The introduction of web site management applications like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) has effectively improved web design and web development for web users.
This is great for individuals or businesses planning to start an online business presence that they can manage.
Prior to “blogging” and the development of user-friendly CMS tools, if you needed a professional business website, you had to wait until both the web development and web design processes were fully completed. This could mean waiting around for many weeks, even many months!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this blog post, you will learn what WordPress themes are, how themes help your business save money on web development costs, and how themes help you easily customize your WordPress site.
A Revolution In Website Design
Businesses are benefiting from a tremendous revolution in website design that has been going for a number of years now. If you are a business owner, you may want to know more about this, because it can save your business a lot of time and money on website development and website design costs.
Let’s briefly take a look at how things used to work in “traditional” website development before WordPress came along:
The first step would be to discuss your requirements with a web development agency or designer. Then, the design would be decided upon. This required spending time and money with a professional website designer discussing design elements of the website like the layout, colors, styles, graphic elements, content, etc.
Every page of your web site then had to be individually created with all of the design elements and codes inserted into your content. All of the pages were then assembled together into a website using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with every other file needed to make your website work – script libraries, images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything had been tested and was performing how it was supposed to (and looking the way a client had imagined it to look), was the web site deemed as being completed and ready to go live.
The next step in the evolution of business website design was the introduction of “website templates”. A website template allows design elements of the web site to be worked on separately from the page content. The development of templates helped speed up the website development process and resulted in reduced costs of production. This also enabled website designers to service smaller businesses with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more businesses started choosing “template-based” websites, templates started being introduced that offered clients with different customization features and options, such as the option to choose different colors, styles, layouts
As web sites and web editing applications developed, website templates also started to transform into web template “systems” that let website owners and website designers manage their website’s design elements.
Then, a “blogging” application called WordPress came along and helped to kick off a new business 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
WordPress themes improve the concept of a website templating system much further.
The WordPress theme system controls every aspect of your website design. It lets you add a “skin” over your site in a similar way that a template system does but also gives you complete control over the management, presentation and customization of your template features.
As WordPress puts 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 WordPress is that the way your web site appears to site visitors on the outside in no way affects your site’s functional aspects (e.g. content management and functionality).
Basically, what this means is that a theme lets you modify the look and feel of your website as much and as often as you like without modifying your site’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if you have configured WP site 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 your site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because with WordPress, you no longer need to spend weeks or months waiting for your website to be completed. You can get your website built simply and start with any WordPress theme you want, and then completely customize the look, feel and design of your website in mere seconds, whenever you decide … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WordPress site without requiring website code development skills. Simply pick a WordPress theme you want, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your site’s design and customize elements like headers, layout, styling options and more with just a couple of mouse clicks …
Since WordPress is open source software, hundreds of web design companies can design themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP template system.
This means that thousands of great WordPress themes can be downloaded by WP users. WP are generally distributed for FREE under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or sold as Premium (i.e. paid) WP themes.
The WordPress team maintains a FREE theme directory which allows WordPress users to download and access, thousands of excellent WP themes completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – WordPress Themes Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress soars, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider range of users.
Themes range from corporate-looking, to designs that are visually spectacular and would typically cost many hundreds of dollars to create. Surprisingly, WP themes are quite inexpensive to purchase.
You can see a number of theme galleries containing stunning examples of WordPress themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits Of Themes
Here are just a few of the benefits of using WordPress themes over choosing tools that require traditional web template design:
Ready To Use In No Time
WordPress themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload it to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WP theme directory at WordPress.org) directly from within your WordPress dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a large online community of professional website developers and development companies who contribute thousands of quality WordPress Themes available to WP users. Thousands of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent design across all your blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This means you can change themes as often as you need without affecting the underlying content of your web site.
- Many WP themes come with additional functionality and settings that let you customize the theme’s layout and design properties and create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many themes are built using a framework that lets users upgrade the theme to newer theme versions without losing its unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically within your admin panel.
- Themes lets you save hundreds of dollars on web design costs. Free WordPress themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally quite affordable.
About Responsive WordPress Theme Design
Many WP theme designers are now developing “responsive” themes for the WordPress platform.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically reconfigure the layout to display smoothly across different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. PCs, iPads, mobile phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different types of devices. Users can navigate, read and load a site on most if not all device platforms without having to readjust their browser settings, 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 the theme ensure that your website will work correctly on 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 of web design coding.
We hope that the above article has provided you with a good overview of WP themes, what WP themes are, how themes can help your business save money on web development costs, and how WP themes make it easy to customize your site.
To learn where to search for great WP themes for your website or blog, go here:
***
"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)
***