Powerful website publishing applications like the WordPress CMS platform have truly simplified web design and web development for business owners.
This is a great thing for business owners thinking of starting a website that is relatively easy to manage.
Before blogging and the development of easy-to-use CMS technologies, if you needed a professional business web site, you had to wait until both the web development and website design processes were completely done. This could take many weeks, sometimes even many months!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this blog post, we explain what WP themes are, how WP themes help you save money on website development costs, and how themes make it easy to customize your WordPress site.
Website Design Evolution
More website owners today will benefit from an evolution in web design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a business, you may want to learn about this, because it could save you a lot of time and money on website development and web design costs.
Very briefly, here’s what happened before CMS systems like WordPress were introduced:
The first step would be to discuss your project with a web development agency or designer. After this, the “web design” would be decided upon. This involved time and money being spent with someone with web site design skills going over things of the site such as the, colours, formats, visual elements, content, etc.
Every page of your website then had to be individually created with all the design elements and scripts coded into your content. All the pages were then assembled into a website using links and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with all other files required to make your website work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything had been tested and worked how it should (and looking how a client had wanted it to look), was the web site deemed to be finished and ready to go live.
Then, web design “templates” came along”. A web template allows the presentation of the website to be created separately from the page content. Having ready-made templates helped to make the process of web site development faster and resulted in lowered production costs. This also enabled website development companies to service businesses and clients with smaller budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more web development agencies began choosing “template-based” websites, templates were designed to provide clients with expanding custom features, such as color palettes, the ability to select different styles and elements, etc …
As web sites and website editing tools evolved, website templates also began to transform into website templating “systems” that let website owners and web developers manage their site’s visual elements.
Then, WordPress was developed and helped to start 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 expands the idea of a web template system much further.
The WordPress theme system controls all of the design aspects of the website. It lets you add a “skin” to your entire site much like a template system does but also provides users with more control over the management, appearance and ability to customize all template settings.
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 above, a unique and revolutionary feature of WordPress is that the way your web site appears to visitors is a completely separate thing from how your content is managed.
In plain English terms, what this means is that a WordPress theme lets you modify the appearance of your site as often as you want without affecting your site’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if you have configured WordPress website for e-commerce, changing the entire look of your site with another theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your site. All e-commerce features, site and plugin settings and product information will remain unaffected, but the site will look completely different.
Why is this such great for small businesses?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer need to wait until your website’s design is completed. You can get your business website built simply and get started with any WP theme you like, and customize the entire look, feel and design of your website in minutes, whenever you want … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site without the need of website design skills. Just choose any WordPress theme you like, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress lets you change your site’s design and customize elements like header images, layout, styling options and more with just a few mouse clicks …
Since WordPress is distributed as open source software, web designers can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that loads of great WordPress themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. Themes are normally distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE directory of WP themes which allows WordPress users to download, access and install thousands of great themes for free …
(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.
Themes range from professional-looking, to exciting designs that are quite impressive and could typically cost many hundreds of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, WP themes can be bought fairly inexpensively, especially when you compare the cost to what you would have had to pay if a web designer had to code it from scratch.
You can see several theme galleries that include many examples of WP themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WP Themes – Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of using WordPress themes over choosing tools that require traditional website design:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
WP themes are really easy to install on your site. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WordPress themes directory at WordPress.org) directly inside your WordPress admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a large community of commercial website developers and development companies who make thousands of great WordPress Themes available to users. And many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent look across all of your blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, layouts, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your web site’s content. This makes it possible to change WordPress themes as often as you like without affecting the blog’s underlying content.
- Many WordPress themes provide additional built-in functionality and settings that let you customize the site’s layout, style and design elements and create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that lets users upgrade themes to newer versions without losing any unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically directly from within the admin panel.
- WordPress themes lets you save hundreds of dollars on web design costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally very affordable.
About Responsive Themes
Many WordPress theme designers are now developing “responsive” WP themes.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically resize to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. PCs, iPads, smart phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each device type. Users can scroll, read and load a site on a range of device browsers without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to install additional browser elements.
Note: When searching for WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that the content and layout of your site will display correctly on 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 web coding.
We hope this overview has helped you gain a better understanding about WP themes, what themes are, how WP themes help you and your business save money on website design costs, and how themes make customizing websites easy.
To learn where to find great themes for your blog, go here:
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