The introduction of web management systems like WordPress has effectively improved web design and web development for anyone wanting a website.
This is a great thing for non-technical users planning to start or build a website that is relatively easy to manage.
Before “blogging” and the development of easy-to-use CMS applications, if you needed a professional website, you had to wait until both the web development and web design processes were completely done. This process could mean weeks, sometimes even months of waiting around!
The development of WordPress themes changed all this. In this article, you will learn what themes are, how they save you and your business money on website design costs, and how themes make it easy to customize your WordPress site.
Web Design Evolution
More website owners today will benefit from a change in website design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a small business, you will want to know more about this, because it could save your business thousands of dollars on web development and web design costs.
Very briefly, here’s how things worked in “traditional” website development before WordPress came along:
First, you would discuss your requirements with a website developer or designer. Then, the actual “web design” itself would be discussed and agreed upon. This involved spending time and money with someone with website design skills going over areas of your site like the, colors, styles, graphic elements, content, etc.
Every page of your website then had to be hand-coded with all of your design elements and scripts coded into the content. All pages were then assembled into a website using hyperlinks and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with every other file needed to make your site work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything had been tested and worked the way it was intended to (and looking how the client had imagined it to look), was the web site considered to have been completed and ready to go live.
Then, website “templates” were introduced”. A web site template allows design elements of the web site to be created separately from the page content. Having templates helped make web site development faster and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also enabled website designers to work with small businesses and clients with smaller budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more small businesses started adopting “template-based” web design services, web templates were developed to offer different customizable settings, like the option to choose different colours, styles, layouts
As websites and web building software evolved, web templates also started transforming into web template “systems” that let users customize the design elements of their web site.
Then, WordPress was developed and helped to kick off a new content management 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 push website templating systems much further.
A WordPress theme controls and unifies the design areas of a website. It allows you to add a “skin” over your entire site similarly to what a template system does but it gives you more control over the management and customization of template options.
As WordPress states in its 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 and revolutionary feature of WordPress is that how your web site appears to site visitors in no way affects your site’s content management aspects.
In plain English terms, what this means is that themes let you modify the design 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 WP site has been set up 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.
Why is this great news for businesses?
Because when your site is built with WordPress, you no longer need to wait until your site’s web design is done. You can get your business website built simply and get started with any theme you like, and then completely customize the look, feel and design of your website in minutes, whenever you decide … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site with no web design skills necessary. Just pick any WP theme you want, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your web design and customize elements like headers, layout, style settings and more in a few seconds …
Because WordPress is made available as open source software, thousands of website design companies from all over the world can design themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that thousands of high quality WordPress themes are made available to WordPress users. WordPress 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 team maintains a FREE directory of WordPress themes which gives WordPress users access thousands of great web templates at $0 cost …
(WordPress.org – Free Theme Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress increases, more designers are now focusing on creating themes for a wider range of users.
WordPress themes vary from corporate-looking, to designs that are quite beautiful and could easily cost many hundreds of dollars to design. Surprisingly, themes are fairly inexpensive.
You can see a number of theme galleries containing various examples of great premium WP themes in this page:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits Of Using Themes
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over using web development applications that require traditional website design:
Very Easy To Install
Themes are quite easy to install on your site. Simply upload a zip folder that contains the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your admin user login and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WP theme directory at WordPress.org) directly inside your WordPress admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a growing community of commercial website designers and design companies who contribute thousands of professional WordPress Themes available to WP users. And many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent look across all your blog’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your website’s content. This means you can change the “look and feel” of your web site or blog as often as you want without modifying the blog information.
- Many themes provide built-in features and settings that allow you to customize your site’s style, layout and design elements and create a unique look to suit your preferences.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that enables you to upgrade themes to newer versions without losing any unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically right inside the dashboard.
- WP themes helps you save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on web design costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically very inexpensive.
About Responsive Themes
Many WP theme designers are now developing “responsive” themes for the WordPress platform.
A responsive theme allows a website to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different platforms) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different platforms. Users can navigate, read and load the site on most if not all devices without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to have installed additional browser elements.
Note: When downloading WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your website will display correctly on 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 coding.
I hope the above article has given you a better understanding of WordPress themes, what WP themes are, how WP themes can help you save money on web development costs, and how themes make customizing sites easy.
To learn where to find great WP themes for your website, go here:
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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