The introduction of content publishing platforms like the WordPress CMS has effectively simplified web design and web development for website owners.
This greatly benefits entrepreneurial-minded people thinking of building a website that they can manage.
Prior to blogging and the introduction of powerful CMS software, if you needed a business site, you normally had to wait until both the website development and web design processes were fully completed. This process could take weeks, sometimes even months!
WordPress themes helped change all this. In this article, we look at what WordPress themes are, how they can help you and your business save money, and how themes make it easy to customize your WP site.
Evolution In Web Site Design
More businesses have benefited from an evolution in web design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a small business, you may want to know about this, because it could save you a lot of time and money on web development and website design costs.
Let’s review how things used to work in “traditional” website development before a CMS application like WordPress was introduced:
The first step would be to discuss your requirements with a web site development firm or designer. After this, the actual “web design” would be discussed and agreed upon. This involved time and money being spent with a professional web site designer going over elements of your website such as the layout, colors, styles, page elements, content, etc.
Every page of your web site then had to be individually created with all your elements and scripts coded into the content. All pages were then assembled into a website using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with all other files needed to make your website work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything passed testing and worked how it was intended to (and looking how a client had wanted it to look), was the web site considered to be finished and ready to go live.
The next phase in the evolution of website design was the introduction of “web templates”. A web template allows design elements of the website to be created separately from content on the page. The introduction of ready-made templates helped make the process of website creation faster and resulted in reduced costs of production. This also enabled website development companies to work with smaller business clients with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more small businesses began using “template-based” web design services, templates were developed that could offer a range of customizable settings, like color palettes, the ability to pick different styles, formats, elements, layouts, etc …
As web sites and web editing tools developed, web templates also began to evolve into web template “systems” that let website owners customize the design aspects of a website.
And then, 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:
The WordPress Theme
A WordPress theme takes website template systems one step further.
A WordPress theme controls and integrates every aspect of your site’s design. It allows you to add a “skin” to your site much like a website template system does but it also also provides you with more control over the management and ability to customize all template options.
As WordPress has stated in its website …
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 states, a unique and revolutionary feature of a WordPress theme is that the way your site looks to visitors on the outside does not affect your site’s functionality and content management.
In simple terms, what this means is that a theme lets you modify the look and feel of your site as much and as often as you like without modifying your website’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if you have set up your website for e-commerce, changing the entire look of the site with another 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.
This is important. Why?
Because when your website is powered by WordPress, you no longer have to wait until your site’s web design is done. You can get your business website built simply and start with any WordPress theme you want, and completely customize the look, feel and design of your website in a few minutes, whenever you choose … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site with no web design skills necessary. Just pick a WP theme you want, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress lets you change your web design and modify elements like headers, layout, styling options and more with just a couple of mouse clicks …
Since WordPress is distributed as open source software, website design companies all around the world can create themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WP templating system.
This means that loads of great WP themes are made available to WP users. WordPress are normally distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or sold as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress team maintains a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of great WordPress themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org – Free WP Theme Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress soars, more designers are now starting to develop themes for a wider audience of WordPress site owners.
Themes range from functional-looking, to dynamic designs that are quite impressive and would normally cost hundreds to thousands of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, most WordPress themes can be purchased fairly cheaply, especially when compared to what it would have cost you if a website designer had to create it from scratch.
You can view a number of theme galleries that include many examples of themes in this article:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Themes – Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over choosing traditional website design:
WordPress Theme Installation Is Easy, Simple And Fast
Themes are really easy to install on your site. Just upload a zip folder that contains the plugin to your Plugins folder via your WP admin user account and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the theme repository at WordPress.org) directly inside your WordPress dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a large community of professional website developers who make thousands of quality WP Themes available to users. Thousands of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent look across all the site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your website’s content. This means you can swap themes as often as you want without affecting the underlying content of your blog.
- Many WP themes provide built-in features and options that enable you to customize the site’s layout, style and design elements and create a unique look to suit your preferences.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that lets users update the theme to newer versions without losing its unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress lets you search, import, install and update WordPress Themes automatically directly from within the site’s administration interface.
- WordPress themes lets you save thousands of dollars on web design costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are typically very affordable.
Responsive WordPress Theme Design
Many WordPress theme designers are now creating “responsive” themes for WordPress.
A responsive theme allows a website to automatically reconfigure the layout to display smoothly across different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different platforms) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for different platforms. Users can navigate, read and load your site on most if not all devices without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to have installed additional browser elements.
Note: When downloading WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your website displays well 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, practices and techniques of web design and web coding.
I hope that this article has given you a better understanding of WordPress themes, what themes are, how themes can help you and your business save money, and how themes let you easily customize a website.
In our next article in our article WP beginners on understanding basic features and functionality of WordPress, we show you where to search for great themes for your blog.
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