Flexible content publishing tools like the WordPress CMS platform have truly simplified web design and web development for anyone wanting to start a website.
This is a great thing for business owners wanting to start a digital presence that they can fully manage themselves.
Prior to “blogging” and the introduction of user-friendly CMS solutions, if you needed to get a web site for your business, you typically had to wait until both the website development and website design processes were fully completed. This process could take many weeks, sometimes even months!
The introduction of WordPress themes have changed all this. In this blog post, we explore what themes are, how WP themes save your business money on web design costs, and how WP themes make it easy to customize your website.
A Revolution In Web Design
Website owners are benefiting from a change in web design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you are a business owner, you will want to know about this, because it can save you thousands of dollars on website development or web design costs.
Very briefly, this is how things typically worked in “traditional” web design before WordPress were developed:
First, you would discuss your requirements with a website development agency or website designer. Then, the design itself would be decided upon. This meant time being spent with a professional web designer discussing things of your site like the, colors, formats, graphic elements, content, etc.
Each page of your site then had to be hand-coded with all the design elements and codes scripted into the page content. The pages were then assembled together into a web site using hyperlinks and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with all other files required to make your website work – script libraries, images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and functioned how it should (and looking the way a client had imagined it to look), was the website deemed to have been completed and ready to go live.
Then, web design “templates” were introduced”. Web templates allow the presentation of the web site to be created separately from the page content. The introduction of templates helped to make website creation faster and resulted in reduced costs of production. This also allowed website designers to work with business clients and clients with less money to spend on marketing …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of website development firms choosing “template-based” web design services increased, web templates were designed to offer different customizable features, like color palettes, the ability to specify different styles, formats, header, footer and navigation elements, page layouts, and so on.
As websites and web editing tools evolved, web templates also began transforming into web template ”systems”, letting website owners control the design elements of their site.
Then, WordPress came along and helped to kick off a new business website revolution …
(WordPress – A Content Publishing Revolution)
To learn more about content management systems and the benefits of the WordPress CMS, see the tutorial below:
WordPress Themes
A WordPress theme drives web templating systems much further.
A WordPress theme controls and unifies every aspect of your web site design. It allows you to add a “skin” to your entire site similarly to what a template system does but also provides you with more control over the management and customization aspects of all template settings.
As WordPress has described in its web 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 quote states, one of the unique and revolutionary features of WordPress is that the way your website displays to site visitors is managed independently of the way your content is managed.
In plain English terms, what this means is that you can modify the appearance of your site as often as you like without modifying your site’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if your site has been configured for e-commerce, replacing the 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 your site will look completely different.
Why is this important?
Because with WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your web design to be done. You can get your website built quickly and get started with any WP theme you want, and modify the entire look, feel and design of your site in a few seconds, whenever you choose … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your site with no website code programming skills required. Simply choose any theme you like, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your entire site’s web design and modify elements like headers, page layout, typography and more in a few seconds …
Because WordPress is made available as open source software, website designers can design themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WordPress templating system.
This means that loads of great WP themes are made available to WordPress users. Themes are usually distributed for FREE under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or sold as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent WP themes completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – Free Theme Directory)
As more businesses turn to WordPress for publishing and managing their digital presence, more designers are now focused on creating themes for a wider range of users.
Themes vary from bare-looking, to fancy designs that are beautiful and could normally cost hundreds to many thousands of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, most WP themes are quite inexpensive to buy.
You can view several WordPress theme galleries containing stunning examples of great premium WP themes in this page:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WordPress Themes – Benefits & Advantages
Here are just some of the benefits of using WordPress themes over using traditional web template design:
Easy & Quick To Install
Themes are really easy to install on your site. Just upload a zip folder that contains the plugin to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin section and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the free theme repository at WordPress.org) directly from your WP admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a large online community of commercial theme developers and development companies who, collectively, contribute thousands of high quality WordPress Themes available to users. Many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent design across all the blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This makes it possible to swap themes as often as you need without disturbing the underlying content.
- Many themes provide additional features and settings that enable you to easily customize the theme’s layout and design properties and create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many WP themes are built using a framework that enables you to upgrade the theme to a newer theme version without losing its unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically inside your site’s administration interface.
- Themes lets you save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on web design costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically quite affordable.
Responsive Themes
Many theme developers are now creating “responsive” themes for the WordPress CMS platform.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly across different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. computers, tablets, smart phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for different types of devices. Users can navigate, read and display the site on most if not all devices without having to resize anything, or requiring the website owner to have installed additional browser elements.
Note: When searching for WordPress themes, we strongly recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your website displays well across 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 of web design coding.
We hope that this overview has helped you gain a clearer understanding about themes, what WordPress themes are, how they can help you save money on website development costs, and how themes let you easily customize a website.
In the next article in the article series for non-technical users on helping you understand WordPress features, we show you where to find great themes for your website or 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
***