The introduction of powerful content management tools like the WordPress CMS has effectively improved web design and web development for anyone wanting a website.
This is great news for business owners thinking of starting a website that they can fully manage themselves.
Before blogging and the introduction of user-friendly CMS applications, if you needed to get a professional web site built for your business, you would have to wait until both the website development and website design processes were fully completed. This process could mean weeks, sometimes even many months of waiting!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this post, you will learn what themes are, how they can help you save money on web design costs, and how themes let you easily customize your site.
The Evolution Of Web Site Design
Website owners will benefit from a tremendous revolution in web design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a small business, you may want to know about this, because it could save you a lot of time and money on web development or web design costs.
Let’s review what happened before application like WordPress came along:
The first step would be to discuss your requirements with a website developer or designer. Next, the “web design” would be discussed and agreed upon. This meant time being spent with someone with web design skills going over things of your web site such as the, colours, styles, visual elements, content, etc.
Each page of your web site then had to be hand-coded with all the elements and codes inserted into your content. All the pages were then assembled into a web site using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with all other files required to make your site work – script libraries, images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and performed the way it should (and looking how a client had wanted it to look), was the site deemed to have been finished and ready to go live.
Then, website “templates” came along”. A web site template allows design elements of the web site to be created separately from the page content. Having templates helped to speed up the process of developing web sites and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also enabled web development agencies to expand their services to include business clients and clients with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of web development agencies choosing “template-based” web design services increased, web templates started being created that offered various customization features and options, such as color palettes, the ability to specify different styles, formats, header, footer and navigation elements, layouts, and so on.
As web sites and web editor software evolved, website templates also began to evolve into web templating “systems” that let website owners manage the visual elements of their web site.
And then, WordPress was developed and helped to kick off 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:
About WordPress Themes
WordPress themes improve the concept of a website templating system one step further.
The WP theme system controls every aspect of your web design. It allows you to add a “skin” over your site similarly to what a website template system does but it also also gives you complete control over the management and ability to customize template settings.
As the official WordPress site explains 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 in the quote above, one of the unique features of a WP theme is that the way your web site displays to visitors externally does not affect the management of your content.
In simple terms, what this means is that a theme lets you modify the design of your website as often as you like without touching your website’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if your site has been configured for e-commerce, changing the entire look of the site with a different theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the web site. All e-commerce features, plugin settings and product information will remain intact, but the site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because when your site is built with WordPress, you no longer need to wait until your site’s web design is done. You can get your website built simply and get started with any WP theme you want, and edit the entire look, feel and design of your WordPress site in seconds, whenever you want … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site without requiring website design knowledge. Just pick any WordPress theme you like, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress lets you change your web design and modify elements like header images, page layout, typography and more in a few seconds …
Since WordPress is made available as open source software, thousands of web designers from all over the world can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WordPress templating system.
This means that thousands of great WP themes are made available to WP users. WP are normally distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (i.e. paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE directory of WP themes which allows WordPress users to download and access, thousands of great themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org – Theme Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now focusing on developing themes for a wider audience of web users.
WordPress themes range from minimal-looking, to elegant designs that are breathtaking and would easily cost many hundreds of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, WP themes can be purchased quite cheaply, especially when you compare the price to what you would have had to pay if a web designer had to build it from scratch.
You can view several theme galleries containing various examples of great premium themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Themes – Benefits & Advantages
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of choosing WordPress themes over using traditional web design:
Easy To Install
Themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WordPress themes directory at WordPress.org) directly inside your WordPress dashboard.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a growing community of commercial web designers who make thousands of great-looking, high quality WordPress Themes available to WP 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 site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This makes it possible to replace WP themes as often as you need without changing your site information.
- Many themes provide additional functionality and settings that enable you to customize your theme’s style, layout and design elements and create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many themes are built using a framework that lets users upgrade themes to newer theme versions without losing any unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically within your site’s administration interface.
- Themes allow WordPress users to save hundreds of dollars on website development costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally very inexpensive.
Responsive WP Theme Design
Many WP theme designers are now creating themes that incorporate “responsive” design protocols.
A responsive theme allows websites to automatically resize to display smoothly over different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. computers, tablets, mobile phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for different types of devices. Users can scroll, read and load your site on various devices without having to resize anything, or requiring the website owner to install additional display elements.
Note: When selecting, 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 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, practices and techniques of website design.
I hope the above article has given you a clearer overview of WP themes, what WordPress themes are, how WordPress themes help you save money on website design costs, and how themes make it easy to customize a website.
To learn where to search for the best themes for your blog, visit this post: How To Find Great Paid And Free WordPress Templates On The Web.
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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