Flexible web site publishing systems like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) have effectively simplified web design and web development for anyone wanting to start a website.
This is fantastic news for non-technical users wanting to start a web presence that they can easily manage.
Before blogging and the introduction of easy-to-use CMS tools, if you needed to build a professional web site built for your business, you would have to wait until both the website development and web design processes were completely done. This could mean waiting around for weeks, sometimes even months!
WordPress themes helped change all this. In this article, you will learn what themes are, how themes can help your business save money on website development costs, and how themes let you easily customize your site.
Revolutionary Web Design
More website owners today will benefit from a revolution in website design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a small business, 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.
Let’s briefly review how things typically worked in “traditional” website design before system like WordPress was introduced:
First, you would meet with a web developer or website designer for a brief. After that, the “web design” itself would be decided upon. This required time being spent with someone with website design skills going over areas of the site such as the layout, colours, formats, page elements, content, etc.
Every page of your web site then had to be hand-coded with all of the design elements and codes scripted into your content. All pages were then assembled together into a website using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with all other files required to make your site work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and was working how it was intended to (and looking the way the client had imagined it to look), was the website considered to have been completed and ready to go live.
Then, website “templates” were developed”. Web site templates allow the ”look and feel” of the web site to be worked on separately from the page content. The introduction of ready-made templates helped make the process of developing websites faster and resulted in reduced costs of production. This also enabled website developers and designers to expand their services to include small business clients with smaller budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of businesses using “template-based” web design services increased, web templates started being designed that offered clients with various customizable features, like color palettes, the ability to specify different content styles or elements, etc …
As websites and web editing software evolved, web templates also began to evolve into website template “systems” that allowed website owners to customize the design elements of a web site.
And then, 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:
The WordPress Theme
A WordPress theme drives the concept of a website templating system further.
A WP theme controls and integrates the design elements of your website. It allows you to add a “skin” to your entire site similarly to what a web template system does but it gives you complete control over the management, presentation and ability to customize your site’s template settings.
As WordPress explains in its 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 feature of the WP theme is that how your website appears to visitors is a separate system from the management of your content.
In plain English terms, what this means is that a WordPress theme lets you change the design of your site as often as you like without touching 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 web site. All e-commerce features, settings and product information will remain unaffected, but your site will look completely different.
Why is this such a big deal?
Because when your website is powered by WordPress, you no longer need to wait until your site’s web design is done. You can get your website built quickly and get started with any theme you want, and edit the entire look, feel and design of your site in mere minutes, whenever you want … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your WP site without the need of website coding skills. Just pick a WP theme you like, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress lets you change your site’s design and customize elements like headers, layout, typography and more in a few seconds …
As WordPress is distributed as open source software, website designers all around the world can design themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WordPress templating system.
This means that thousands of high quality WP themes are made available to WordPress users. Themes are generally distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or sold as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE directory of WordPress themes which allows WordPress users to download and access, thousands of excellent themes at $0 cost …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress increases, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider audience of WordPress users.
WordPress themes range from bare-looking, to designs that are simply impressive and would easily cost many hundreds of dollars to design. Surprisingly, most WordPress themes are really inexpensive to purchase.
You can view a number of WordPress theme galleries containing many examples of themes in this page:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits Of Using WordPress Themes
Here are just some of the benefits of using WordPress themes over using web development applications that require traditional website design:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
WP themes are quite easy to install on your site. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WP admin user section and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the free theme repository at WordPress.org) directly inside your WordPress dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a large community of commercial theme designers and design companies who, collectively, contribute thousands of quality WordPress Themes available to users. Thousands of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent design across all of your site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your blog’s content. This allows you swap WP themes as often as you need without deleting your content.
- Many themes provide additional built-in features and options that let you easily customize the theme’s style, layout and design properties to create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many themes are built using a framework that allows users to update the theme to a newer theme version without losing any unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically inside your dashboard.
- WordPress themes helps you save thousands of dollars on website design costs. Free WordPress themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are normally quite inexpensive.
About Responsive WordPress Themes
Many WP theme developers are now creating themes that incorporate “responsive” web design.
A responsive theme allows a website to automatically resize to display smoothly over different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different platforms) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different types of devices. Users can navigate, read and display a site on a range of devices without having to resize anything, or requiring the website owner to install additional browser elements.
Note: When searching for WordPress themes, we recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that the content and layout of your site displays well on all devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore probably complies with the latest standards and practices of web design and web coding.
I hope that this post has given you a good overview of WP themes, what WordPress themes are, how they help your business save money on website design costs, and how WP themes make customizing sites easy.
To learn where to find the best themes for your website, click here:
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"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
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