The introduction of flexible web site management platforms like the WordPress CMS platform has truly improved web design and web development for business owners.
This is a great thing for individuals or businesses thinking about building a web presence that is simple, easy and inexpensive to manage.
Before “blogging” and the introduction of powerful CMS tools, if you wanted to get a website built for your business, you would have to wait until both the web development and web design processes were fully completed. This process could mean waiting for weeks, sometimes even many months!
WordPress themes changed all this. In this article, you will learn what themes are, how WP themes can help you save money, and how WP themes make it easy to customize your site.
A New Development In Website Design
More businesses will benefit from a revolution in web design that started a number of years ago. If you own a small business, you will want to learn about this, because it can save your business thousands of dollars on web development and website design costs.
Very briefly, this is how things typically worked in “traditional” web development before WordPress came along:
The first step would be to discuss your requirements with a web site development agency or website designer. After that, the actual “web design” itself would be decided upon. This required time being spent with someone with web site design skills going over elements of the web site like the layout, colours, styles, graphic elements, content, etc.
Every page of your web site then had to be individually created with all of the elements and codes scripted into your page content. All pages were then assembled together into a website using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with every other file needed to make your website work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and worked the way it was intended to (and looking how the client had imagined it to look), was the site deemed to be completed and ready to go live.
Then, web design “templates” were introduced”. A web template allows presentation elements of the web site to be worked on separately from content on the page. Having ready-made templates helped to make creating web sites faster and resulted in reduced production costs. This also enabled website developers and designers to expand their services to include small businesses with less money to spend on marketing …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more website development companies started using “template-based” web design services, web templates were created that could offer different customization features and options, such as colour palettes, the ability to specify different styles, formats, header, footer and navigation elements, layouts, and so on.
As web sites and web building tools evolved, website templates also began to evolve into website template ”systems”, letting users and website designers control their web site’s visual aspects.
Then, WordPress was introduced and helped to kick off 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
WordPress themes take web templating systems much further.
The WP theme system controls every aspect of your website design. It lets you add a “skin” over your site much like a template system does but also provides you with complete control over the management and customization of your template options.
As WordPress states 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 above, a unique feature of WordPress is that how your web site appears to visitors externally in no way affects the way your site works internally to handle areas like content management and functionality.
In plain English terms, what this means is that you can change the design of your site as much and as often as you like without modifying your website’s content and all the functionality you’ve built 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 website. All e-commerce features, site settings and product information will remain intact, but the site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because when your website is powered with WordPress, you no longer need to wait until your website’s design is completed. You can get your website built quickly and start with any theme you want, and then edit the entire look, feel and design of your website in mere minutes, whenever you choose … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site with no website code development skills required. Simply pick any WordPress theme you want, install it on your site and activate it. WordPress lets you change your website design and modify elements like headers, page layout, style settings and more with just a few mouse clicks …
Since WordPress is open source software, website designers can design themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WP template system.
This means that loads of great WordPress themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. WP are generally distributed freely under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or sold as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE directory of WordPress themes which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent themes completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – WP Theme Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress increases, more designers are now starting to develop themes for a wider range of applications.
Themes range from minimal-looking, to designs that are simply stunning and would typically cost thousands of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, themes are fairly inexpensive to purchase.
You can see several WordPress theme galleries containing many examples of themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Themes – Benefits
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over using traditional web design:
Ready To Use In Minutes
Themes are really easy to install on your site. Simply upload a zip folder containing the plugin to your Plugin folder via your WP admin user account and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WordPress themes directory at WordPress.org) directly from your WP dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a thriving community of professional web developers who, collectively, contribute thousands of excellent WordPress Themes available to users. Many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent look across all of your blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, 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 data.
- Many themes come with built-in features and options that enable you to easily customize the site’s layout, style and design elements to create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many WP themes are built using a framework that allows users to update themes to a newer theme version without losing any unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically directly from your admin panel.
- WordPress themes lets you save thousands of dollars on website development costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally very affordable.
Responsive WordPress Themes
Many theme developers are now creating “responsive” themes for WordPress.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly over different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different platforms) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for each platform. Users can navigate, read and load your site on all devices without having to resize anything, or requiring the website owner to install additional browser elements.
Note: When purchasing WordPress themes, we strongly recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your website works across 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, practices and techniques of web design.
I hope that the above overview has helped you gain a clearer understanding about WP themes, what WP themes are, how WordPress themes can help your business save money, and how WP themes make it easy to customize a web site.
In the next blog post on understanding basic WordPress features, we show you where to find the best WordPress themes for your website or blog.
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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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