Powerful web management systems like WordPress have effectively simplified web design and web development for anyone wanting to start a website.
This is a great thing for individuals or businesses planning to start a digital presence that they can fully manage themselves.
Prior to blogging and the development of sophisticated CMS tools, if you wanted to get a web site built for your business, you would have to wait until both the web development and web design processes were fully completed. This could take weeks, even many months!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this post, we take a look at what WordPress themes are, how themes can help you and your business save money, and how themes allow you to easily customize your website.
Web Site Design Evolution
Businesses, especially small businesses, have benefited from an evolution in web design that has been going for several years now. If you are a business owner, you may want to learn about this, because it can save your business thousands of dollars on website development and web design costs.
Let’s briefly take a look at what typically took place before WordPress came along:
The first step would be to meet with a web development firm or web site designer for a brief. After this, the actual “web design” had to be decided upon. This required time being spent with a professional web site designer discussing elements of your site such as the layout, colours, formats, graphic elements, content, etc.
Every page of your website then had to be hand-coded with all of the design elements and codes inserted into your content. The pages were then assembled together into a website using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with all other files required to make your site work – script libraries, images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything had been tested and was working the way it should (and looking how the client had wanted it to look), was the site considered as being completed and ready for delivery.
Then, web design “templates” came along”. A web template allows the design of the web site to be created separately from content on the page. The development of template elements helped speed up the website development process and resulted in lowered production costs. This also enabled website development firms to work with businesses with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more businesses started choosing “template-based” web design services, web templates started being created that provided clients with different customizable features and options, like colour palettes, the ability to pick different content styles, formats, header, footer and navigation elements, layouts, and so on.
As web sites and web editing tools evolved, website templates also started to transform into website template “systems” that let users manage the design components of their website.
And then, a “blogging” software called WordPress came along and helped to kick off a new online publishing 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 pushes web template systems one step further.
A WP theme controls every aspect of your website design. It lets you add a “skin” over your entire site in a similar way that a web template system does but also gives you complete control over the management and customization of all template options.
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, a unique and revolutionary feature of a WordPress theme is that how your site appears to visitors externally in no way affects your site’s functionality and content management.
In simple terms, what this means is that you can change the look and feel of your site as much and as often as you want without touching your site’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if you have configured WP website for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the site. All e-commerce features, plugin settings and product information will remain intact, but your site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because with WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your website to be completed. You can get your website built simply and get started with any WP theme you like, and then modify the entire look, feel and design of your WordPress site in mere minutes, whenever you choose … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site with no web code programming knowledge necessary. Simply choose a WordPress theme you want, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress lets you change your entire site’s web design and modify elements like headers, layout, typography and more in less than a few minutes …
Because WordPress is open source software, website designers all around the world can design themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP template system.
This means that loads of great WordPress themes are made available to WordPress users. Themes are generally distributed for Free under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or sold as Premium (paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent website templates at $0 cost …
(WordPress.org – Free Theme Directory)
As more users turn to WordPress for publishing and managing their digital presence, more designers are now focused on creating themes for a wider audience of web users.
Themes vary from professional-looking, to clever designs that are simply impressive and would easily cost thousands of dollars to create. Surprisingly, most WordPress themes can be bought fairly inexpensively, especially when compared to what you would have been charged if a website designer had to create it from scratch.
You can view a number of theme galleries containing stunning examples of great premium themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits & Advantages Of Using Themes
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of choosing WordPress themes over choosing traditional website design:
Ready To Go To Work In No Time
Themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your administrator section and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WordPress theme directory at WordPress.org) directly inside your WP dashboard.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a growing online community of professional theme designers and design companies who contribute thousands of high quality WP Themes available to users. And many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent “look and feel” across all the blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your blog’s content. This allows you replace the “look and feel” of your web site or blog as often as you need without deleting your blog settings.
- Many themes provide additional features and settings that let you customize your theme’s style and design elements and create a unique look to suit your preferences.
- Many themes are built using a framework that enables you to upgrade the theme to newer versions without losing its unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, import, install and update WordPress Themes automatically within the dashboard.
- WordPress themes lets you save hundreds of dollars on website design costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are typically quite inexpensive.
Responsive WP Theme Design
Many WordPress theme designers are now creating WP themes that incorporate “responsive” design protocols.
A responsive theme allows a website to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly over different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different devices (e.g. PCs, tablets, cell phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for different platforms. Users can navigate, read and display a site on various device platforms without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to install additional browser tools.
Note: When selecting, WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your web site will display correctly on all devices, it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards, practices and techniques of website design and web coding.
Hopefully, this basic overview has helped you gain a clearer understanding about WP themes, what themes are, how themes can help you save money, and how WordPress themes make it easy to customize your WP site.
In the next blog post on basic WordPress features, we show you where to find great themes for your blog.
***
"I love the way your email series "Infinite Web Content Creation Training Series" is documented and presented. It is very absorbing and captivating. The links and tutorials are interesting and educational. This has motivated me to rewrite my content following the concepts I am learning from the email series." - Mani Raju, www.fortuneinewaste.com
***