WordPress Themes Explained

This tutorial explains what WordPress themes are, what makes WordPress themes unique, and the benefits of using WordPress themes to improve the design of your website or blog.

WP For Newbies - An Introduction To WordPress ThemesThe development of powerful content management platforms like the WordPress CMS has effectively improved web design and web development for business users.

This is a great thing for individuals or businesses planning to start a digital presence that is simple, easy and inexpensive to manage.

Before blogging and the introduction of user-friendly CMS applications, if you wanted a business web site, you would have to wait until both the website development and website design processes were completely done. This process could mean weeks, even sometimes many months of waiting for the work to be done!

The development of WordPress themes helped change all this. In this article, we explain what themes are, how WP themes help your business save money, and how themes help you easily customize your website.

A Revolution In Website Design

More website owners today will benefit from an evolution in web design that started a number of years ago. If you own a business, you will want to learn more about this, because it could save you thousands of dollars on website development and website design costs.

Let’s take a look at what used to happen before a CMS system like WordPress came along:

The first step would be to meet with a web developer or website designer for a brief. After this, the actual ”look and feel” of the web site itself would be discussed and agreed upon. This required spending time and money with someone with website design skills discussing things of your site such as the layout, colors, styles, visual elements, content, etc.

Every page of your website then had to be hand-coded with your design elements and codes scripted into your content. All of the pages were then assembled together into a web site using links 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 elements, etc.

A Basic Guide To Themes

(image source:adobe.com)

Only once everything had been tested and was performing the way it should (and looking the way the client had imagined it to look), was the website considered to have been completed and ready to go live.

The next phase in the evolution of business web design was the introduction of “web templates”. A web template allows ”look and feel” elements of the website to be created separately from the page content. Having template elements helped speed up the process of developing web sites and resulted in lowered production costs. This also allowed web site development agencies to expand their services to include smaller businesses and clients with less money to spend on marketing …

A Newbie's Guide To WP Themes

(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)

As more web development companies began choosing “template-based” web design services, web templates started being introduced that offered clients with a range of custom features and options, like colour palettes, the ability to select different styles, formats, header, footer and navigation elements, page layouts, etc …

As web sites and website editing software developed, web templates also began transforming into website templating ”systems”, which enabled users and web developers to control their website’s design components.

Then, WordPress came along and helped to start a new online publishing revolution …

Understanding Themes

(WordPress – A Content Publishing Revolution)

To learn more about content management systems and the benefits of the WordPress CMS, see the tutorial below:

The WordPress Theme

WordPress themes drive web template systems much further.

A WP theme controls and integrates the design aspects of the website. It lets you add a “skin” to your site similarly to what a template system does but it provides users with complete control over the management, appearance and customization aspects of your template options.

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 the above quote states, a unique feature of a WordPress theme is that how your site appears to visitors in no way affects the way your content is managed.

Basically, what this means is that a theme lets you modify the design of your site as much and 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 your website for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the web site. All e-commerce features, site and plugin settings and product information will remain unaffected, but your site will look completely different.

Why is this such a big deal?

Because when your website is built using WordPress, you no longer have to wait until your site’s web design is done. You can get your website built simply and start with any WP theme you like, and completely edit the look, feel and design of your site in seconds, whenever you want … and as many times as you like!

Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WP site without requiring any web coding knowledge. Simply choose any WP theme you like, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your website design and modify elements like header images, layout, style settings and more with just a couple of mouse clicks …

Understanding Themes

Since WordPress is open source software, web designers all around the world can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WordPress templating system.

This means that loads of high quality WordPress themes are made available to WordPress users. Themes are generally distributed for FREE under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or sold as Premium (i.e. paid) WordPress themes.

The WordPress team maintains a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent themes for free …

Understanding WP Themes

(WordPress.org – Free WordPress Theme Directory)

As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider audience of web users.

WordPress themes range from bare-looking, to stylish designs that are visually breathtaking and would typically cost many hundreds of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, most WP themes are very inexpensive to purchase.

You can see several theme galleries containing various examples of great WP themes in this post:

Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!

(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)

Benefits & Advantages Of WordPress Themes

Here are just some of the benefits of choosing WordPress themes over using website development tools that require traditional web template design:

Ready To Use In No Time

WordPress themes are very easy to install on your site. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WP admin section and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WP theme directory at WordPress.org) directly from your WordPress dashboard.

WP Themes - An Overview

Additionally,

  • WordPress has a large online community of commercial website developers who contribute thousands of great WP Themes available to WordPress users. Many of these themes are completely free to use!
  • Themes give sites a consistent design across all of the blog’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, layout, etc …
  • A “theme” works independently of your website’s content. This makes it possible to swap the “look and feel” of your web site as often as you like without deleting the content.
  • Many WP themes come with additional built-in functionality and options that enable you to easily customize the site’s layout and design properties and create a unique look to suit your needs.
  • Many themes are built using a framework that lets users update themes to a newer theme version without losing any unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
  • WordPress lets you search, import, install and update WordPress Themes automatically inside the dashboard.
  • Themes allow users to save hundreds of dollars on website development costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are normally quite inexpensive.

About Responsive Themes

Many WordPress theme designers are now creating “responsive” themes for the WP platform.

A responsive theme enables a website to automatically resize to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. laptops, tablets, cell phones, etc.) …

Themes - An Overview

Responsive themes are also optimized for different platforms. Users can navigate, read and display your site on most if not all devices without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to install additional browser elements.

Note: When purchasing WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that the content and layout of your site will work correctly on all devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards of web design and coding.

I hope this post has provided you with a better overview of themes, what WP themes are, how WP themes help you and your business save money on web development costs, and how WordPress themes make customizing websites easy.

To learn where to search for the best WP themes for your website or blog, click here:

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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)

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