The introduction of web site publishing applications like the WordPress CMS has truly simplified web design and web development for users.
This greatly benefits individuals or businesses that want to own a website that is easy to manage.
Before blogging and the development of powerful CMS solutions, if you wanted a professional website, you typically had to wait until both the web development and web design processes were completely done. This process could mean waiting for weeks, sometimes even many months!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this article, you will learn what WP themes are, how themes help you save money on website development costs, and how themes allow you to easily customize your WordPress site.
Website Design Revolution
More website owners have been benefiting from a revolution in website design that has been going for several years now. If you are a small business owner, you may want to learn more about this, because it can save your business a lot of time and money on website development or web design costs.
Very briefly, here’s how things used to work in “traditional” web development before WordPress was developed:
First, you would discuss your requirements with a web site developer or website designer. After this, the actual design would be discussed and agreed upon. This required time being spent with a professional website designer discussing design elements of your website like the, colors, styles, graphic elements, content, etc.
Every page of your web site then had to be hand-coded with all of your design elements and codes scripted into your page content. All the pages were then assembled together into a web site using links and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with all other files required to make your site work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything had been tested and was functioning how it should (and looking how a client had wanted it to look), was the web site deemed to have been finished and ready for sign off.
Then, web design “templates” were developed”. Website templates allow the design of the website to be created separately from the page content. The introduction of templates helped to speed up the process of developing web sites and resulted in lowered production costs. This also enabled web site designers to service small businesses with smaller budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more businesses began using “template-based” websites, templates started being created that offered a number of customization settings, such as the option to switch colors, styles, layouts
As websites and website editor software evolved, website templates also started to evolve into website template ”systems”, permitting website owners and website developers to manage the visual elements of their site.
And then, a “blogging” application called WordPress came along and helped to start a new web revolution …
(WordPress – A Content Publishing Revolution)
To learn more about content management systems and the benefits of the WordPress CMS, see the tutorial below:
About WordPress Themes
A WordPress theme expands website templating systems one step further.
A WP theme controls every aspect of your website design. It allows you to add a “skin” to your entire site in a similar way that a template system does but also gives you complete control over the management and customization aspects of all template options.
As described in 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 quote states, a unique and revolutionary feature of WordPress is that the way your web site appears to visitors is kept independent of your site’s content management settings.
In simple terms, what this means is that you can modify the look and feel of your site as often as you want without modifying your website’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if WP website has been set up for e-commerce, changing the entire look of the site with a different theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your website. All e-commerce features, plugin settings and product information will remain unaffected, but your site will look completely different.
Why is this such a big deal?
Because with WordPress, you no longer have to wait until your site’s web design is completed. You can get your website built quickly and start with any theme you want, and edit the entire look, feel and design of your WordPress site in a few minutes, whenever you choose … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your site with no web code development skills necessary. Just pick any WP theme you like, install it on your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your site’s design and modify elements like headers, page layout, styling options and more in a few seconds …
Because WordPress is distributed as open source software, professional website designers can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP template system.
This means that loads of high quality WordPress themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. Themes are usually distributed for Free under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they can be purchased as Premium (paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE directory of WP themes which allows WordPress users to access thousands of great website templates completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – Free Theme Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider audience of web users.
WP themes vary from professional-looking, to quirky designs that are simply beautiful and would normally cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars to design. Surprisingly, themes are really inexpensive.
You can view several WordPress theme galleries containing stunning examples of WordPress themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WordPress Themes – Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over choosing tools that require traditional web design:
WP Theme Installation Is Easy & Fast
WP themes are really easy to install on your site. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WordPress theme repository at WordPress.org) directly from your WordPress admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a thriving online community of commercial theme developers and development companies who, collectively, make thousands of great-looking, high quality WP Themes available to users. And many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent look across all the blog’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your site’s content. This makes it possible to swap WordPress themes as often as you need without affecting the website’s content.
- Many themes provide additional built-in features and settings that enable you to easily customize your site’s style and design elements to create a unique look to suit your preferences.
- Many themes are built using a framework that lets users upgrade the theme to a newer theme version without losing any customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, import, install and update WordPress Themes automatically right within your site’s administration interface.
- Themes allow WordPress users to save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on web design costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically very inexpensive.
About Responsive WP Themes
Many WP theme developers are now creating WordPress themes that incorporate “responsive” design protocols.
A responsive theme allows websites to automatically reconfigure the layout to display smoothly over different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different platforms) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for each device type. Users can scroll, read and display a site on most devices without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring the website owner to have installed additional browser 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 the content and layout of your site displays well across all of your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards and practices of web design and coding.
Hopefully, this basic overview has given you a clearer understanding about WP themes, what WordPress themes are, how they can help you save money on web development costs, and how WP themes make customizing websites easy.
In our next blog post on understanding basic WP features, we show you where to search for great WordPress themes for your blog.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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