The development of web site publishing applications like the WordPress CMS platform has truly simplified web design and web development for business users.
This is great for non-technical users that want a website that is simple, easy and inexpensive to manage.
Before “blogging” and the introduction of user-friendly content management systems, if you wanted to build a professional site for your business, you had to wait until both the web development and website design processes were completely done. This could mean waiting for weeks, sometimes even many months!
The development of WordPress themes helped change all this. In this blog post, you will learn what themes are, how they save your business money on web design costs, and how themes let you easily customize your website.
Website Design Evolution
More website owners today are benefiting from a tremendous revolution in website design that started many years ago. If you are a small business owner, you will want to know more about this, because it could save you a lot of time and money on web development and web design costs.
Very briefly, here’s what used to happen before tools like WordPress were introduced:
First, you would discuss your requirements with a web site developer or website designer. Then, the actual “web design” would be decided upon. This required time and money being spent with a professional web designer going over design elements of the website like the layout, colours, formats, page elements, content, etc.
Each page of your website then had to be individually created with all of the design elements and codes scripted into your page content. The pages were then assembled into a web site using links and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with every other file required to make your website work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything passed testing and functioned the way it was supposed to (and looking the way a client had wanted it to look), was the website considered as being finished and ready for delivery.
The next step in the evolution of business website design was the introduction of “website templates”. Web templates allow presentation elements of the website to be created separately from the page content. The introduction of ready-made templates helped to make creating websites faster and resulted in reduced costs of production. This also allowed web site developers to work with business clients and clients with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more businesses started using “template-based” web design services, templates were designed that provided various custom features and options, such as colour palettes, the ability to select different formats and header, footer and navigation elements, and so on.
As web sites and web editor tools developed, website templates also began evolving into web template ”systems”, enabling users to customize their site’s design aspects.
And then, WordPress came along 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:
About WordPress Themes
A WordPress theme pushes the concept of a website templating system much further.
A WordPress theme controls every aspect of your site’s design. It allows you to add a “skin” over your entire site in a similar way that a web template system does but it also also gives you more control over the management, appearance and ability to customize all template features.
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 stated in the quote above, one of the unique features of the WordPress theme is that how your site displays to site visitors externally is kept independent of your site’s functionality and content management.
Basically, what this means is that a WordPress theme lets you change the design of your site as much and as often as you like without touching your website’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if you have set up your website for e-commerce, changing the entire look of your site with another theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the site. All e-commerce features, site settings and product information will remain unaffected, but the site will look completely different.
This is huge! Why?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer have to wait until your website’s design is done. You can get your business website built simply and get started with any WP theme you want, and then completely edit the look, feel and design of your site in minutes, whenever you choose … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your site with no website coding knowledge required. Just pick a theme you want, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your entire site’s web design and modify elements like headers, page layout, typography and more in a few seconds …
Because WordPress is distributed as open source software, hundreds of web design companies can design themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP templating system.
This means that loads of high quality WP themes are made available to WordPress users. WP are usually distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or sold as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE theme directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent themes completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – WordPress Themes Directory)
As more users turn to WordPress for publishing and managing their content online, more designers are now focusing on creating themes for a wider audience of web users.
Themes vary from functional-looking, to dynamic designs that are beautiful and would normally cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars to create. Surprisingly, most themes are very inexpensive.
You can see a number of WP theme galleries that include various examples of WordPress themes in this article:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WordPress Themes – Benefits And Advantages
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over using website building applications that require traditional web template design:
Ready To Use In Minutes
WordPress themes are really easy to install on your site. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your administrator area and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the themes directory at WordPress.org) directly from within your WordPress dashboard.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a growing community of professional web developers and development companies who, collectively, make thousands of professional WP Themes available to users. And many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent “look and feel” across all of the site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your blog’s content. This makes it possible to replace themes as often as you need without affecting your site’s information.
- Many themes provide additional functionality and options that let you easily customize your site’s style, layout and design elements and create a unique look to suit your taste.
- Many WP themes are built using a framework that enables you to update the theme to newer versions without losing any customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically directly from within the admin panel.
- Themes allow users to save thousands of dollars on web development costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are typically quite affordable.
Responsive Themes
Many WP theme developers are now developing “responsive” themes.
A responsive theme allows websites to automatically resize to display smoothly over different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as different platforms) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each device type. Users can navigate, read and load the site on most device platforms without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to have installed 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 web site works on 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 of website design and coding.
We hope that this overview has given you a better understanding of WP themes, what themes are, how themes help you and your business save money, and how themes make customizing web sites easy.
To learn where to find the best WP themes for your website, click here:
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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