Flexible web publishing technologies like WordPress have truly improved web design and web development for web users.
This greatly benefits non-technical users planning to build a digital presence that they can easily manage by themselves.
Before blogging and the introduction of easy-to-use CMS tools, if you wanted a professional website, you would have to wait until both the website development and web design processes were fully completed. This process could mean weeks, even sometimes months of waiting!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this article, you will learn what WordPress themes are, how themes help your business save money on website design costs, and how WP themes help you easily customize your site.
Website Design Evolution
Businesses will benefit from a tremendous change in website design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you are a business owner, you may want to learn more about this, because it can save your business thousands of dollars on web development or website design costs.
In a nutshell, here’s how things worked in “traditional” website development before a CMS tool like WordPress came along:
The first step would be to discuss your project with a web developer or web designer. Next, the actual design of the web site itself had to be decided upon. This involved time and money being spent with a professional website designer discussing design elements of the website such as the, colors, formats, page elements, content, etc.
Every page of your website then had to be individually created with all of the elements and scripts coded into your content. The pages were then assembled together into a website using links and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with all other files needed to make your site work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything passed testing and functioned how it was supposed to (and looking how a client had imagined it to look), was the site deemed to have been finished and ready to go live.
The next step in the evolution of business web design was the introduction of “website templates”. Web templates allow design elements of the website to be worked on separately from the page content. The development of templates helped to make developing web sites faster and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also allowed web development companies to expand their services to include business clients with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of web site development companies choosing “template-based” websites increased, web templates started being developed that could offer various customizable features, such as colour palettes, the ability to pick different menu styles, formats, header, footer and navigation elements, page layouts, and so on.
As websites and website building tools developed, website templates also started evolving into website templating ”systems”, letting users customize their web site’s design aspects.
And then, WordPress came along and helped to start a new content management 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 drive website templating systems one step further.
A WordPress theme controls the design aspects of a web site. It allows you to add a “skin” to your site similarly to what a web template system does but it also also provides you with more control over the management, appearance and customization aspects of all template options.
As WordPress has explained in its official 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 in the quote above, a unique and revolutionary feature of WordPress is that the way your web site looks to site visitors is kept independent of how your content is managed.
In simple terms, what this means is that you can modify the look and feel of your site as often as you want without affecting your website’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if your website 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, plugin settings and product information will remain intact, but your site will look completely different.
Why is this important?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer need to spend weeks or months waiting for your website to be completed. You can get your business website built quickly and get started with any WP theme you want, and then change the entire look, feel and design of your website in minutes, whenever you want … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site without requiring website coding skills. Just pick any theme you like, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your website design and modify elements like headers, page layout, styling options and more in a few seconds …
Since WordPress is made available as open source software, professional website design companies anywhere in the world can create themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WP templating system.
This means that loads of high quality WP themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. WP are generally distributed for FREE under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or sold as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
The WordPress development team maintains a FREE directory of WP themes which allows WordPress users to download, access and install thousands of excellent website templates at no cost …
(WordPress.org – WP Themes Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now focusing on developing themes for a wider range of users.
WP themes vary from minimal-looking, to designs that are beautiful and would normally cost hundreds to thousands of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, most themes can be purchased very cheaply, especially when compared to what you would have had to pay if a web designer had to develop it from scratch.
You can view a number of theme galleries containing many examples of great WP themes in this page:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits And Advantages Of Using WP Themes
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of choosing WordPress themes over using tools that require traditional web template design:
Installation Is Easy And Quick
WordPress 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 administrator login and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the theme repository at WordPress.org) directly inside your WP dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a growing community of professional web developers and development companies who, collectively, contribute thousands of high quality WP Themes available to WP users. Many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent look across all the blog’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, layouts, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your site’s content. This allows you change the “look and feel” of your templates as often as you want without affecting your content.
- Many WP themes provide additional built-in features and options that allow you to easily customize the site’s layout and design elements and create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that enables users to upgrade themes to a newer theme version without losing its unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, import, install and update WordPress Themes automatically directly from your admin panel.
- WP themes allow users to save thousands of dollars on web development costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are normally quite affordable.
Responsive Theme Design
Many theme designers are now creating “responsive” themes for WordPress.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as across different platforms) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each platform. Users can navigate, read and load a site on most devices without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring the website owner to have installed additional browser tools.
Note: When purchasing WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your web site works on all of your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards of website design and coding.
I hope this overview has helped you gain a better understanding about WordPress themes, what themes are, how they help you and your business save money, and how WP themes make it easy to customize a site.
In our next article on basic features and functionality of WordPress, we show you where to search for the best WP themes for your website or blog.
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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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