The introduction of advanced content publishing systems like the WordPress CMS platform has truly improved web design and web development for business owners.
This is a great thing for businesses wanting an online presence that they can easily manage by themselves.
Before blogging and the introduction of user-friendly CMS tools, if you needed to build a professional web site built for your business, you normally had to wait until both the web development and web design processes were fully completed. This could mean weeks, sometimes even many months of waiting for the work to be done!
WordPress themes changed all this. In this post, we will explore what WP themes are, how WordPress themes help you and your business save money on web design costs, and how themes allow you to easily customize your site.
Web Site Design Revolution
More website owners are benefiting from a revolution in website design that started many years ago. If you own a business, you will want to learn about this, because it could save your business thousands of dollars on web development or web design costs.
In a nutshell, this is how things used to work in “traditional” website design before WordPress was developed:
The first step would be to meet with a website developer or designer for a brief. Then, the “web design” itself would be discussed and agreed upon. This involved spending time and money with someone with web site design skills going over elements of your website like the, colors, formats, page elements, content, etc.
Each page of your site then had to be individually created with the elements and scripts coded around your content. The pages were then assembled together into a web site using links and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with every other file needed to make your website work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything passed testing and performed the way it was intended to (and looking the way the client had imagined it to look), was the site considered to be completed and ready to go live.
Then, website “templates” were developed”. A web template allows the ”look and feel” of the website to be created separately from the page content. The development of ready-made templates helped make web site creation faster and resulted in reduced production costs. This also allowed web development companies to work with small business clients with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more small businesses began choosing “template-based” web design services, web templates started being designed that could provide various customizable options, such as the ability to choose different colors, styles, layouts
As web sites and website editing tools evolved, web templates also began to transform into web template “systems” that allowed website owners to manage their web site’s design aspects.
Then, WordPress was introduced and helped to kick off 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:
WordPress Themes
A WordPress theme pushes website template systems one step further.
A WordPress theme controls all of the design elements of your website. It allows you to add a “skin” over your entire site similarly to what a website template system does but it gives you complete control over the management, appearance and ability to customize the site’s template features.
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, one of the unique features of a WordPress theme is that the way your website appears to site visitors on the outside is a completely separate thing from the management of your content.
In plain English terms, what this means is that themes let you change the look and feel of your site as often as you want without modifying your website’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if you have configured WordPress site for e-commerce, changing the entire look of your site with a different theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the website. All e-commerce features, settings and product information will remain intact, but the site will look completely different.
Why is this such a big deal?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer need to spend weeks or months waiting for your website to be completed. You can get your website built simply and start with any theme you want, and completely change the look, feel and design of your site in a few minutes, whenever you want … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your site with no web code development knowledge necessary. Simply choose a theme you want, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your web design and customize elements like header images, layout, typography and more in a few seconds …
Since WordPress is distributed as open source software, website designers can create themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WP template system.
This means that loads of great WP 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) themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which allows WordPress users to access thousands of great WordPress themes at $0 cost …
(WordPress.org – WordPress Themes Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider audience of WordPress users.
Themes range from professional-looking, to quirky designs that are visually spectacular and could normally cost many hundreds of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, themes can be bought fairly cheaply, especially when compared to what you would have had to pay if a website designer had to develop it from scratch.
You can see several theme galleries containing stunning examples of WP themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits & Advantages Of Using Themes
Here are just some of the benefits of using WordPress themes over choosing traditional web template design:
Be Up And Running In No Time
WP themes are quite easy to install on your site. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin user area and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the free WordPress theme directory at WordPress.org) directly inside your WP dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a growing community of professional web developers who contribute thousands of fantastic WP Themes available to WP users. Thousands of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent design across all of your blog’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your site’s content. This makes it possible to change the “look and feel” of your web site or blog as often as you need without modifying the blog content.
- Many WordPress themes provide built-in features and options that enable you to customize the site’s style and design properties and create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many themes are built using a framework that lets users upgrade themes to newer versions without losing any customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, import, install and update WordPress Themes automatically from the admin panel.
- WordPress themes allow users to save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on web development costs. Free WordPress themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically very affordable.
Responsive WP Theme Design
Many theme developers are now creating themes that incorporate “responsive” design.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different platforms) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for each device type. Users can scroll, read and load your site on various device browsers without having to resize anything, or requiring the website owner to have installed additional browser elements.
Note: When purchasing WordPress themes, we strongly recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your website will work correctly on your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore probably complies with the latest standards of web design and coding.
We hope that this article has given you a clearer understanding of themes, what themes are, how they can help your business save money on web development costs, and how themes let you easily customize your website.
In our next article in the article series on understanding basic WP features, we show you where to search for great WordPress themes for your website or blog.
***
"Learning WordPress has been a huge stumbling block for me. I've been looking for something that covers absolutely everything but doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Thank you so much ... you have just provided me with what I have been looking for! Truly appreciated!" - Tanya
***