The introduction of powerful web publishing platforms like the WordPress CMS platform has truly improved web design and web development for anyone wanting a website.
This is a great thing for entrepreneurial-minded people wanting a web presence that is easy to manage.
Prior to “blogging” and the introduction of easy-to-use content management systems, if you wanted to get a professional site for your business, you normally would have to wait until both the website development and website design processes were fully completed. This process could mean weeks, even many months of waiting for the work to be done!
The development of WordPress themes have changed all this. In this blog post, we will explore what WP themes are, how WP themes can help your business save money, and how themes allow you to easily customize your site.
Website Design Evolution
More businesses today are benefiting from a great change in website design that has been going for many years now. If you own a business, you will want to know more about this, because it could save you thousands of dollars on website development or website design costs.
Let’s go over what normally took place before WordPress were developed:
First, you would meet with a website developer or designer for a brief. After this, the actual ”look and feel” of your web site itself had to be discussed and agreed upon. This required time and money being spent with a professional website designer discussing areas of the site like the, colors, styles, visual elements, content, etc.
Every page of your website then had to be individually created with all the design elements and scripts coded into your page content. All pages were then assembled into a website using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with every other file needed to make your site work – script libraries, images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything had been tested and worked the way it was intended to (and looking how a client had imagined it to look), was the website deemed as being completed and ready to go live.
Then, web design “templates” came along”. Web templates allow the presentation of the web site to be worked on separately from content on the page. The development of templates helped make the process of site creation faster and resulted in lowered production costs. This also allowed website development agencies to work with small business clients with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more small businesses started using “template-based” websites, templates were introduced that offered clients with expanding customizable settings, like color palettes, the ability to select different formats and page layouts, etc …
As web sites and website building software evolved, web templates also began to transform into website templating “systems” that let users control the visual components of a website.
And then, a “blogging” software 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:
WordPress Themes
A WordPress theme expands the idea of a website template system even further.
A WP theme controls every aspect of your site’s design. It allows you to add a “skin” to your site similarly to what a web template system does but it gives you more control over the management, presentation and customization aspects of 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 the above states, one of the unique and revolutionary features of WordPress is that the way your site displays to site visitors does not affect the way your content is managed.
Basically, what this means is that you can modify the design of your site as much and as often as you want without affecting your site’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if you have configured WordPress site for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your web site. All e-commerce features, site and plugin settings and product information will remain intact, but your site will look completely different.
Why is this such a big deal?
Because when your website is built with WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your site to be done. You can get your website built simply and start with any theme you want, and then completely modify the look, feel and design of your website in seconds, whenever you want … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WP site without requiring any website coding skills. Just pick a theme you like, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress lets you change your site’s design and customize elements like header images, layout, styling options and more in a few seconds …
Since WordPress is open source software, website designers can design themes specifically for the WordPress 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 freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or sold as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress development team maintains a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which allows WordPress users to download, access and install thousands of great themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress soars, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider audience of web users.
WP themes range from bare-looking, to designs that are quite beautiful and would normally cost many hundreds of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, most premium WP themes can be bought quite inexpensively, especially when compared to what you would have been charged if a website designer had to develop it from scratch.
You can view several theme galleries that include stunning examples of great premium WordPress themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Themes – Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits of using WordPress themes over using traditional web template design:
Be Up And Running In No Time
WordPress themes are very easy to install on your site. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your admin account and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the free theme directory at WordPress.org) directly from your WP dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a large online community of professional theme developers and development companies who make thousands of fantastic WordPress Themes available to WordPress users. And many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent look across all of your site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This makes it possible to swap the “look and feel” of your website as often as you like without affecting the website’s content.
- Many WordPress themes provide additional built-in functionality and settings that let you easily customize the theme’s layout and design properties and create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that allows you to upgrade themes to newer versions without losing any unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically from the admin panel.
- Themes lets you save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on web development costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WordPress themes are typically very affordable.
About Responsive WordPress Theme Design
Many theme designers are now creating themes that incorporate “responsive” design protocols.
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 across different devices (e.g. laptops, iPads, cell phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different types of devices. Users can navigate, read and display your site on all device browsers without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to have installed additional display elements.
Note: When selecting, WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your website will display correctly across all devices, it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore probably complies with the latest standards and practices of website design and web coding.
Hopefully, the above article has helped you gain a better understanding of WordPress themes, what themes are, how themes can help you and your business save money, and how themes make customizing sites easy.
In the next blog post on helping you understand WordPress features, we show you where to find great WP themes for your blog.
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