The introduction of powerful website management applications like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) has effectively improved web design and web development for non-technical business owners.
This is great news for businesses that want to own a website that they can easily manage by themselves.
Before blogging and the introduction of advanced content management systems, if you needed a professional business web site, you typically had to wait until both the website development and web design processes were completely done. This could take weeks, sometimes even many months!
The development of WordPress themes have changed all this. In this article, we explore what themes are, how themes save you money on website design costs, and how themes allow you to easily customize your website.
A Revolution In Website Design
More businesses today have benefited from a change in web design that started many years ago. If you own a business, you will want to know about this, because it can save your business thousands of dollars on website development and web design costs.
In a nutshell, here’s how things used to work in “traditional” website design before solution like WordPress came along:
First, you would discuss your project with a web development firm or designer. Then, the actual design would be discussed and agreed upon. This required spending time with someone with web site design skills going over design elements of your site such as the, colors, styles, graphic elements, content, etc.
Every page of your web site then had to be individually created with all of your design elements and codes scripted into the content. All pages were then assembled together into a web site using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with every other file required to make your site work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything passed testing and performed the way it should (and looking the way a client had wanted it to look), was the site deemed as being finished and ready for sign off.
Then, web design “templates” came along”. Web templates allow design elements of the website to be created separately from the page content. Having templates helped to speed up the process of developing web sites and resulted in reduced costs of production. This also enabled web development agencies to service business clients and clients with less money to spend on marketing …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of website development firms using “template-based” websites increased, templates started being introduced to provide clients with expanding customizable features, like color palettes, the ability to specify different styles or styles, and so on.
As websites and web editing applications developed, web templates also began to transform into website templating ”systems”, permitting website owners and website designers to manage the design components of their site.
Then, WordPress was developed and helped to kick off a new online publishing 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
A WordPress theme takes website templating systems much further.
A WP theme controls every aspect of your web design. It allows you to add a “skin” to your entire site much like a template system does but also gives you more control over the management, presentation and ability to customize the template options.
As per the official WordPress 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 stated in the quote above, one of the unique and revolutionary features of WordPress is that how your site displays to site visitors externally in no way affects your site’s content management aspects.
In simple terms, what this means is that a WordPress theme lets you change the design of your site as much and as often as you want without affecting your site’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if you have set up your website for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the site. All e-commerce features, site and plugin settings and product information will remain intact, but the site will look completely different.
Why is this important?
Because with WordPress, you no longer have to wait until your website’s design is completed. You can get your website built simply and start with any WP theme you want, and completely customize the look, feel and design of your WordPress site in a few minutes, whenever you want … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your site without requiring web code programming skills. Simply choose any WP theme you want, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your entire site’s web design and modify elements like header images, page layout, styling options and more in less than a few minutes …
As WordPress is open source software, thousands of web design companies all around the world can design themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that loads of high quality WordPress themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. Themes are usually distributed for FREE under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or sold as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
The WordPress development team maintains a FREE directory of WP themes which gives WordPress users access thousands of great themes for free …
(WordPress.org – WP Theme Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress increases, more designers are now starting to develop themes for a wider audience of web users.
WordPress themes range from functional-looking, to designs that are visually impressive and would normally cost thousands of dollars to design. Surprisingly, most themes can be bought quite cheaply, especially when you compare the price to what you would have had to pay if a website designer had to create it from scratch.
You can see a number of WordPress theme galleries that include various examples of great WordPress themes in this article:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WordPress Themes – Benefits And Advantages
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of choosing WordPress themes over choosing traditional web template design:
Ready To Start Using In Minutes
WP themes are quite easy to install on your site. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WP admin account and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the theme directory at WordPress.org) directly inside your WordPress site’s admin area.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a thriving community of commercial web designers and design companies who, collectively, make thousands of professional WordPress Themes available to WP users. Thousands of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent “look and feel” across all your blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This makes it possible to replace WordPress themes as often as you like without affecting the site data.
- Many WordPress themes provide additional functionality and options that let you easily customize the theme’s style, layout and design elements and create a unique look to suit your taste.
- Many themes are built using a framework that allows users to update the theme to a newer theme version without losing any customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, import and install WordPress Themes automatically within your site’s administration interface.
- Themes lets you save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on website development costs. Free WordPress themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically very affordable.
Responsive Themes
Many theme developers are now creating WordPress themes that incorporate “responsive” design protocols.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. computers, tablets, mobile phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different types of devices. Users can navigate, read and load your site on a range of device browsers without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring the website owner to install additional display elements.
Note: When downloading WordPress themes, we strongly recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your web site works 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 of website design coding.
Hopefully, the above overview has given you a clearer understanding of themes, what themes are, how themes help your business save money, and how themes make it easy to customize your web site.
To learn where to find great themes for your website or blog, visit this page: Finding Great Free And Premium Responsive WordPress Themes For Your Business Online.
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