The development of web management tools like the WordPress CMS platform has effectively improved web design and web development for anyone wanting to start a website.
This is great for individuals or businesses thinking of starting a website that is simple, easy and inexpensive to manage.
Before blogging and the introduction of powerful and effective CMS software, if you wanted a professional business website, you would have to wait until both the web development and website design processes were fully completed. This process could mean waiting for many weeks, even months!
The development of WordPress themes helped change all this. In this article, we take a look at what themes are, how themes save your business money on website development costs, and how WordPress themes help you easily customize your website.
Website Design Evolution
Businesses, especially small businesses, will benefit from a tremendous revolution in website design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a small business, you may want to know about this, because it can save you a lot of time and money on website development or web design costs.
Let’s briefly take a look at what happened before systems like WordPress were developed:
The first step would be to discuss your project with a website development firm or designer. Then, the actual “web design” would be discussed and agreed upon. This involved time and money being spent with a professional web designer going over things of your web site such as the layout, colours, formats, page elements, content, etc.
Every page of your site then had to be individually created with your elements and scripts coded into the content. All the pages were then assembled into a website using links and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with all other files required to make your site work – script libraries, images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything passed testing and worked how it was supposed to (and looking how a client had wanted it to look), was the site considered as being completed and ready for delivery.
Then, web design “templates” came along”. A web site template allows the design of the web site to be worked on separately from content on the page. The introduction of ready-made templates helped make creating web sites faster and resulted in reduced production costs. This also allowed web developers and designers to expand their services to include business clients with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of small businesses using “template-based” web design services increased, templates started being created to provide clients with expanding customization features, like the ability to switch colours, styles, layouts
As websites and website editor tools evolved, website templates also began to transform into web template “systems” that let website owners and website designers manage their site’s design components.
Then, a “blogging” software called WordPress came along and helped to kick off 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 drives the idea of a web templating system much further.
The WP theme system controls and integrates every aspect of your web site design. It allows you to add a “skin” to your site similarly to what a template system does but also gives you more control over the management, presentation and customization aspects of 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 states, one of the unique and revolutionary features of WordPress is that the way your website displays to visitors is kept independent of your site’s content management settings.
Basically, what this means is that a theme lets you modify the look and feel of your site as much and as often as you want without touching 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 the site. All e-commerce features, site and plugin settings and product information will remain intact, but your site will look completely different.
This is huge! Why?
Because when your site is built using WordPress, you no longer need to spend weeks or months waiting for your site to be done. You can get your business website built simply and start with any WordPress theme you like, and then completely customize the look, feel and design of your website in a few seconds, whenever you choose … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WP site with no web code development knowledge required. Simply choose a theme you want, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your web design and customize elements like headers, page layout, style settings and more in a few seconds …
As WordPress is distributed as open source software, professional website design companies from all over the world can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WordPress templating system.
This means that loads of high quality WP themes can be downloaded by WP users. Themes are usually distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE directory of WordPress themes which allows WordPress users to download, access and install thousands of excellent themes for free …
(WordPress.org – WP Theme Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now focused on developing themes for a wider range of users.
WP themes range from simple-looking, to creative designs that are quite stunning and could normally cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, most premium WP themes are very inexpensive to purchase.
You can see a number of WP theme galleries containing various examples of great themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits Of WordPress Themes
Here are just some of the many benefits of using WordPress themes over choosing applications that require traditional web design:
Fast And Easy Installation
WordPress themes are quite easy to install on your site. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your admin section and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the themes directory at WordPress.org) directly inside your WP dashboard.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a large community of commercial web designers who, collectively, contribute thousands of great WordPress Themes available to WP users. Many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent design across all your site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, layouts, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your website’s content. This makes it possible to replace the “look and feel” of your site as often as you need without modifying the content.
- Many themes provide additional functionality and settings that enable you to easily customize the theme’s style, layout and design properties and create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many themes are built using a framework that allows users to upgrade themes to newer versions without losing its unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, import, install and update WordPress Themes automatically inside the site’s administration interface.
- Themes helps you save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on website development costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are typically very inexpensive.
About Responsive Themes
Many WordPress theme designers are now creating “responsive” themes for WordPress.
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 platforms) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for each platform. Users can navigate, read and load a site on various device platforms without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to install additional display elements.
Note: When purchasing 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 across your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore should comply with the latest standards and practices of web design coding.
We hope this overview has given you a clearer understanding of themes, what themes are, how themes can help you and your business save money, and how WP themes make it easy to customize your WordPress site.
To learn where to search for the best WP themes for your blog, visit this post: Where To Get Great Paid And Free Responsive WordPress Themes For Your Business.
***
"Learning WordPress has been a huge stumbling block for me. I've been looking for something that covers absolutely everything but doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Thank you so much ... you have just provided me with what I have been looking for! Truly appreciated!" - Tanya
***