The introduction of website publishing tools like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) has effectively simplified web design and web development for anyone wanting to start a website.
This is a great thing for businesses planning to run a digital presence that is relatively simple, easy and inexpensive to manage.
Prior to blogging and the development of powerful CMS technologies, if you wanted a professional business web site, you typically had to wait until both the website development and web design processes were completely done. This process could take weeks, even many months!
WordPress themes changed all this. In this post, we explore what themes are, how they save you and your business money on web development costs, and how WP themes let you easily customize your WordPress site.
Web Site Design Evolution
More website owners have been benefiting from a tremendous revolution in website design that has been going for several years now. 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 web development or website design costs.
Very briefly, here’s how things used to work in “traditional” website development before a CMS software like WordPress was developed:
The first step would be to discuss your project with a website developer or web site designer. After that, the actual “web design” would be discussed and agreed upon. This involved time being spent with someone with web design skills going over areas of your site like the layout, colours, styles, visual elements, content, etc.
Each page of your web site then had to be hand-coded with all the design elements and codes scripted into your page content. All pages were then assembled into a web site using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with every other file required to make your site work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything passed testing and performed how it was intended to (and looking the way the client had wanted it to look), was the website considered to be completed and ready for sign off.
Then, web design “templates” came along”. A web template allows design elements of the web site to be worked on separately from the page content. Having ready-made templates helped to make web site development faster and resulted in reduced production costs. This also enabled website development agencies to service small businesses with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of web development firms using “template-based” web design services increased, templates started being introduced that provided clients with different custom options, like the option to switch colours, styles, layouts
As web sites and web editing applications developed, web templates also started transforming into web templating “systems” that permitted users to control their website’s design components.
And then, WordPress came along and helped to kick off a new 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:
About WordPress Themes
WordPress themes take website templating systems even further.
The WordPress theme system controls and integrates every aspect of your website design. It allows you to add a “skin” to your entire site similarly to what a template system does but it also also provides users with complete control over the management, appearance and ability to customize all template settings.
As the official WordPress site described 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 how your web site appears to site visitors on the outside in no way affects the way your website works internally to handle areas like content management and functionality.
In simple terms, what this means is that a WP theme lets you change the look and feel of your website as much and as often as you like without modifying your website’s content and all the functionality you’ve built 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, 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 website design to be done. You can get your website built simply and get started with any theme you want, and completely customize the look, feel and design of your website in minutes, whenever you decide … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WordPress site without requiring any website code programming knowledge. Simply choose any WordPress theme you like, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress lets you change your website design and customize elements like header images, layout, style settings and more with just a couple of mouse clicks …
Because WordPress is distributed as open source software, thousands of web designers all around the world can design themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP templating system.
This means that thousands of great WordPress themes can be downloaded by WP users. WP are usually distributed for FREE under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or sold as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE theme directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of great WordPress themes completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – Free Theme Directory)
As more businesses turn to WordPress for publishing and managing their content online, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider audience of web users.
WP themes vary from professional-looking, to designs that are visually stunning and could easily cost thousands of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, most themes can be purchased quite inexpensively, especially when compared to what you would have been charged if a website designer had to build it from scratch.
You can see several theme galleries containing various examples of great themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits Of Using Themes
Here are just some of the many benefits of using WordPress themes over choosing website building tools that require traditional web template design:
WP Theme Installation Is Easy
WordPress themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WP themes repository at WordPress.org) directly from within your WordPress site’s admin area.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a large online community of commercial web developers who contribute thousands of great-looking, high quality WordPress Themes available to users. Many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent “look and feel” across all of the blog’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your blog’s content. This means you can swap WordPress themes as often as you like without deleting the site information.
- Many themes come with additional built-in features and options that allow you to customize your site’s style and design elements to create a unique look to suit your preferences.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that lets users update themes to a newer theme version without losing its unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, import, install and update WordPress Themes automatically right inside the admin panel.
- Themes lets you save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on website development costs. Free WordPress themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally very affordable.
Responsive Theme Design
Many theme developers are now creating WordPress themes that incorporate “responsive” web design.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically reconfigure the layout to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. PCs, tablets, cell phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each device type. Users can scroll, read and display a site on a range of device browsers without having to readjust their browser settings, 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 a responsive theme ensure that the content and layout of your site works across your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore probably complies with the latest standards of website design.
I hope this article has given you a good understanding of themes, what WordPress themes are, how themes can help you and your business save money, and how themes make customizing web sites easy.
In our next blog post in the article series for new WordPress users on helping you understand features and functionality of WordPress, we show you where to search for great WP themes for your blog.
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