Advanced web management technologies like the WordPress CMS platform have effectively improved web design and web development for non-technical web users.
This greatly benefits entrepreneurial-minded people thinking about building a website that is simple, easy and inexpensive to manage.
Prior to “blogging” and the introduction of easy-to-use content management systems, if you wanted to build a web site for your business, you normally had to wait until both the website development and website design processes were fully completed. This process could mean weeks, even many months of waiting!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this post, you will learn what WordPress themes are, how WP themes save your business money on web development costs, and how WP themes allow you to easily customize your website.
Web Site Design Revolution
Website owners will benefit from a change in web design that has been going for several years now. If you are a small business owner, you may want to learn more about this, because it could save your business a lot of time and money on web development and web design costs.
Let’s go over how things worked in “traditional” web design before tools like WordPress were introduced:
The first step would be to discuss your requirements with a web development agency or web designer. Next, the ”look and feel” of the site itself had to be discussed and agreed upon. This meant time being spent with someone with web design skills discussing elements of the website such as the, colours, formats, visual elements, content, etc.
Each page of your site then had to be individually created with all of your elements and codes scripted into the content. All the pages were then assembled into a website using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with all other files needed to make your website work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything passed testing and performed the way it was supposed to (and looking how a client had imagined it to look), was the web site considered as being finished and ready to go live.
The next stage in the evolution of business website design was the introduction of “website templating elements”. A website template allows design elements of the website to be created separately from content on the page. Having ready-made templates helped speed up the process of developing web sites and resulted in lowered production costs. This also allowed website developers to work with small businesses with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of small businesses choosing “template-based” web design services increased, templates were designed that offered clients with a range of customizable options, like color palettes, the ability to pick different styles and elements, and so on.
As websites and website editor tools developed, web templates also started to evolve into website templating “systems” that let website owners customize their web site’s design aspects.
Then, WordPress came along and helped to start 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:
The WordPress Theme
A WordPress theme pushes the idea of a website template system one step further.
A WordPress theme controls every aspect of your web site design. It lets you add a “skin” to your entire site in a similar way that a template system does but it also also gives you complete control over the management, appearance and ability to customize the site’s template features.
As WordPress describes in its official 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 feature of WordPress is that how your site appears to site visitors is kept independent of how your website functions internally to handle areas like content management and functionality.
Basically, what this means is that a theme lets you change the design of your website as much and as often as you like without touching your site’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if your site has been configured for e-commerce, changing the entire look of the site with another theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your site. All e-commerce features, plugin settings and product information will remain intact, but your site will look completely different.
Why is this such great news for small business owners?
Because with WordPress, you no longer need to wait until your website’s design is done. You can get your business website built simply and start with any WP theme you like, and then completely customize the 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 coding knowledge necessary. Just pick any WordPress theme you like, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress lets you change your entire site’s web design and modify elements like headers, layout, style settings and more in minutes …
Because WordPress is open source software, professional web design companies can create themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WP template system.
This means that loads of great WP themes are made available to WP users. WordPress are normally distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or sold as Premium (paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE theme directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of great WordPress themes at $0 cost …
(WordPress.org – WordPress Themes Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress increases, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider range of uses.
WP themes range from corporate-looking, to quirky designs that are visually spectacular and could typically cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars to design. Surprisingly, most themes can be purchased quite cheaply, especially when compared to what you would have had to pay if a web designer had to develop it from scratch.
You can see a number of theme galleries that include various examples of great premium WP 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 using web building applications that require traditional website design:
Ready To Start Using In Minutes
WordPress themes are really easy to install on your site. Simply upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the free theme repository at WordPress.org) directly inside your WP dashboard.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a large online community of commercial website designers who, collectively, contribute thousands of fantastic WordPress Themes available to WP users. And many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent “look and feel” across all of the site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your site’s content. This allows you replace the “look and feel” of your web site or blog as often as you want without changing the content.
- Many themes provide built-in functionality and settings that enable you to customize your site’s layout and design properties to create a unique look to suit your preferences.
- Many themes are built using a framework that lets users upgrade themes to newer versions without losing any customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically directly from the dashboard.
- WordPress themes lets you save hundreds of dollars on web design costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are normally very inexpensive.
About Responsive WordPress Themes
Many theme designers are now developing “responsive” themes for the WordPress CMS platform.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly over different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different devices (e.g. computers, iPads, mobile phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different platforms. Users can navigate, read and load the site on various devices without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to have installed additional browser elements.
Note: When purchasing WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that the content and layout of your site displays well on all of your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards, practices and techniques of website design and coding.
I hope that the above overview has helped you gain a clearer understanding about WordPress themes, what themes are, how themes can help your business save money, and how themes make customizing websites easy.
To learn where to find great WP themes for your website or blog, go here:
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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