The development of web site management systems like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) has truly simplified web design and web development for business users.
This greatly benefits business owners thinking about getting a digital presence that is relatively simple, easy and inexpensive to manage.
Before “blogging” and the development of advanced CMS solutions, if you needed to get a site for your business, you had to wait until both the web development and website design processes were completely done. This process could mean weeks, sometimes even many months of waiting!
The development of WordPress themes have changed all this. In this article, you will learn what WordPress themes are, how themes help your business save money on web development costs, and how WP themes make it easy to customize your WordPress site.
Web Design Revolution
More website owners have benefited from a revolution in website design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a small business, you will want to learn about this, because it could save you a lot of time and money on website development or web design costs.
Let’s review what used to happen before software like WordPress came along:
First, you would discuss your project with a web site developer or designer. Then, the design had to be discussed and agreed upon. This involved spending time with someone with website design skills discussing design elements of the website like the, colors, formats, page elements, content, etc.
Each page of your web site then had to be individually created with all of the elements and codes inserted into your page content. All pages were then assembled into a website using links and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with every other file required to make your website work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and performed the way it was intended to (and looking the way the client had imagined it to look), was the web site deemed to have been completed and ready to go live.
The next phase in the evolution of website design was the introduction of “web templates”. A web site template allows presentation elements of the website to be created separately from content on the page. Having template elements helped to speed up the website development process and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also allowed website developers to service businesses with less money to spend on marketing …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more web development agencies began using “template-based” websites, templates were designed that could offer various customizable features and options, such as the ability to choose different colors, styles, layouts
As web sites and web editing tools evolved, web templates also started to evolve into website template “systems” that allowed users and web developers to control the visual components of a website.
And then, WordPress was introduced 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
WordPress themes drive the concept of a website template system much further.
A WordPress theme controls every aspect of your site’s design. It allows you to add a “skin” over your site similarly to what a template system does but it provides users with more control over the management, presentation and ability to customize template settings.
As per 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 the above states, a unique feature of a WP theme is that how your website appears to visitors is a separate system from the way your content is managed.
Basically, what this means is that a WordPress theme lets you change the appearance of your site as often as you want without modifying your website’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if you have set up your website for e-commerce, changing the entire look of your site with a different theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your web site. All e-commerce features, site settings and product information will remain unaffected, but the site will look completely different.
Why is this great news for businesses?
Because when your site is built using WordPress, you no longer need to wait until your site’s web design is done. You can get your website built simply and get started with any WordPress theme you want, and then change the entire look, feel and design of your WordPress site in seconds, whenever you decide … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WordPress site without the need of web code development knowledge. Just choose any WordPress theme you want, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress lets you change your web design and customize elements like headers, layout, style settings and more in less than a few minutes …
Because WordPress is distributed as open source software, web design companies from all over the world can design themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP template system.
This means that thousands of high quality WP themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. Themes are generally distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (i.e. paid) WP themes.
The WordPress development team maintains a FREE directory of WP themes which allows WordPress users to access thousands of excellent web templates at $0 cost …
(WordPress.org – WordPress Themes Directory)
As more businesses turn to WordPress for online publishing, more designers are now starting to develop themes for a wider range of users.
Themes vary from professional-looking, to designs that are simply spectacular and could easily cost thousands of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, most WordPress themes can be bought fairly cheaply, especially when you compare the price to what it would have cost you if a website designer had to build it from scratch.
You can see a number of theme galleries containing various examples of WordPress themes in this article:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits & Advantages Of Using Themes
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over choosing traditional web design:
Be Up And Running In Very Little Time
Themes are really easy to install on your site. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the theme directory at WordPress.org) directly from within your WP dashboard.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a large online community of commercial theme designers who make thousands of great WP Themes available to WordPress users. Many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent look across all of the site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your web site’s content. This allows you change WordPress themes as often as you like without disturbing your site’s information.
- Many themes provide additional built-in features and settings that let you easily customize your theme’s layout and design elements to create a unique look to suit your taste.
- Many themes are built using a framework that lets users upgrade themes to a newer theme version without losing any customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, import and install WordPress Themes automatically from your admin panel.
- WordPress 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 “responsive” themes for the WordPress CMS.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly over different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different platforms) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different platforms. Users can navigate, read and load your site on different devices without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to install additional themes.
Note: When purchasing WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your web site displays well on all devices, it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore probably complies with the latest standards, practices and techniques of website design coding.
I hope the above overview has given you a clearer understanding of themes, what themes are, how they can help you save money on web design costs, and how themes make customizing your web design easy.
In the next blog post in the article series on basic features and functionality of WordPress, we show you where to search for great WP themes for your blog.
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