The introduction of flexible content publishing applications like the WordPress CMS has effectively improved web design and web development for website owners.
This greatly benefits business owners thinking about running a website that they can easily manage.
Prior to “blogging” and the introduction of powerful and effective CMS software, if you wanted a business site, you would have to wait until both the website development and web design processes were completely done. This process could mean waiting around for weeks, sometimes even months!
The introduction of WordPress themes have changed all this. In this post, we look at what WP themes are, how they save you and your business money on website development costs, and how themes let you easily customize your website.
A Revolution In Website Design
More businesses are benefiting from a great change in website design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a business, you may want to learn more about this, because it can save your business a lot of time and money on website development and web design costs.
Let’s go over what used to happen before solutions like WordPress were introduced:
First, you would discuss your project with a web developer or designer. After this, the design of the website would be decided upon. This involved spending time and money with a professional website designer going over areas of the site such as the layout, colours, formats, page elements, content, etc.
Each page of your web site then had to be hand-coded with the elements and codes inserted into the content. All pages were then assembled together into a website using links and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with all other files required to make your site work – script libraries, graphic images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and functioned the way it was intended to (and looking how a client had wanted it to look), was the site considered as being finished and ready to go live.
Then, website “templates” came along”. Web site templates allow ”look and feel” elements of the web site to be created separately from content on the page. Having ready-made templates helped to make building web sites faster and resulted in reduced production costs. This also enabled web site development agencies to work with business clients with smaller budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more small businesses started adopting “template-based” web design services, web templates started being designed to offer different customizable settings, such as the ability to choose different colors, styles, layouts
As web sites and web editor software developed, website templates also began transforming into web template “systems” that let website owners manage the visual aspects of a web site.
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:
The WordPress Theme
WordPress themes drive web templating systems further.
The WP theme system controls every aspect of your site’s design. It lets you add a “skin” over your entire site much like a web template system does but it also also provides you with more control over the management and customization aspects of the site’s template options.
As described 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 stated above, one of the unique and revolutionary features of WordPress is that how your web site appears to visitors is managed independently of the way your website is configured in the backend to handle areas like content management and functionality.
In plain English terms, what this means is that themes let you change the design of your site as often as you like without modifying your website’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if WordPress website has been configured for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the website. All e-commerce features, site settings and product information will remain unaffected, but your site will look completely different.
This is huge! Why?
Because when your site is built using WordPress, you no longer need to wait until your website’s design is done. You can get your business website built quickly and start with any WordPress theme you like, and customize the entire look, feel and design of your WordPress site in seconds, whenever you choose … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your site with no web code programming skills required. Simply choose any theme you want, install it on your site and activate it. WordPress lets you change your site’s design and customize elements like header images, page layout, style settings and more with just a few mouse clicks …
Because WordPress is distributed as open source software, commercial web design companies can design themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP template system.
This means that thousands of great WP themes can be downloaded by WP users. Themes are generally distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they can be purchased as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
The WordPress development team maintains a FREE directory of WP themes which gives WordPress users access thousands of great web templates at $0 cost …
(WordPress.org – Free WP Theme Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider audience of web users.
Themes vary from minimal-looking, to designs that are stunning and could easily cost thousands of dollars to design. Surprisingly, most premium themes are really inexpensive to purchase.
You can view several theme galleries that include many examples of WP themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WP Themes – Benefits And Advantages
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over choosing applications that require traditional web template design:
Ready To Use In Minutes
WP themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload a zip file containing the plugin to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WordPress themes repository at WordPress.org) directly from within your WP admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a growing online community of commercial web developers who contribute thousands of fantastic WordPress Themes available to WP users. Many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent look across all the blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, layouts, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This makes it possible to replace WP themes as often as you need without changing your settings.
- Many WP themes provide additional functionality and settings that enable you to customize the site’s layout and design elements and create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that lets users upgrade themes to a newer theme version without losing its unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically from your dashboard.
- WP themes helps you save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on web design costs. Free WordPress themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WordPress themes are normally very inexpensive.
About Responsive Themes
Many WordPress theme developers are now developing themes that incorporate “responsive” functionality.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly over different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different platforms) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for different platforms. Users can scroll, read and display the site on different device browsers without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to install additional display elements.
Note: When purchasing WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that the content and layout of your site will work correctly 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 website design and web coding.
We hope that the above article has given you a clearer understanding of WordPress themes, what WordPress themes are, how WP themes can help your business save money on website development costs, and how themes make it easy to customize a site.
In our next blog post on helping you understand features and functionality of WordPress, we show you where to search for great themes for your website.
***
"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
***