Powerful content publishing tools like the WordPress CMS have truly improved web design and web development for non-technical users.
This greatly benefits business owners thinking of running an online business presence that is relatively easy to manage.
Before “blogging” and the development of sophisticated CMS tools, if you needed to build a web site for your business, you would have to wait until both the web development and web design processes were completely done. This could mean weeks, even months of waiting around!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this blog post, you will learn what themes are, how themes save you and your business money on web development costs, and how themes allow you to easily customize your site.
Web Site Design Revolution
More businesses will benefit from a change in website design that started several years ago. If you own a small business, you may want to learn more about this, because it can save you a lot of time and money on website development or website design costs.
Let’s go over what used to happen before CMS applications like WordPress came along:
First, you would discuss your project with a website development company or web site designer. After that, the actual “web design” had to be decided upon. This involved time being spent with a professional web designer going over things of the site like the, colors, styles, graphic elements, content, etc.
Every page of your site then had to be individually created with all your design elements and codes scripted into the content. All pages were then assembled together into a web site using links and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with every other file needed to make your website work – script libraries, graphic images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything passed testing and performed how it was supposed to (and looking how a client had imagined it to look), was the site deemed to have been completed and ready for sign off.
Then, website “templates” came along”. A website template allows the presentation of the website to be created separately from the page content. Having template elements helped to make the process of building websites faster and resulted in lowered production costs. This also allowed web site development companies to service businesses and clients with less money to spend on marketing …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more small businesses began choosing “template-based” websites, templates were developed to offer clients with expanding customization features, such as the ability to switch colors, styles, layouts
As web sites and web building applications evolved, website templates also began to evolve into website templating ”systems”, letting website owners control the visual elements of their site.
Then, WordPress was developed and helped to start 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:
About WordPress Themes
A WordPress theme takes website templating systems even further.
A WordPress theme controls all of the design aspects of a website. It lets you add a “skin” over your entire site similarly to what a template system does but it also also gives you more control over the management and customization of the site’s template settings.
According to 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 stated above, one of the unique and revolutionary features of WordPress is that how your site appears to site visitors on the outside is a different system from how your website is configured internally to handle areas like content management and functionality.
In simple terms, what this means is that a theme lets you change the appearance of your website as much and as often as you want without modifying your site’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if WordPress site has been configured for e-commerce, changing the entire look of the site with another theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the website. All e-commerce features, site and plugin settings and product information will remain unaffected, but the site will look completely different.
Why is this great news for small business owners?
Because with WordPress, you no longer need to wait until your website’s design is done. You can get your website built simply and start with any WP theme you like, and then customize the entire look, feel and design of your WordPress site in a few seconds, whenever you want … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site without needing any website code programming knowledge. Simply pick any WordPress theme you like, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your web design and modify elements like headers, layout, style settings and more in minutes …
As WordPress is made available as open source software, website design companies all around the world can create themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WP template system.
This means that loads of great WordPress themes are made available to WP users. WordPress are usually distributed for FREE under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (i.e. paid) WP themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE directory of WordPress themes which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent WordPress themes completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider audience of WordPress site owners.
Themes range from bare-looking, to elegant designs that are spectacular and would normally cost thousands of dollars to design. Surprisingly, WordPress themes can be bought very inexpensively, especially when you compare the price to what you would have had to pay if a web designer had to develop it from scratch.
You can view several WP theme galleries containing various examples of great WordPress themes in this article:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WP Themes – Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of choosing WordPress themes over using website building tools that require traditional web template design:
Be Up And Running In No Time
Themes are really easy to install on your site. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your administrator login and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the free WordPress theme repository at WordPress.org) directly from your WordPress site’s admin area.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a large community of commercial web developers and development companies who, collectively, contribute thousands of great WP Themes available to users. Many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent look across all of your site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your web site’s content. This means you can change WordPress themes as often as you want without deleting the site data.
- Many themes come with additional features and options that allow you to easily customize your site’s style, layout and design properties to create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many themes are built using a framework that enables users to update themes to a newer theme version without losing its unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, import and install WordPress Themes automatically inside your admin panel.
- Themes allow WP users to save thousands of dollars on web design costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically quite affordable.
Responsive Themes
Many theme designers are now creating “responsive” themes for the WordPress CMS platform.
A responsive theme allows websites to automatically resize to display smoothly across different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different platforms) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for each platform. Users can scroll, read and display the site on most device browsers without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to have installed additional themes.
Note: When selecting, WordPress themes, we strongly recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the 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 probably complies with the latest standards and practices of web design.
Hopefully, the above overview has given you a better understanding of WordPress themes, what WordPress themes are, how themes help you and your business save money on website design costs, and how themes allow you to easily customize a WordPress site.
In our next article on helping you understand WordPress features, we show you where to find the best WP themes for your website.
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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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