The development of powerful website publishing technologies like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) has effectively improved web design and web development for business owners.
This is a great thing for businesses wanting to start a digital presence that is relatively simple, easy and inexpensive to manage.
Prior to blogging and the development of powerful and simple CMS software, if you wanted to build a professional website for your business, you would have to wait until both the website development and web design processes were fully completed. This could take weeks, sometimes even months!
The development of WordPress themes changed all this. In this post, you will learn what themes are, how themes can help your business save money on web design costs, and how WordPress themes allow you to easily customize your site.
Revolutionary Website Design
More website owners have benefited from an evolution in website design that started a number of years ago. If you are a small business owner, you will want to learn more about this, because it could save you thousands of dollars on website development or web design costs.
Very briefly, here’s what used to happen before a CMS tool like WordPress was introduced:
First, you would discuss your project with a web site developer or website designer. Then, the design itself would be discussed and agreed upon. This required time and money being spent with someone with web site design skills discussing design elements of the web site such as the, colors, formats, graphic elements, content, etc.
Every page of your site then had to be hand-coded with all of the elements and codes inserted into your page content. The pages were then assembled together into a website using hyperlinks and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with every other file required to make your site work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything passed testing and functioned the way it was supposed to (and looking the way a client had wanted it to look), was the site considered to have been completed and ready for delivery.
Then, web design “templates” were developed”. A web site template allows ”look and feel” elements of the website to be worked on separately from content on the page. Having templates helped speed up the web creation process and resulted in reduced production costs. This also allowed web development firms to work with smaller businesses and clients with smaller budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of small businesses using “template-based” web design services increased, templates started being created that could offer a range of customization features, like color palettes, the ability to pick different page layouts or styles, etc …
As web sites and website building software evolved, website templates also began transforming into web templating ”systems”, permitting users to customize the design elements of a web site.
Then, a “blogging” application called WordPress came along and helped to start a new content management 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
WordPress themes push web template systems one step further.
A WordPress theme controls and integrates every aspect of your website design. It lets you add a “skin” over your site similarly to what a website template system does but it provides users with more control over the management and customization of your template settings.
As the official WordPress site described 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 the above states, a unique and revolutionary feature of the WP theme is that how your website displays to site visitors is kept independent of the management of your content.
In simple terms, what this means is that you can modify the design of your site as much and as often as you like without modifying your website’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if you have configured WP site 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, settings and product information will remain intact, but your site will look completely different.
Why is this really great for business owners?
Because when your site is powered 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 then modify the entire look, feel and design of your website in seconds, whenever you decide … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site without having website code development knowledge. Just pick a WordPress theme you want, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your website design and customize elements like headers, page layout, typography and more in minutes …
As WordPress is distributed as open source software, web 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 WP users. WP are generally distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or sold as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
The WordPress development team maintains a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent WordPress themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org – Free Theme Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress soars, more designers are now focusing on creating themes for a wider range of users.
Themes range from professional-looking, to designs that are simply stunning and would easily cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, most themes can be bought very inexpensively, especially when you compare the price to what you would have had to pay if a web designer had to develop it from scratch.
You can view several theme galleries that include stunning examples of great premium themes in this post:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits And Advantages Of Using Themes
Here are just some of the benefits of choosing WordPress themes over using tools that require traditional web template design:
Be Up And Running In No Time
WP themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload a zip folder that contains the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WP theme directory at WordPress.org) directly from your WP site’s admin area.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a large community of commercial web designers and design companies who, collectively, contribute thousands of quality WP Themes available to WP users. And many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent look across all the blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your website’s content. This makes it possible to swap WordPress themes as often as you like without changing the site’s data.
- Many WP themes provide additional built-in features and settings that let you easily customize your theme’s style and design elements to create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many themes are built using a framework that enables you to update the theme to newer theme versions without losing any customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, import and install WordPress Themes automatically right within your admin panel.
- Themes helps you save hundreds of dollars on website development costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally very inexpensive.
Responsive Theme Design
Many WordPress theme designers are now creating WordPress themes that incorporate “responsive” functionality.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically reconfigure the layout to display smoothly over different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. PCs, iPads, smart phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each platform. Users can navigate, read and display your site on most device browsers without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring the website owner to install additional browser tools.
Note: When searching for WordPress themes, we strongly recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your web site works on all of your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore should comply with the latest standards of website design and web coding.
We hope the above overview has given you a better understanding about themes, what WordPress themes are, how they can help you and your business save money, and how WordPress themes make customizing your web design easy.
To learn where to find great WP themes for your blog, go here:
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