Flexible website management applications like the WordPress CMS platform have effectively improved web design and web development for business owners.
This is terrific news for businesses planning to start or build a digital presence that is simple, easy and inexpensive to manage.
Before blogging and the introduction of powerful CMS solutions, if you needed a website, you would have to wait until both the web development and website design processes were completely done. This process could take many weeks, sometimes even months!
The introduction of WordPress themes helped change all this. In this post, you will learn what themes are, how they can help you save money on web development costs, and how WP themes allow you to easily customize your website.
Web Design Revolution
Businesses, especially small businesses, will benefit from a revolutionary change in web design that has been going for a number of years now. If you are a business owner, you may want to learn about this, because it could save your business thousands of dollars on web development or web design costs.
Let’s briefly go over how things typically worked in “traditional” website design before CMS solutions like WordPress were introduced:
The first step would be to discuss your requirements with a web site developer or website designer. Then, the actual “web design” itself had to be decided upon. This required spending time with a professional website designer discussing areas of the web site like the layout, colors, formats, visual elements, content, etc.
Every page of your web site then had to be hand-coded with all the elements and scripts coded into your page content. The pages were then assembled together into a website using hyperlinks and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with all other files needed to make your site work – script libraries, graphic images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and functioned how it was intended to (and looking how a client had wanted it to look), was the website deemed to be completed and ready to go live.
Then, website “templates” came along”. A website template allows the design of the web site to be created separately from content on the page. Having ready-made templates helped make the process of web site creation faster and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also allowed web site developers to work with smaller businesses and clients with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more small businesses began using “template-based” web design services, web templates started being created that could offer various custom options, like the option to choose different colours, styles, layouts
As web sites and web editor applications evolved, website templates also began evolving into web template ”systems”, letting website owners and website designers manage their website’s visual aspects.
And then, a “blogging” application called WordPress came along and helped to kick off 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 take website template systems even further.
The WP theme system controls every aspect of your web design. It lets you add a “skin” to your site much like a template system does but it also also provides users with more control over the management, appearance and ability to customize the site’s template settings.
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, one of the unique features of a WordPress theme is that how your website appears to visitors in no way affects how your content is managed.
In simple terms, what this means is that WordPress themes let you modify the design 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 configured your website for e-commerce, changing the entire look of the site with another theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the website. All e-commerce features, site settings and product information will remain unaffected, but the site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer need to spend weeks or months waiting for your website to be done. You can get your website built simply and get started with any theme you want, and completely edit the look, feel and design of your website in mere seconds, whenever you choose … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WordPress site with no website coding skills required. Just pick any WP theme you want, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your web design and modify elements like headers, page layout, styling options and more in minutes …
As WordPress is open source software, thousands of website design companies can create themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that loads of great WP themes are made available to WP users. WordPress are normally distributed for FREE under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress development team maintains a FREE directory of WP themes which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent WordPress themes completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As more users turn to WordPress for publishing and managing their digital presence, more designers are now focusing on creating themes for a wider audience of web users.
WP themes range from corporate-looking, to dynamic designs that are simply spectacular and would easily cost thousands of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, most WordPress themes can be bought quite inexpensively, especially when you compare the cost to what you would have had to pay if a web designer had to build it from scratch.
You can see several theme galleries containing various examples of great themes in this article:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Themes – Benefits And Advantages
Here are just a few of the benefits of choosing WordPress themes over using website building applications that require traditional web design:
Ready To Start Using In Very Little Time
WordPress themes are very easy to install on your site. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the free WP theme repository at WordPress.org) directly inside your WordPress site’s admin area.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a large community of professional web developers who, collectively, contribute thousands of fantastic WordPress Themes available to users. Thousands of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent “look and feel” across all of the site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your website’s content. This makes it possible to swap themes as often as you like without modifying your blog’s underlying content.
- Many themes provide additional functionality and options that allow you to customize the site’s style, layout and design properties and create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many themes are built using a framework that enables you to upgrade themes to newer versions without losing its unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically right inside your site’s administration interface.
- WordPress themes allow users to save hundreds of dollars on web development costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically quite affordable.
Responsive WordPress Theme Design
Many WP theme developers are now creating WordPress themes that incorporate “responsive” design standards.
A responsive theme allows a website to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly over different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. PCs, iPads, smart phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different platforms. Users can navigate, read and display a site on most if not all device browsers without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring the website owner to have installed additional themes.
Note: When searching for WordPress themes, we recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that the content and layout of your site will work correctly on your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards of web design.
Hopefully, this basic overview has helped you gain a better understanding of themes, what WordPress themes are, how themes can help you and your business save money on website development costs, and how themes allow you to easily customize your website.
In our next blog post in the article series on basic features and functionality of WordPress, we show you where to find the best themes for your blog.
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