Powerful website publishing technologies like the WordPress CMS have truly improved web design and web development for website owners.
This is a great thing for individuals or businesses planning to start or build a digital presence that is simple and easy to manage.
Prior to blogging and the introduction of sophisticated content management systems, if you needed to build a professional site for your business, you would have to wait until both the web development and website design processes were fully completed. This could take weeks, sometimes even many months!
The introduction of WordPress themes have changed all this. In this article, you will learn what themes are, how WP themes save you money on web design costs, and how themes allow you to easily customize your website.
A New Development In Web Design
More businesses will benefit from a change in web design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you are a small business owner, you may want to know more about this, because it can save you a lot of time and money on website development and website design costs.
In a nutshell, here’s what used to happen before tools like WordPress were introduced:
The first step would be to discuss your requirements with a web site development firm or designer. Then, the actual “web design” would be discussed and agreed upon. This required spending time with a professional website designer discussing things of the site like the layout, colours, styles, visual elements, content, etc.
Every page of your site then had to be hand-coded with all of the design elements and scripts coded into the page content. All pages were then assembled into a web site using links and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with all other files required to make your site work – script libraries, graphic images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything passed testing and performed how it was intended to (and looking the way the client had imagined it to look), was the site deemed as being finished and ready for sign off.
Then, website “templates” came along”. A web site template allows the design of the web site to be created separately from the page content. Having template elements helped speed up the process of developing websites and resulted in lowered production costs. This also enabled web developers and designers to work with businesses and clients with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more small businesses started adopting “template-based” web design services, web templates started being designed that provided different customization settings, such as the ability to choose different colours, styles, layouts
As websites and website editing software evolved, web templates also began evolving into web template ”systems”, which enabled users to customize the design aspects of their website.
Then, a “blogging” software called 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 expand web template systems one step further.
The WordPress theme system controls and integrates all of the design areas of your web site. It lets you add a “skin” to your entire site in a similar way that a website template system does but also gives you complete control over the management, presentation and customization aspects of template features.
As the official WordPress site states …
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 the WordPress theme is that how your site appears to site visitors is an entirely separate system from your site’s content management aspects.
In plain English terms, what this means is that WordPress themes let you change the design of your site as much and as often as you want without modifying your site’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if you have set up WP site for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the website. All e-commerce features, site and plugin settings and product information will remain unaffected, but your site will look completely different.
Why is this so great for businesses?
Because when your site is powered by WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your site to be done. You can get your business website built quickly and get started with any theme you want, and then completely change the look, feel and design of your site in mere minutes, whenever you choose … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site without needing web code programming skills. Simply choose any theme you want, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your website design and modify elements like header images, page layout, style settings and more in a few seconds …
Because WordPress is made available as open source software, website design companies can design themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP template system.
This means that loads of high quality WordPress themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. Themes are generally distributed for Free under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or sold as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
The WordPress team maintains a FREE directory of WordPress themes which gives WordPress users access thousands of great website templates completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – Free WP Theme Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now focused on developing themes for a wider audience of WordPress users.
Themes range from functional-looking, to clever designs that are visually stunning and could easily cost many hundreds of dollars to design. Surprisingly, WordPress themes can be purchased quite cheaply, especially when compared to what it would have cost you if a web designer had to develop it from scratch.
You can view several theme galleries that include various examples of great WordPress themes in this article:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits & Advantages Of Themes
Here are just some of the many benefits of using WordPress themes over choosing applications that require traditional website design:
Be Up And Running In No Time
Themes are really easy to install on your site. Simply upload a zip file that contains the plugin to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the themes repository at WordPress.org) directly from your WordPress admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a thriving online community of professional theme designers and design companies who, collectively, contribute thousands of great WP Themes available to users. Thousands of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent look across all the blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your blog’s content. This means you can change the “look and feel” of your website as often as you like without disturbing the blog data.
- Many themes provide additional features and options that allow you to customize your site’s style and design properties to create a unique look to suit your taste.
- Many themes are built using a framework that lets you upgrade themes to newer versions without losing any customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically inside your admin panel.
- Themes lets you save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on web design costs. Free WordPress themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are normally very affordable.
Responsive Theme Design
Many theme designers are now creating WP themes that incorporate “responsive” design.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically resize to display smoothly across different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different devices (e.g. computers, iPads, mobile phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different types of devices. Users can scroll, read and load the site on all devices without having to resize anything, or requiring the website owner to install additional browser tools.
Note: When purchasing 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 all of your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore should comply with the latest standards, practices and techniques of website design and web coding.
We hope that the above article has provided you with a clearer understanding of WP themes, what WordPress themes are, how WordPress themes can help you and your business save money on website development costs, and how WordPress themes make customizing web sites easy.
To learn where to search for great themes for your blog, click here:
***
"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
***