Powerful content publishing tools like the WordPress CMS platform have effectively improved web design and web development for users.
This greatly benefits individuals or businesses planning to build a website that is simple and easy to manage.
Before “blogging” and the introduction of user-friendly content management systems, if you needed to build a professional website for your business, you had to wait until both the web development and website design processes were completely done. This process could mean waiting for many weeks, even many months!
The introduction of WordPress themes have changed all this. In this post, you will learn what WP themes are, how themes can help you and your business save money, and how themes allow you to easily customize your website.
A Revolution In Web Site Design
Website owners are benefiting from an evolution in website design that has been going for many years now. If you are a small business owner, you may want to know about this, because it could save you thousands of dollars on web development or web design costs.
Very briefly, this is how things worked in “traditional” web design before software like WordPress was developed:
First, you would discuss your requirements with a web development firm or designer. After that, the actual design had to be decided upon. This involved time and money being spent with someone with web design skills discussing design elements of the site like the layout, colours, styles, graphic elements, content, etc.
Every page of your website then had to be individually created with all the design elements and codes scripted into your page content. All pages were then assembled into a web site using hyperlinks 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 once everything passed testing and performed the way it should (and looking the way the client had wanted it to look), was the web site deemed to be completed and ready for sign off.
The next stage in the evolution of website design was the introduction of “website templating elements”. A web site template allows the ”look and feel” of the website to be worked on separately from content on the page. Having templates helped to speed up the website creation process and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also enabled web developers and designers to work with businesses and clients with less money to spend on marketing …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more web site development agencies began choosing “template-based” websites, web templates were created to offer clients with different customizable features, such as color palettes, the ability to pick different content styles, formats, elements, layouts, and so on.
As websites and web editing applications developed, website templates also started to transform into website templating “systems” that let website owners control their web site’s visual components.
And then, a “blogging” tool called WordPress was introduced 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:
The WordPress Theme
A WordPress theme expands web template systems much further.
The WordPress theme system controls every aspect of your web design. It allows you to add a “skin” over your entire site similarly to what a web template system does but also gives you more control over the management, appearance and ability to customize template settings.
As WordPress has explained in its official 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, a unique feature of a WordPress theme is that the way your web site appears to visitors on the outside does not affect how your site is configured in the backend to handle areas like content management and functionality.
In plain English terms, what this means is that you can change the appearance of your site as often as you like without modifying your website’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if you have set up your website for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your website. All e-commerce features, site and plugin settings and product information will remain intact, but the site will look completely different.
This is huge! Why?
Because with WordPress, you no longer need to spend weeks or months waiting for your website to be done. You can get your business website built quickly and start with any theme you like, and then completely change the look, feel and design of your WordPress site in minutes, whenever you choose … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your site with no website coding knowledge necessary. Just choose any theme you like, install it on your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your website design and customize elements like headers, layout, style settings and more in minutes …
Since WordPress is made available as open source software, hundreds of web designers from all over the world can create themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WP templating system.
This means that thousands of high quality WP themes are made available to WordPress users. Themes are generally distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE theme directory which allows WordPress users to access thousands of excellent themes for free …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress increases, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider audience of web users.
Themes vary from simple-looking, to designs that are visually spectacular and could normally cost thousands of dollars to design. Surprisingly, most themes can be bought very cheaply, especially when compared to what it would have cost you if a web designer had to develop it from scratch.
You can view a number of theme galleries that include many examples of themes here:
- Where To Look For Great Free And Premium Responsive WordPress Themes For Your WordPress Site Or Blog
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Themes – Benefits & Advantages
Here are just some of the many benefits of using WordPress themes over using traditional website design:
Ready To Use In Minutes
Themes are very easy to install on your site. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WP theme repository at WordPress.org) directly from your WP admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a growing community of professional web designers and design companies who, collectively, contribute thousands of quality WordPress Themes available to WordPress users. And many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent “look and feel” across all the blog’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This makes it possible to replace WP themes as often as you like without deleting the website’s underlying information.
- Many themes provide additional features and options that let you easily customize the theme’s style, layout and design properties and create a unique look to suit your taste.
- Many themes are built using a framework that allows users to update themes to a newer theme version without losing its unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, import and install WordPress Themes automatically inside the admin panel.
- WP themes allow users to save hundreds of dollars on website development costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically quite inexpensive.
Responsive WordPress Themes
Many WordPress theme designers are now creating “responsive” themes for the WP CMS.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically resize to display smoothly across different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as different platforms) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different types of devices. Users can navigate, read and display the site on different device platforms without having to resize anything, or requiring the website owner to have installed additional browser tools.
Note: When searching for WordPress themes, we strongly recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive 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 should comply with the latest standards and practices of web design and coding.
I hope this overview has helped you gain a better understanding of WordPress themes, what themes are, how they can help you and your business save money, and how themes make customizing sites easy.
In our next blog post in the article WordPress beginners on understanding basic features and functionality of WordPress, we show you where to find great themes for your website or blog.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
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