Advanced website publishing technologies like the WordPress CMS have truly simplified web design and web development for business users.
This is a great thing for individuals or businesses planning to build a web presence that they can easily manage by themselves.
Prior to “blogging” and the introduction of easy-to-use CMS applications, if you needed a professional business site, you typically had to wait until both the web development and web design processes were completely done. This could mean waiting around for weeks, even many months!
WordPress themes changed all this. In this blog post, you will learn what WP themes are, how they save you money on website design costs, and how WP themes help you easily customize your WordPress site.
Web Design Evolution
Businesses, especially small businesses, are benefiting from a great change in web design that started several years ago. If you are a business owner, you will want to know about this, because it could save you a lot of time and money on website development and website design costs.
Let’s review what used to happen before WordPress came along:
The first step would be to meet with a web developer or web designer for a brief. Then, the actual design of the website had to be decided upon. This required time and money being spent with a professional web designer discussing design elements of the site like the, colors, formats, visual elements, content, etc.
Each page of your site then had to be hand-coded with all the design elements and codes scripted into the content. The pages were then assembled into a web site using hyperlinks and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with every other file needed to make your website work – script libraries, images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything passed testing and worked the way it should (and looking the way a client had imagined it to look), was the website deemed to have been finished and ready to go live.
The next phase in the evolution of business website design was the introduction of “web templates”. Web templates allow the presentation of the website to be created separately from content on the page. The introduction of template elements helped speed up the website development process and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also enabled web development firms to expand their services to include business clients with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more website development agencies began choosing “template-based” websites, templates started being created that could provide clients with various customizable options, like colour palettes, the ability to select different menu styles, formats, elements, layouts, etc …
As web sites and web building applications developed, web templates also started evolving into web template ”systems”, enabling website owners and web designers to control their site’s visual aspects.
Then, 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
WordPress themes improve web templating systems further.
A WP theme controls and unifies every aspect of your site’s design. It lets you add a “skin” to your entire site much like a template system does but it provides users with more control over the management, presentation and customization 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 stated in the quote above, a unique feature of the WordPress theme is that how your website displays to visitors on the outside is a completely different system from the way your site functions internally to handle areas like content management and functionality.
In simple terms, what this means is that a WordPress theme lets you change the appearance of your site as often as you want without touching your site’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if your site has been configured for e-commerce, changing the entire look of your site with a different theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your website. All e-commerce features, site settings and product information will remain unaffected, but your site will look completely different.
This is huge! Why?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your website to be done. You can get your business website built simply and get started with any theme you like, and then edit the entire look, feel and design of your WordPress site in minutes, whenever you decide … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your WordPress site with no web code editing skills required. Simply choose a theme you like, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your website design and modify elements like headers, page layout, typography and more with just a couple of mouse clicks …
As WordPress is open source software, hundreds of website design companies anywhere in the world can create themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that loads of high quality WP themes are made available to WordPress users. Themes are generally distributed for FREE under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which allows WordPress users to download, access and install thousands of excellent website templates at $0 cost …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now starting to develop themes for a wider range of uses.
WordPress themes vary from professional-looking, to designs that are quite stunning and could normally cost thousands of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, most premium WP themes can be bought quite cheaply, especially when compared to what it would have cost you if a website designer had to develop it from scratch.
You can view a number of theme galleries containing stunning examples of great WP themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits Of Using Themes
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over using traditional web design:
Ready To Start Using In No Time
WordPress themes are quite easy to install on your site. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your dashboard 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 online community of professional web designers and design companies who contribute thousands of professional WordPress Themes available to WordPress users. Many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent look across all your blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your site’s content. This allows you replace themes as often as you want without modifying the settings.
- Many WordPress themes provide built-in functionality and settings that enable you to easily customize your site’s layout, style and design properties and create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that allows you to update the theme to a newer theme version without losing any unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress lets you search, import and install WordPress Themes automatically inside your site’s administration interface.
- Themes helps you save hundreds of dollars on website development costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WordPress themes are typically quite affordable.
About Responsive Themes
Many theme designers are now creating WordPress themes that incorporate “responsive” web design.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically resize to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as across different platforms) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for different platforms. Users can navigate, read and display the site on most 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 complies with the latest standards of website design.
I hope this post has given you a better overview of WordPress themes, what themes are, how themes can help you save money on web design costs, and how themes make it easy to customize a website.
To learn where to search for great WordPress themes for your website, visit this page: How To Find The Best Free And Paid Responsive WordPress Themes For Your Business Online.
***
"Your training is the best in the world! It is simple, yet detailed, direct, understandable, memorable, and complete." Andrea Adams, FinancialJourney.org
***