Advanced web site management applications like the WordPress CMS platform have effectively simplified web design and web development for anyone wanting a website.
This greatly benefits entrepreneurial-minded people wanting to start a website that is simple and easy to manage.
Before “blogging” and the introduction of powerful and effective CMS technologies, if you needed to get a professional web site for your business, you normally had to wait until both the web development and web design processes were fully completed. This process could take weeks, sometimes even months!
The introduction of WordPress themes changed all this. In this blog post, you will learn what themes are, how themes help you save money on website development costs, and how themes make it easy to customize your WP site.
Web Site Design Evolution
More businesses will benefit from a change in website design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a business, you may want to learn about this, because it could save your business a lot of time and money on web development and website design costs.
Let’s go over how things used to work in “traditional” website development before a CMS tool like WordPress was introduced:
First, you would discuss your requirements with a web site developer or web designer. Next, the design of the web site itself had to be decided upon. This involved spending time with someone with web site design skills going over areas of your site such as the, colours, formats, graphic elements, content, etc.
Every page of your site then had to be hand-coded with all of your elements and scripts coded around the page content. All pages were then assembled together into a website using links and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with all other files required to make your website work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything passed testing and was performing the way it should (and looking the way the client had wanted it to look), was the site considered as being finished and ready for delivery.
Then, web design “templates” came along”. A website template allows design elements of the web site to be created separately from the page content. Having ready-made templates helped to speed up the web development process and resulted in lowered production costs. This also enabled web development companies to work with smaller businesses and clients with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more small businesses started adopting “template-based” websites, web templates started being designed that offered clients with a number of custom features and options, such as colour palettes, the ability to specify different layouts or styles, etc …
As websites and web building applications evolved, web templates also started to transform into web templating “systems” that let users customize their website’s visual elements.
And then, WordPress came along and helped to start a new 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:
The WordPress Theme
A WordPress theme takes web template systems one step further.
The WordPress theme system controls and unifies all of the design areas of a web site. It lets you add a “skin” to your site similarly to what a web template system does but it also also provides you with complete control over the management, presentation and customization of the template features.
As WordPress explains in its web 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 the way your site appears to site visitors on the outside is managed separately from the way your website works in the backend to handle areas like content management and functionality.
In simple terms, what this means is that a WP theme lets you change the appearance of your site as much and as often as you want without touching your site’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if your website 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, plugin settings and product information will remain unaffected, but the site will look completely different.
Why is this great news for businesses?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your website design to be completed. You can get your business website built simply and get started with any theme you like, and completely change the look, feel and design of your website in a few minutes, whenever you choose … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WordPress site with no website code development knowledge necessary. Simply pick any WordPress theme you want, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress lets you change your web design and modify elements like headers, page layout, typography and more in a few seconds …
Since WordPress is distributed as open source software, web design companies can create themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WP template system.
This means that loads of high quality WordPress themes are made available to WP users. Themes are usually distributed for Free under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or sold as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress team maintains a FREE theme directory which allows WordPress users to access thousands of excellent themes completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now focused on developing themes for a wider audience of web users.
WP themes range from corporate-looking, to designs that are beautiful and could easily cost many hundreds of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, most premium WordPress themes are quite inexpensive to buy.
You can view a number of theme galleries containing many examples of WordPress themes in this post:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WP Themes – Benefits & Advantages
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over choosing tools that require traditional web template design:
Ready To Start Using In Very Little Time
Themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WP themes directory at WordPress.org) directly from within your WordPress dashboard.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a growing community of commercial theme developers and development companies who, collectively, make thousands of quality WordPress Themes available to users. Many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent “look and feel” across all your site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your web site’s content. This means you can swap WP themes as often as you need without deleting your website’s content.
- Many themes provide additional functionality and settings that let you easily customize the site’s style, layout and design elements and create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that lets users upgrade themes to newer versions without losing any unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress lets you search, import and install WordPress Themes automatically directly from your dashboard.
- Themes lets you save thousands of dollars on website design costs. Free WordPress themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically very inexpensive.
About Responsive WordPress Themes
Many WP theme developers are now creating “responsive” themes for WordPress.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as across different devices (e.g. laptops, tablets, mobile phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for each platform. Users can scroll, read and load a site on most device platforms without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to have installed additional themes.
Note: When searching for WordPress themes, we recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that the content and layout of your site works on all of your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore probably complies with the latest standards and practices of web design coding.
I hope this basic overview has helped you gain a clearer understanding about WP themes, what WordPress themes are, how WordPress themes help your business save money, and how themes make it easy to customize your site.
In our next article on understanding basic features and functionality of WordPress, we show you where to search for the best WordPress themes for your website or blog.
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