The development of website publishing tools like the WordPress CMS platform has truly improved web design and web development for anyone wanting a website.
This is a great thing for individuals or businesses planning to start or build a website that is easy to manage.
Prior to “blogging” and the introduction of powerful and effective content management systems, if you wanted to build a web site for your business, you would have to wait until both the website development and website design processes were completely done. This could mean weeks, even sometimes months of waiting!
WordPress themes changed all this. In this article, you will learn what WordPress themes are, how they help you save money on website development costs, and how themes allow you to easily customize your WP site.
Web Site Design Evolution
More website owners today have benefited from a revolution in website design that has been going for a number of years now. If you own a business, you may want to learn about this, because it can save your business thousands of dollars on web development or website design costs.
Let’s go over how things typically worked in “traditional” web design before CMS systems like WordPress were developed:
First, you would meet with a web development company or designer for a brief. Next, the actual design of your website would be decided upon. This required time and money being spent with someone with web site design skills going over areas of your site such as the layout, colours, formats, visual elements, content, etc.
Every page of your web site then had to be hand-coded with the elements and codes inserted into your content. All pages were then assembled into a web site using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with every other file required to make your site work – script libraries, graphic images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything passed testing and worked the way it should (and looking the way a client had wanted it to look), was the site considered to have been finished and ready for sign off.
Then, website “templates” were introduced”. A web template allows the ”look and feel” of the web site to be created separately from the page content. Having templates helped to speed up the website development process and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also allowed web development agencies to work with smaller business clients and clients with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more web site development agencies began choosing “template-based” websites, web templates started being developed that offered clients with expanding custom features, such as colour palettes, the ability to pick different content styles or menu styles, etc …
As websites and website building tools evolved, website templates also began transforming into website templating ”systems”, letting website owners control the design components of their web site.
And then, WordPress was developed 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 web templating systems much further.
The WP theme system controls every aspect of your web design. It lets you add a “skin” to your entire site in a similar way that a template system does but it gives you complete control over the management, appearance and customization aspects of all template features.
As the official WordPress site states …
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, one of the unique features of WordPress is that the way your site displays to site visitors on the outside is controlled separately from the management of your content.
Basically, 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 functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if you have set up your site for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your web site. All e-commerce features, settings and product information will remain unaffected, but the site will look completely different.
This is huge! Why?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer need to wait until your site’s web design is completed. You can get your website built quickly and get started with any theme you like, and then customize the entire look, feel and design of your website in a few minutes, whenever you want … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your WordPress site with no website code development knowledge required. Just choose a theme you like, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress lets you change your entire site’s web design and customize elements like headers, page layout, typography and more with just a few mouse clicks …
Since WordPress is open source software, web designers anywhere in the world can design themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WordPress templating system.
This means that loads of high quality WordPress themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. WordPress are normally distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or sold 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 WordPress themes at $0 cost …
(WordPress.org – WP Themes Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress increases, more designers are now focused on creating themes for a wider audience of web users.
Themes range from corporate-looking, to clever designs that are simply stunning and could easily cost thousands of dollars to create. Surprisingly, most premium themes can be purchased fairly inexpensively, especially when compared to what you would have had to pay if a website designer had to create it from scratch.
You can see a number of WP theme galleries containing many examples of great themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WordPress Themes – Benefits And Advantages
Here are just some of the benefits of using WordPress themes over choosing traditional website design:
WordPress Theme Installation Is Easy
WordPress themes are quite easy to install on your site. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WordPress administrator account and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the free theme directory at WordPress.org) directly inside your WP site’s admin area.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a large online community of commercial website developers who contribute thousands of great-looking, high quality WP Themes available to WP users. Many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent look across all of the blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your web site’s content. This means you can replace themes as often as you want without disturbing your blog information.
- Many themes come with built-in functionality and settings that allow you to customize the site’s style, layout and design properties and create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many WP themes are built using a framework that enables users to upgrade themes to newer versions without losing any unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, import and install WordPress Themes automatically within your admin panel.
- WordPress themes allow users to save hundreds of dollars on web development costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are normally very inexpensive.
Responsive WP Theme Design
Many theme designers are now creating “responsive” WP themes.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically reconfigure the layout to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. PCs, tablets, mobile phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each platform. Users can navigate, read and load a site on all device platforms without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to have installed additional display elements.
Note: When selecting, WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your website works on 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 of website design.
We hope this basic overview has helped you gain a clearer understanding about themes, what WordPress themes are, how they can help you and your business save money on website development costs, and how WordPress themes make customizing sites easy.
To learn where to find great 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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