Powerful website management applications like the WordPress CMS have truly improved web design and web development for anyone wanting to start a website.
This greatly benefits business owners planning to start a website that is relatively easy to manage.
Before blogging and the development of easy-to-use content management systems, if you wanted a business website, you normally would have to wait until both the website development and website design processes were fully completed. This process could mean waiting around for weeks, sometimes even many months!
The development of WordPress themes changed all this. In this post, you will learn what WordPress themes are, how they can help you save money, and how themes make it easy to customize your website.
The Evolution Of Web Site Design
More website owners today will benefit from a tremendous change in website design that started several years ago. If you own a business, you may want to know more about this, because it could save you thousands of dollars on web development and website design costs.
Let’s take a look at what normally took place before system like WordPress came along:
The first step would be to discuss your requirements with a web developer or designer. After that, the “web design” would be discussed and agreed upon. This meant spending time with someone with website design skills going over elements of the web site such as the, colours, styles, page elements, content, etc.
Every page of your site then had to be hand-coded with the design elements and codes written into the content. All of the pages were then assembled together into a web site using links and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with every other file needed to make your site work – script libraries, images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything had been tested and functioned how it should (and looking how the client had wanted it to look), was the website considered to have been completed and ready to go live.
The next stage in the evolution of business website design was the introduction of “website templating elements”. A website template allows ”look and feel” elements of the web site to be created separately from the page content. Having template elements helped to make creating websites faster and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also allowed website designers to service businesses and clients with smaller budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of website development companies using “template-based” web design services increased, templates started being created to provide clients with various customizable options, like colour palettes, the ability to select different menu styles, formats, header, footer and navigation elements, layouts, etc …
As web sites and website editor tools developed, website templates also started transforming into website template “systems” that allow users and web developers to control their web site’s design elements.
And then, a “blogging” software called WordPress was introduced 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:
WordPress Themes
WordPress themes push the concept of a website template system further.
A WP theme controls and integrates all of the design areas of the website. It allows you to add a “skin” to your entire site similarly to what a template system does but it provides users with more control over the management, appearance and ability to customize all template features.
As described in 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 and revolutionary feature of a WP theme is that the way your site looks to visitors is an entirely separate thing from the management of your content.
Basically, what this means is that themes let you modify the appearance 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 you have set up your site for e-commerce, changing the entire look of your site with a different theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the site. All e-commerce features, settings and product information will remain unaffected, but your site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your web design to be completed. You can get your business website built simply and get started with any theme you like, and customize the entire look, feel and design of your WordPress site in a few minutes, whenever you want … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your site without needing web coding knowledge. Simply choose any theme you like, install it on your site and activate it. WordPress lets you change your web design and modify elements like headers, layout, style settings and more in a few seconds …
As WordPress is distributed as open source software, hundreds of web design companies can create themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WordPress templating system.
This means that loads of high quality WordPress themes are made available to WordPress users. WP are usually distributed freely under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or sold as Premium (paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE directory of WP themes which allows WordPress users to download, access and install thousands of great web templates at no cost …
(WordPress.org – WordPress Theme Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider audience of WordPress users.
Themes range from professional-looking, to designs that are simply impressive and would typically cost many hundreds of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, WP themes can be bought fairly cheaply, especially when you compare the cost to what it would have cost you if a website designer had to develop it from scratch.
You can see several WP theme galleries containing many examples of great premium themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits Of WP Themes
Here are just some of the benefits of choosing WordPress themes over choosing applications that require traditional website design:
Be Up And Running In No Time
WP themes are really easy to install on your site. Just upload a zip folder that contains the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WordPress themes repository at WordPress.org) directly from within your WordPress admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a growing community of professional theme developers and development companies who make thousands of high quality WP Themes available to users. Many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent “look and feel” across all of your blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your site’s content. This allows you change WP themes as often as you like without changing the website’s content.
- Many themes come with additional features and options that allow you to easily customize the theme’s style, layout and design properties and create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many themes are built using a framework that lets you update the theme to a newer theme version without losing its unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, import and install WordPress Themes automatically from your dashboard.
- Themes allow users to save thousands of dollars on website development costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically very affordable.
Responsive WP Themes
Many WordPress theme developers are now creating themes that incorporate “responsive” functionality.
A responsive theme allows 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 each device type. Users can navigate, read and display your site on a range of device platforms without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to install additional themes.
Note: When selecting, WordPress themes, we strongly recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your website will display correctly across all of your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore probably complies with the latest standards of web design and web coding.
I hope this post has helped you gain a clearer understanding of WordPress themes, what themes are, how they can help you and your business save money, and how themes let you easily customize your website.
To learn where to find the best themes for your blog, see this post: Finding Great Free And Paid WordPress Templates For Your Business Online.
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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