Advanced content management tools like the WordPress CMS platform have truly improved web design and web development for users.
This is great for businesses that want a website that they can manage themselves.
Prior to blogging and the development of powerful CMS applications, if you wanted to get a professional web site built for your business, you typically had to wait until both the website development and web design processes were completely done. This could take weeks, sometimes even many months!
WordPress themes changed all this. In this article, we explore what themes are, how WordPress themes save your business money on web development costs, and how themes help you easily customize your site.
A Revolution In Web Site Design
Website owners have benefited from a change in website design that started a number of years ago. If you are a small business owner, you will want to know about this, because it could save your business thousands of dollars on website development and website design costs.
Very briefly, here’s what typically happened before CMS applications like WordPress came along:
First, you would discuss your requirements with a web site developer or web site designer. After that, the actual “web design” itself would be decided upon. This involved spending time and money with someone with web site design skills discussing areas of the site like the, colors, styles, graphic elements, content, etc.
Every page of your website then had to be individually created with all the elements and scripts coded into your content. All of the pages were then assembled into a web site using hyperlinks and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with every other file required to make your site work – script libraries, graphic images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything had been tested and worked how it was supposed to (and looking the way a client had wanted it to look), was the web site deemed to be completed and ready to go live.
Then, website “templates” came along”. A website template allows the presentation of the web site to be created separately from content on the page. The development of template elements helped to make site creation faster and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also allowed web designers to work with smaller business clients and clients with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more businesses began choosing “template-based” websites, web templates were developed that could provide a range of customizable features, such as color palettes, the ability to pick different formats and elements, and so on.
As web sites and web editing applications developed, website templates also began evolving into website templating “systems” that let website owners control the design elements of a site.
Then, 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:
About WordPress Themes
A WordPress theme takes web templating systems further.
The WP theme system controls and unifies every aspect of your site’s design. It lets you add a “skin” to your entire site similarly to what a template system does but also provides you with more control over the management, presentation and customization of your template options.
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 the above states, a unique and revolutionary feature of WordPress is that how your website displays to visitors is controlled independently of your site’s functional aspects (e.g. content management and functionality).
In simple terms, what this means is that you can modify the look and feel of your website as much and as often as you want without touching your site’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if your website 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.
This is huge! Why?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer need to wait until your website’s design is done. You can get your website built quickly and get started with any WordPress theme you want, and modify the entire look, feel and design of your website in mere seconds, whenever you want … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your site without the need of website code editing skills. Just pick any WP theme you want, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your website design and modify elements like headers, layout, style settings and more with just a few mouse clicks …
Because WordPress is made available as open source software, website design companies from all over the world can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WordPress templating system.
This means that loads of high quality WordPress themes can be downloaded by WP users. Themes are normally distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or sold as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress development team maintains a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org – Free WP Theme Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress increases, more designers are now starting to develop themes for a wider range of applications.
Themes range from professional-looking, to designs that are visually impressive and would easily cost many hundreds of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, most premium WP themes are very inexpensive.
You can view a number of WordPress theme galleries containing stunning examples of themes in this post:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WordPress Themes – Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over using traditional web template design:
Very Easy To Install
WordPress themes are really easy to install on your site. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your administrator section and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the free theme repository at WordPress.org) directly inside your WordPress dashboard.
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. And many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent “look and feel” across all of the blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your website’s content. This means you can change themes as often as you need without modifying the underlying content of your blog.
- Many themes provide built-in features and options that allow you to easily customize the site’s style, layout and design properties and create a unique look to suit your preferences.
- Many themes are built using a framework that lets users upgrade themes to a newer theme version without losing any unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically within the dashboard.
- WP themes lets you save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on website design costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically quite inexpensive.
Responsive WP Themes
Many theme developers are now developing themes that incorporate “responsive” design protocols.
A responsive theme allows websites to automatically reconfigure the layout to display smoothly over different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. computers, iPads, mobile phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for each platform. Users can navigate, read and load your site on different devices without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to install additional browser elements.
Note: When downloading WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your web site will display correctly across all of your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards and practices of website design and coding.
I hope that this overview has helped you gain a clearer understanding of WP themes, what WP themes are, how themes help you save money on web design costs, and how WP themes make customizing web sites easy.
To learn where to search for the best themes for your website or blog, click here:
***
"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
***