The introduction of web management applications like the WordPress CMS has truly simplified web design and web development for web users.
This greatly benefits individuals or businesses thinking of running a web presence that is relatively simple and easy to manage.
Prior to “blogging” and the development of powerful CMS technologies, if you needed a professional business website, you normally would have to wait until both the web development and web design processes were completely done. This could take weeks, even many months!
WordPress themes changed all this. In this blog post, you will learn what themes are, how themes save your business money on website design costs, and how WP themes let you easily customize your site.
Evolution In Web Site Design
Businesses will benefit from an evolution in website design that has been going for a number of years now. If you own a small business, you will want to learn about this, because it could save your business thousands of dollars on web development or web design costs.
Let’s take a look at how things typically worked in “traditional” web design before WordPress came along:
First, you would discuss your requirements with a web developer or web designer. After that, the design itself would be decided upon. This involved time and money being spent with a professional web designer going over things of your web site like the layout, colors, styles, visual elements, content, etc.
Every page of your web site then had to be hand-coded with all your design elements and codes inserted into the content. All of the pages were then assembled together into a website using links 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 functioned how it should (and looking how a client had wanted it to look), was the website deemed as being completed and ready for delivery.
Then, website “templates” were developed”. A website template allows design elements of the website to be created separately from content on the page. The development of template elements helped speed up the web site development process and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also allowed web site developers to work with business clients and clients with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more website development companies began choosing “template-based” web design services, templates started being developed that could provide expanding customizable options, like the ability to choose different colours, styles, layouts
As websites and website editing tools evolved, website templates also began evolving into website template ”systems”, letting website owners manage their site’s visual components.
And then, WordPress was introduced and helped to start a new digital 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:
WordPress Themes
WordPress themes expand the idea of a website template system one step further.
A WP theme controls every aspect of your web design. It allows you to add a “skin” to your site much like a web template system does but it provides you with complete control over the management and ability to customize template features.
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 quote states, a unique feature of WordPress is that the way your website displays to visitors externally is kept independent of how your content is managed.
Basically, what this means is that you can modify the design of your website as much and as often as you like without modifying your website’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if you have configured WordPress site for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the website. All e-commerce features, settings and product information will remain intact, but the site will look completely different.
This is huge! Why?
Because when your site is powered with WordPress, you no longer need to wait until your website’s design is done. You can get your business website built simply and get started with any WordPress theme you like, and modify the entire look, feel and design of your website in minutes, whenever you decide … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WordPress site with no web code editing skills necessary. Just pick any theme you like, install it on your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your entire site’s web design and customize elements like headers, page layout, style settings and more in a few seconds …
Because WordPress is open source software, thousands of web designers anywhere in the world can design themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WP template system.
This means that loads of great WP themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. Themes are normally distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or sold as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE theme directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent themes completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – WordPress Themes Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress soars, more designers are now focused on creating themes for a wider audience of web users.
Themes range from minimal-looking, to fancy designs that are beautiful and could easily cost many hundreds of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, most WordPress themes are quite inexpensive.
You can view a number of WP theme galleries containing various examples of themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits And Advantages Of Using Themes
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over using traditional web template design:
Be Up And Running In No Time
WP themes are quite easy to install on your site. Simply upload it to your Plugins 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 WordPress dashboard.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a large online community of professional website developers and development companies who, collectively, make thousands of high quality WordPress Themes available to WP users. Thousands of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent design across all of the site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your website’s content. This means you can change WP themes as often as you like without disturbing the blog settings.
- Many WordPress themes come with additional built-in functionality and options that allow you to easily customize the theme’s style and design elements to create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that allows you to update themes to a newer theme version without losing any customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically directly from your admin panel.
- WP themes allow WP users to save thousands of dollars on web design costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically very affordable.
Responsive WordPress Themes
Many WordPress theme developers are now creating WP themes that incorporate “responsive” design.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically resize to display smoothly over different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different devices (e.g. PCs, tablets, smart phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for different types of devices. Users can scroll, read and display your site on a range of device platforms without having to resize anything, or requiring the website owner to have installed additional browser elements.
Note: When selecting, WordPress themes, we recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your web site will work correctly across your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards, practices and techniques of web design and coding.
We hope this article has given you a better understanding of themes, what themes are, how themes help you and your business save money on web design costs, and how themes make it easy to customize a web site.
In the next article in our article WordPress newbies on basic features and functionality of WordPress, we show you where to find the best themes for your website.
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