Flexible website management applications like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) have effectively improved web design and web development for web users.
This is a great thing for non-technical users planning to start or build a website that is easy to manage.
Prior to “blogging” and the development of powerful and simple CMS solutions, if you wanted a website, you would have to wait until both the web development and website design processes were completely done. This process could mean waiting around for weeks, sometimes even many months!
The development of WordPress themes helped change all this. In this blog post, we explain what WP themes are, how they save you and your business money on web design costs, and how themes help you easily customize your website.
Revolutionary Website Design
Businesses are benefiting from a great change in web design that has been going for a number of years now. If you are a small business owner, you will want to learn more about this, because it could save your business a lot of time and money on web development and website design costs.
Let’s take a look at what used to happen before a CMS solution like WordPress came along:
The first step would be to discuss your project with a web development firm or designer. After that, the actual “web design” would be discussed and agreed upon. This required time and money being spent with a professional website designer going over elements of the website like the, colours, styles, graphic elements, content, etc.
Each page of your website then had to be hand-coded with your elements and codes written into the content. All the pages were then assembled together into a web site using links and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with all other files 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 should (and looking how a client had wanted it to look), was the website deemed as being finished and ready to go live.
Then, website “templates” came along”. Website templates allow the presentation of the website to be created separately from the page content. The introduction of ready-made templates helped make the process of creating web sites faster and resulted in reduced production costs. This also allowed website development companies to expand their services to include smaller business clients and clients with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more businesses started adopting “template-based” web design services, web templates were developed that provided various custom settings, such as colour palettes, the ability to select different menu styles, formats, header, footer and navigation elements, page layouts, etc …
As web sites and website editor applications evolved, website templates also started transforming into web template “systems” that let users customize the visual elements of a site.
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:
WordPress Themes
WordPress themes expand the idea of a web template system further.
A WP theme controls the design elements of a web site. It allows you to add a “skin” to your site much like a template system does but also provides you with complete control over the management, appearance and customization aspects of template options.
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 in the quote above, one of the unique and revolutionary features of WordPress is that how your site displays to visitors is controlled independently of your site’s content management settings.
In plain English terms, what this means is that a WordPress theme lets you change the appearance of your website as often as you like without modifying your site’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 the website. All e-commerce features, plugin 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 wait until your website’s design is completed. You can get your website built quickly and start with any theme you want, and then completely customize the look, feel and design of your website in a few seconds, whenever you decide … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your site with no web code development skills required. Just choose any theme you like, install it on your site and activate it. WordPress lets you change your site’s design and modify elements like header images, page layout, typography and more in a few seconds …
Since WordPress is made available as open source software, thousands of web designers anywhere in the world can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP templating system.
This means that loads of high quality WordPress themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. Themes are normally distributed freely under the terms of the GNU 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 web templates completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – WP Themes Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider range of applications.
WordPress themes vary from functional-looking, to designs that are simply breathtaking and could typically cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, most WordPress themes are really inexpensive to buy.
You can view several WordPress theme galleries that include stunning examples of WordPress themes in this post:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits And Advantages Of Themes
Here are just some of the many benefits of using WordPress themes over choosing traditional web template design:
Easy And Fast To Install
WP themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the free theme directory at WordPress.org) directly from within your WordPress dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a growing community of professional website designers and design companies who make thousands of great-looking, high quality WordPress Themes available to WordPress users. Many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent “look and feel” across all of the site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your site’s content. This allows you change WordPress themes as often as you want without modifying the website’s content.
- Many themes come with additional functionality and settings that enable you to easily customize the theme’s style, layout and design elements and create a unique look to suit your preferences.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that allows you to update the theme to a newer theme version without losing its unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress lets you search, import, install and update WordPress Themes automatically inside your admin panel.
- Themes allow WordPress users to save thousands of dollars on website development costs. Free WordPress themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WordPress themes are normally quite inexpensive.
Responsive Themes
Many theme developers are now creating WordPress themes that incorporate “responsive” web design.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly over different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different devices (e.g. laptops, tablets, cell phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each platform. Users can scroll, read and load the site on all device browsers without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to have installed additional display elements.
Note: When purchasing WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your website displays well across 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 website design coding.
We hope this basic overview has helped you gain a better understanding about WP themes, what WP themes are, how they help your business save money on website design costs, and how WordPress themes make customizing web sites easy.
To learn where to find the best themes for your website or blog, visit this post: Where To Get The Best Free And Premium WordPress Web Templates For Your Site Or Blog.
***
"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
***