Flexible website management systems like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) have effectively improved web design and web development for web users.
This is terrific news for business owners planning to build a website that is easy to manage.
Before blogging and the development of sophisticated CMS tools, if you wanted to build a professional web site for your business, you typically had to wait until both the web development and web design processes were fully completed. This process could take many weeks, even many months!
WordPress themes helped change all this. In this article, we will explore what themes are, how themes save you and your business money on website design costs, and how WordPress themes help you easily customize your site.
Evolution In Web Site Design
More website owners are benefiting from a great change in website design that started many years ago. If you are a small business owner, you may want to know more about this, because it can save you thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.
Very briefly, this is what used to happen before WordPress was introduced:
First, you would meet with a website development firm or designer for a brief. After that, the actual design of the site itself had to be discussed and agreed upon. This involved time being spent with someone with web site design skills going over elements of your site such as the, colours, styles, page elements, content, etc.
Each page of your website then had to be individually created with the design elements and scripts coded into the page content. The pages were then assembled together into a website using links and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with every other file needed to make your site work – script libraries, images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything passed testing and performed the way it was supposed to (and looking how a client had wanted it to look), was the website considered to be completed and ready to go live.
Then, website “templates” came along”. A web template allows presentation elements of the web site to be created separately from content on the page. The introduction of templates helped make developing websites faster and resulted in reduced production costs. This also allowed web site development companies to service small businesses and clients with less money to spend on marketing …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more small businesses started choosing “template-based” web design services, templates started being designed that provided clients with a range of custom options, such as colour palettes, the ability to pick different formats or page layouts, etc …
As websites and web editor software developed, web templates also started evolving into web template ”systems”, letting website owners customize their web site’s design aspects.
And then, a “blogging” tool called WordPress came along and helped to start a new website 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
A WordPress theme pushes the concept of a website template system much further.
A WP theme controls and unifies the design aspects of a web site. It lets you add a “skin” over your site similarly to what a template system does but it provides users with more control over the management and customization of your template options.
As the official WordPress site explains …
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 feature of WordPress is that how your website looks to site visitors is a completely different thing from how your website functions internally to handle areas like content management and functionality.
In plain English terms, what this means is that you can modify the appearance of your site as much and as often as you like without modifying your website’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if your site has been set up for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the site. All e-commerce features, plugin settings and product information will remain unaffected, but your site will look completely different.
Why is this great news for small business owners?
Because with WordPress, you no longer have to wait until your site’s web design is completed. You can get your business website built quickly and start with any theme you like, and then completely edit the look, feel and design of your website in minutes, whenever you decide … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site with no web code programming skills necessary. Just pick a theme you like, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your website design and customize elements like header images, layout, styling options and more in a few seconds …
As WordPress is distributed as open source software, thousands of website design companies anywhere in the world can create themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that thousands of high quality WP themes are made available to WordPress users. Themes are normally distributed for FREE under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they can be purchased as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
The WordPress development team maintains a FREE theme directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent WordPress themes at $0 cost …
(WordPress.org – WordPress Themes Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress increases, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider range of uses.
Themes range from professional-looking, to creative designs that are quite impressive and would normally cost thousands of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, themes are fairly inexpensive to buy.
You can see several WP theme galleries containing stunning examples of great WordPress themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits & Advantages Of WP Themes
Here are just some of the benefits of choosing WordPress themes over using web building tools that require traditional web design:
Be Up And Running In Very Little Time
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 free theme directory at WordPress.org) directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a thriving community of professional web designers and design companies who make thousands of excellent WP Themes available to users. Many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent look across all of your blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your website’s content. This allows you replace the “look and feel” of your templates as often as you like without changing your underlying content of your website.
- Many WP themes come with additional built-in functionality and settings that enable you to easily customize the site’s style and design properties and create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many themes are built using a framework that enables you to upgrade the theme to newer versions without losing its unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically inside your dashboard.
- Themes allow WP users to save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on website design costs. Free WordPress themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically very inexpensive.
About Responsive WordPress Theme Design
Many theme designers are now creating “responsive” themes for WordPress.
A responsive theme allows a website to automatically resize to display smoothly across different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different devices (e.g. computers, iPads, cell phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for different platforms. Users can scroll, read and display the site on various device browsers without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring the website owner to install additional themes.
Note: When selecting, WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your web site will work correctly across your visitors’ devices, but 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.
We hope that this basic overview has helped you gain a better understanding of WordPress themes, what themes are, how WP themes can help you and your business save money, and how WP themes make customizing sites easy.
To learn where to find the best WP themes for your website or blog, visit this page: Finding The Best Free And Premium Responsive WordPress Web Templates On The Net.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
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