Powerful web publishing systems like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) have truly improved web design and web development for web users.
This is great for business owners that want a website that is simple and easy to manage.
Before blogging and the introduction of easy-to-use content management systems, if you wanted to get a professional web site built for your business, you had to wait until both the website development and web design processes were completely done. This process could mean weeks, even sometimes many months of waiting for the work to be done!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this post, we look at what themes are, how themes help you save money, and how themes help you easily customize your site.
Evolution In Web Design
Website owners have been benefiting from a great change in website design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you are a small business owner, you may want to learn about this, because it can save your business a lot of time and money on web development or website design costs.
Let’s take a look at what happened before WordPress were developed:
First, you would discuss your project with a web site developer or designer. After that, the “web design” itself had to be decided upon. This required time and money being spent with someone with website design skills discussing design elements of the web site like the, colours, styles, visual elements, content, etc.
Every page of your website then had to be individually created with your design elements and codes scripted into the content. The pages were then assembled together into a web site using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with every other file required to make your website work – script libraries, images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything passed testing and was working how it should (and looking the way the client had imagined it to look), was the web site considered to be finished and ready for delivery.
Then, website “templates” came along”. A web template allows the presentation of the web site to be created separately from the page content. Having templates helped speed up the web site development process and resulted in lowered production costs. This also allowed web development agencies to work with business clients and clients with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of businesses choosing “template-based” websites increased, web templates started being developed to offer clients with different customization settings, like colour palettes, the ability to specify different menu styles, formats, header, footer and navigation elements, layouts, and so on.
As web sites and website editor applications evolved, website templates also started to evolve into web templating “systems” that enable website owners and website designers to control their website’s design components.
Then, WordPress came along and helped to start a new web revolution …
(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 expand web templating systems one step further.
A WP theme controls every aspect of your site’s design. It allows you to add a “skin” to your site in a similar way that a template system does but also gives you more control over the management, appearance and ability to customize all template settings.
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 the above quote states, a unique feature of a WordPress theme is that how your website looks to site visitors is controlled independently of your site’s functionality and content management.
Basically, what this means is that a WP theme lets you change the look and feel of your site 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 configured for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your site. All e-commerce features, site settings and product information will remain unaffected, but the site will look completely different.
This is huge! Why?
Because when your site is built with WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your website to be done. You can get your website built quickly and start with any WP theme you want, and then completely modify the look, feel and design of your website in mere seconds, whenever you want … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WordPress site with no website coding skills necessary. Just choose a WP theme you want, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress lets you change your site’s design and modify elements like headers, page layout, style settings and more in less than a few minutes …
Since WordPress is made available as open source software, website designers from all over the world can design themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WP templating system.
This means that loads of high quality WP themes are made available to WordPress users. Themes are usually distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they can be purchased as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which allows WordPress users to access thousands of excellent web templates for free …
(WordPress.org – Free WordPress Theme Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now starting to develop themes for a wider range of applications.
WP themes range from simple-looking, to quirky designs that are visually spectacular and would normally cost hundreds to many thousands of dollars to create. Surprisingly, most premium themes can be bought very inexpensively, especially when you compare the price to what you would have had to pay if a web designer had to code it from scratch.
You can see several theme galleries that include many examples of great 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 traditional web template design:
Fast And Easy Installation
WordPress themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload a zip file that contains the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the themes repository at WordPress.org) directly from your WP site’s admin area.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a thriving community of professional web designers who, collectively, make thousands of professional WP Themes available to users. And many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent design across all your site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your website’s content. This makes it possible to change WP themes as often as you need without modifying the blog settings.
- Many WordPress themes provide built-in functionality and settings that let you easily customize the theme’s style, layout and design elements to create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many WP themes are built using a framework that lets users update themes to a newer theme version without losing any unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress lets you search, import and install WordPress Themes automatically right inside your site’s administration interface.
- Themes helps you save hundreds of dollars on website design costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are normally quite affordable.
Responsive Theme Design
Many theme developers are now creating “responsive” themes for WordPress.
A responsive theme allows websites to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly across different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different devices (e.g. laptops, tablets, smart phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different platforms. Users can scroll, read and load the site on all device platforms without having to resize anything, or requiring the website owner to install additional display elements.
Note: When selecting, WordPress themes, we recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your web site will work correctly across all of your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore should comply with the latest standards, practices and techniques of website design and web coding.
Hopefully, this basic overview has given you a clearer understanding of themes, what WP themes are, how they can help you and your business save money on web design costs, and how themes let you easily customize your web site.
To learn where to find the best themes for your website or blog, see this page: Finding The Best Premium And Free Responsive WordPress Web Themes On The Net.
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