress themes drive website templating systems one step further.
A WP theme controls every aspect of your web site design. It lets you add a “skin” over your site much like a web template system does but it also also gives you more control over the management, appearance and ability to customize 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 quote states, one of the unique features of WordPress is that the way your web site displays to site visitors does not affect how your website functions in the backend to handle areas like content management and functionality.
Basically, what this means is that a WordPress theme lets you change the look and feel of your site as often as you want without affecting your website’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if you have set up your site 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 intact, but your site will look completely different.
Why is this really great for business owners?
Because with WordPress, you no longer need to wait until your site’s web design is completed. You can get your business website built simply and get started with any WP theme you like, and then completely modify the look, feel and design of your WordPress site in a few minutes, whenever you choose … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your WordPress site with no website code development skills necessary. Simply pick a theme you like, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your website design and modify elements like header images, layout, typography and more in less than a few minutes …
Because WordPress is made available as open source software, hundreds of website designers from all over the world can create themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that thousands of high quality WordPress themes are made available to WordPress users. Themes are normally distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they can be purchased as Premium (paid) WP themes.
The WordPress team maintains a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which allows WordPress users to download and access, thousands of great web templates completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – Theme Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now focusing on creating themes for a wider audience of WordPress site owners.
WordPress themes vary from functional-looking, to quirky designs that are simply breathtaking and could normally cost thousands of dollars to design. Surprisingly, WordPress themes can be purchased very inexpensively, especially when compared to what you would have been charged if a web designer had to code it from scratch.
You can see a number of WordPress theme galleries containing various examples of great premium themes in this article:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WordPress Themes – Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over using traditional web design:
Be Up And Running In Very Little Time
WordPress themes are quite easy to install on your site. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the free theme repository at WordPress.org) directly from your WP site’s admin area.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a large community of commercial theme designers and design companies who, collectively, make thousands of fantastic WordPress Themes available to WordPress users. Thousands of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent design across all the site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your blog’s content. This allows you change themes as often as you need without deleting your settings.
- Many WP themes provide additional features and options that let you easily customize the theme’s style and design properties and create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many WP themes are built using a framework that allows you to update themes to a newer theme version without losing its unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress lets you search, import, install and update WordPress Themes automatically within the site’s administration interface.
- Themes helps you save hundreds of dollars on web development costs. Free WordPress themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally very affordable.
Responsive Theme Design
Many WP theme designers are now developing “responsive” themes for the WordPress CMS platform.
A responsive theme allows a website to automatically reconfigure the layout to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. laptops, tablets, mobile phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for each device type. Users can scroll, read and load a site on most if not all devices without having to resize anything, or requiring the website owner to have installed additional themes.
Note: When downloading 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 your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore should comply with the latest standards of web design and coding.
I hope that the above article has helped you gain a clearer understanding of themes, what WP themes are, how they can help your business save money, and how themes let you easily customize a web site.
In our next article on basic WordPress features, we show you where to search for the best themes for your website.
***
"Your training is the best in the world! It is simple, yet detailed, direct, understandable, memorable, and complete." Andrea Adams, FinancialJourney.org
***