The development of advanced content management applications like the WordPress CMS platform has effectively improved web design and web development for users.
This is a great thing for non-technical users thinking about getting a digital presence that they can easily manage themselves.
Before “blogging” and the development of easy-to-use content management systems, if you wanted to build a web site built for your business, you would have to wait until both the web development and website design processes were completely done. This could mean waiting for many weeks, sometimes even many months!
WordPress themes changed all this. In this article, you will learn what themes are, how WP themes save you and your business money on website development costs, and how WP themes help you easily customize your WordPress site.
A Revolution In Web Site Design
More website owners have benefited from a great change in web design that has been going for several years now. If you own a small business, you will want to learn about this, because it could save you a lot of time and money on website development or web design costs.
In a nutshell, here’s how things typically worked in “traditional” web design before system like WordPress came along:
First, you would discuss your project with a website developer or designer. Then, the actual ”look and feel” of your website itself had to be discussed and agreed upon. This required time and money being spent with someone with web design skills going over design elements of your web site such as the layout, colors, styles, graphic elements, content, etc.
Each page of your website then had to be hand-coded with all of the design elements and scripts coded into your page content. The pages were then assembled together into a web site using hyperlinks and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with all other files needed to make your site work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything had been tested and performed how it was intended to (and looking the way a client had imagined it to look), was the website considered to be completed and ready to go live.
The next step in the evolution of website design was the introduction of “website templating elements”. Web site templates allow the ”look and feel” of the website to be worked on separately from the page content. The introduction of ready-made templates helped to make the process of developing websites faster and resulted in reduced production costs. This also enabled website development companies to work with businesses and clients with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more businesses started adopting “template-based” web design services, web templates started being developed to provide a range of custom features and options, like color palettes, the ability to pick different formats and header, footer and navigation elements, and so on.
As web sites and web building software evolved, web templates also began transforming into web template ”systems”, letting website owners and web developers manage their site’s design elements.
And then, WordPress was developed 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:
About WordPress Themes
A WordPress theme drives the idea of a website template system much further.
A WordPress theme controls every aspect of your web site design. It lets you add a “skin” over your site in a similar way that a template system does but it provides you with complete control over the management, presentation and customization 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 states, one of the unique and revolutionary features of a WP theme is that the way your site appears to visitors is controlled independently of the management of your content.
In plain English terms, what this means is that a WP theme lets you change the design of your site as much and as often as you like without affecting your site’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if you have set up your site for e-commerce, changing the entire look of the site with another 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 great news for businesses?
Because with WordPress, you no longer have to wait until your site’s web design is completed. You can get your website built quickly and get started with any WP theme you like, and modify the entire look, feel and design of your website in minutes, whenever you choose … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WordPress site with no website code development knowledge necessary. Just choose a WordPress theme you like, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your website design and modify elements like headers, layout, styling options and more in minutes …
As WordPress is distributed as open source software, web design companies anywhere in the world can design themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WordPress templating system.
This means that loads of great WP themes are made available to WP users. Themes are generally distributed for FREE under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they can be purchased as Premium (i.e. paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress development team maintains a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of great themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org – WP Theme Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress soars, more designers are now focused on developing themes for a wider audience of web users.
Themes range from minimal-looking, to dynamic designs that are breathtaking and would easily cost thousands of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, WordPress themes are fairly inexpensive.
You can view a number of theme galleries containing many examples of great themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WP Themes – Benefits & Advantages
Here are just some of the benefits of using WordPress themes over using traditional web design:
Very Easy To Install
WordPress themes are quite easy to install on your site. Simply upload a zip folder that contains the plugin to your Plugins folder via your WordPress admin user login and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WordPress themes directory at WordPress.org) directly from within your WordPress dashboard.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a large online community of commercial web developers and development companies who, collectively, contribute thousands of fantastic WP Themes available to WP users. Thousands of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent “look and feel” across all your site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, layouts, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This means you can replace themes as often as you want without modifying your website’s settings.
- Many themes come with additional built-in functionality and options that enable you to customize your site’s style and design elements and create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that allows users to update the theme to newer theme versions without losing its unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, import and install WordPress Themes automatically inside your dashboard.
- Themes helps you save hundreds of dollars on web design costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally quite inexpensive.
Responsive WP Theme Design
Many WP theme developers are now creating themes that incorporate “responsive” design standards.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly across different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as different platforms) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for each device type. Users can scroll, read and load a site on different device browsers without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to have installed additional display elements.
Note: When downloading WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your website will display 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 coding.
Hopefully, this overview has helped you gain a better understanding about WP themes, what themes are, how WP themes can help you save money, and how themes make it easy to customize your WordPress site.
In the next article in the article WordPress newbies on basic WP features, we show you where to search for the best themes for your blog.
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