Powerful web site publishing platforms like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) have truly simplified web design and web development for anyone wanting to start a website.
This greatly benefits businesses thinking about starting a website that they can manage themselves.
Before “blogging” and the development of powerful and effective content management systems, if you wanted a professional web site, you normally had to wait until both the web development and website design processes were fully completed. This could take many weeks, sometimes even many months!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this post, you will learn what WP themes are, how they save you money on website development costs, and how WP themes make it easy to customize your WordPress site.
Evolution In Web Site Design
More website owners are benefiting from a tremendous revolution in website design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you are a business owner, you may want to know more about this, because it could save you a lot of time and money on web development or web design costs.
Let’s briefly go over how things used to work in “traditional” website design before software like WordPress came along:
First, you would meet with a web development company or designer for a brief. After that, the actual “web design” itself would be decided upon. This required time and money being spent with a professional web designer going over things of your web site such as the layout, colours, formats, visual elements, content, etc.
Each page of your site then had to be hand-coded with the design elements and scripts coded around your page content. All pages were then assembled together into a website using hyperlinks and 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 after everything had been tested and worked the way it was intended to (and looking how the client had wanted it to look), was the site considered as being finished and ready for delivery.
The next stage in the evolution of web design was the introduction of “website templating elements”. A web site template allows the presentation of the website to be worked on separately from content on the page. Having ready-made templates helped speed up the website development process and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also allowed website developers to work with small business clients with smaller budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more businesses began using “template-based” websites, web templates started being developed to provide a range of customization settings, like the ability to choose different colours, styles, layouts
As web sites and web editor applications developed, web templates also started to evolve into website templating ”systems”, letting website owners customize the visual elements of their website.
Then, 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:
The WordPress Theme
WordPress themes push the concept of a web templating system much further.
The WP theme system controls and integrates every aspect of your web site design. It allows you to add a “skin” over your site similarly to what a template system does but it also also gives you more control over the management, appearance and customization of your template options.
As explained 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 states, a unique and revolutionary feature of a WordPress theme is that how your website displays to visitors on the outside is managed independently of the management of your content.
In simple terms, what this means is that themes let you modify the design of your website as much and as often as you like without touching your website’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if your site has been configured 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, site and plugin settings and product information will remain intact, but the site will look completely different.
Why is this such a big deal?
Because with WordPress, you no longer need to wait until your website’s design is done. You can get your website built quickly and start with any WordPress theme you like, and then change the entire look, feel and design of your WordPress site in minutes, whenever you decide … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your WP site without the need of web code development knowledge. Just pick any WordPress theme you want, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress lets you change your website design and customize elements like header images, layout, typography and more in a few seconds …
Because WordPress is distributed as open source software, website designers can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP templating system.
This means that thousands of high quality WordPress themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. Themes are usually distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (i.e. paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress development team maintains a FREE directory of WordPress themes which allows WordPress users to download, access and install thousands of great WordPress themes at $0 cost …
(WordPress.org – WordPress Themes Directory)
As more businesses turn to WordPress for publishing and managing their digital presence, more designers are now starting to develop themes for a wider audience of web users.
Themes vary from simple-looking, to artsy designs that are quite impressive and would easily cost many hundreds of dollars to design. Surprisingly, themes are very inexpensive to purchase.
You can view a number of WordPress theme galleries containing many examples of themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits Of Using WordPress Themes
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over choosing applications that require traditional web design:
Ready To Use In No Time
Themes are quite easy to install on your site. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin to your Plugins 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 inside your WordPress dashboard.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a large community of professional theme developers who make thousands of professional WordPress Themes available to WordPress users. And many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent “look and feel” across all the blog’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your blog’s content. This means you can change the “look and feel” of your site as often as you want without affecting the underlying content of your blog.
- Many themes provide built-in features and settings that allow you to easily customize your theme’s style, layout and design elements and create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many themes are built using a framework that lets users update the theme to newer theme versions without losing any customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically directly from your admin panel.
- Themes helps you save hundreds of dollars on web design costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally very affordable.
Responsive Themes
Many WordPress theme designers are now creating themes that incorporate “responsive” web design.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically resize to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different platforms) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for each platform. Users can scroll, read and load your site on all device platforms without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to have installed additional themes.
Note: When searching for WordPress themes, we recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your website will display correctly across all of your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore should comply with the latest standards of website design coding.
I hope that the above overview has helped you gain a clearer understanding about themes, what WordPress themes are, how themes can help you and your business save money, and how themes make customizing your web design easy.
To learn where to find the best themes for your website, see this page: Where To Find The Best Paid And Free WordPress Web Themes For Your Business Site Or Blog.
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