The development of web site management platforms like the WordPress CMS has effectively improved web design and web development for web users.
This is a great thing for businesses planning to build a website that is relatively simple, easy and inexpensive to manage.
Before “blogging” and the introduction of sophisticated CMS solutions, if you wanted a business site, you would have to wait until both the website development and website design processes were fully completed. This could take weeks, sometimes even months!
WordPress themes helped change all this. In this blog post, we explain what themes are, how they save you money on website design costs, and how WordPress themes allow you to easily customize your WP site.
Website Design Evolution
Businesses are benefiting from a change in website design that has been going for several years now. If you are a business owner, you may want to learn about this, because it could save your business a lot of time and money on web development and web design costs.
Let’s briefly take a look at what happened before WordPress was introduced:
The first step would be to discuss your project with a web development company or web site designer. After this, the actual “web design” would be discussed and agreed upon. This involved time being spent with someone with web site design skills discussing things of your site such as the, colours, styles, visual elements, content, etc.
Every page of your site then had to be individually created with all of your elements and scripts coded around your page content. The pages were then assembled together into a web site using hyperlinks and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with all other files needed to make your website work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything passed testing and performed how it should (and looking the way a client had wanted it to look), was the site deemed to be completed and ready to go live.
The next step in the evolution of website design was the introduction of “website templating elements”. A website template allows the presentation of the web site to be created separately from content on the page. Having template elements helped to make web site creation faster and resulted in lowered production costs. This also allowed web development companies to expand their services to include business clients and clients with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more website development companies started choosing “template-based” websites, web templates were introduced to offer expanding customizable options, like the option to choose different colors, styles, layouts
As websites and website editing tools evolved, website templates also started transforming into web templating ”systems”, letting users and web developers customize their site’s design components.
Then, WordPress was introduced 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 expands the idea of a website templating system even further.
A WordPress theme controls all of the design elements of the web site. It lets you add a “skin” to your site similarly to what a website template system does but also gives you more control over the management, presentation and ability to customize all 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 stated in the quote above, one of the unique features of WordPress is that how your website looks to site visitors is an entirely different thing from your site’s functional aspects (e.g. content management and functionality).
In plain English terms, what this means is that you can modify the look and feel of your website as often as you like without affecting your website’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if you have set up WordPress website 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 settings and product information will remain intact, but the site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer need to spend weeks or months waiting for your site to be completed. You can get your business website built quickly and get started with any WP theme you want, and then completely customize the look, feel and design of your website in minutes, whenever you choose … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site without needing web code programming skills. Simply choose a WordPress theme you want, install it on your site and activate it. WordPress lets you change your website design and modify elements like header images, page layout, styling options and more in minutes …
Since WordPress is made available as open source software, website designers anywhere in the world can design themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WP template system.
This means that thousands of high quality WP themes are made available to WordPress users. Themes are generally 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 maintains a FREE theme directory which allows WordPress users to access thousands of great website templates for free …
(WordPress.org – Free WordPress Theme Directory)
As more users turn to WordPress for publishing and managing their content online, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider range of users.
Themes range from professional-looking, to artsy designs that are breathtaking and could easily cost hundreds to thousands of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, most premium themes are quite inexpensive to purchase.
You can see several WP theme galleries containing various examples of themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WordPress Themes – Benefits & Advantages
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over using website development applications that require traditional web design:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
WordPress themes are really easy to install on your site. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your WP dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the free WordPress theme repository at WordPress.org) directly inside your WordPress dashboard.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a large online community of commercial web developers who contribute thousands of fantastic WordPress Themes available to WP users. Thousands of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent design across all the site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This makes it possible to change themes as often as you like without changing the website’s content.
- Many WP themes provide additional functionality and settings that allow you to customize your site’s layout, style and design properties to create a unique look to suit your preferences.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that lets you upgrade themes to newer versions without losing any customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically right within your site’s administration interface.
- Themes helps you save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on website development costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WordPress themes are typically very inexpensive.
Responsive WP Theme Design
Many WordPress theme developers are now developing “responsive” WP themes.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as across different devices (e.g. computers, iPads, cell phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different types of devices. Users can navigate, read and load the site on most if not all device browsers without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to have installed additional browser elements.
Note: When searching for WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your website works on all of your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore should comply with the latest standards and practices of web design and coding.
Hopefully, this overview has given you a better understanding of WP themes, what WP themes are, how they help you save money, and how WordPress themes allow you to easily customize a web site.
To learn where to find the best WordPress themes for your blog, click here:
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