Powerful content management platforms like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) have effectively simplified web design and web development for business users.
This is a great thing for individuals or businesses planning on getting a website that is relatively simple and easy to manage.
Prior to blogging and the development of powerful and simple CMS applications, if you needed to get a website for your business, you would have to wait until both the web development and web design processes were completely done. This process could mean weeks, sometimes even months of waiting!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this post, you will learn what WP themes are, how they save you and your business money on website design costs, and how themes let you easily customize your WP site.
A Revolution In Web Site Design
Website owners have been benefiting from a revolutionary change in web design that started a number of years ago. If you are a business owner, you will want to know more about this, because it can save your business a lot of time and money on web development or web design costs.
In a nutshell, here’s what happened before CMS applications like WordPress came along:
First, you would discuss your requirements with a web site developer or designer. After that, the actual design of the site itself had to be discussed and agreed upon. This involved spending time with someone with web site design skills discussing elements of the website such as the layout, colours, styles, page elements, content, etc.
Each page of your website then had to be hand-coded with all your elements and codes scripted into the page content. The pages were then assembled together into a website using hyperlinks and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with all other files required to make your website work – script libraries, images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything passed testing and worked how it was supposed to (and looking the way the client had wanted it to look), was the site considered to be completed and ready to go live.
Then, web design “templates” came along”. Web templates allow presentation elements of the website to be worked on separately from the page content. Having templates helped to speed up the process of developing web sites and resulted in lowered production costs. This also allowed website development firms to work with business clients and clients with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more businesses began using “template-based” websites, web templates started being created to provide clients with different customization settings, such as the ability to switch colours, styles, layouts
As websites and web editor software evolved, web templates also began to evolve into web template ”systems”, letting website owners customize their site’s visual elements.
And 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:
The WordPress Theme
A WordPress theme pushes website templating systems one step further.
The WordPress theme system controls and integrates every aspect of your web site design. It allows you to add a “skin” over your site in a similar way that a template system does but it provides you with complete control over the management and ability to customize all template settings.
As the official WordPress site explains …
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 and revolutionary feature of a WordPress theme is that how your web site appears to site visitors does not affect 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 modify the appearance of your site as much and as often as you want without modifying your site’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if you have set up WP site for e-commerce, changing the entire look of the site with a different theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the web site. All e-commerce features, plugin settings and product information will remain intact, but the site will look completely different.
Why is this such a big deal?
Because when your website is powered by WordPress, you no longer need to spend weeks or months waiting for your site to be completed. You can get your business website built quickly and start with any theme you like, and then completely change the look, feel and design of your website in seconds, whenever you choose … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your site with no website code development knowledge necessary. Simply pick a theme you want, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your website design and customize elements like headers, page layout, typography and more in minutes …
As WordPress is open source software, professional web designers anywhere in the world can create themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WordPress templating system.
This means that loads of high quality WP themes can be downloaded by WP users. WP are usually distributed for Free under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or sold as Premium (i.e. paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress team maintains a FREE directory of WordPress themes which allows WordPress users to download and access, thousands of great WordPress themes at $0 cost …
(WordPress.org – WP Themes Directory)
As more businesses turn to WordPress for publishing and managing their content online, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider range of users.
Themes range from professional-looking, to creative designs that are simply breathtaking and would typically cost thousands of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, most WP themes are fairly inexpensive.
You can view a number of theme galleries that include many examples of great premium themes in this article:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits & Advantages Of Themes
Here are just a few of the benefits of choosing WordPress themes over choosing traditional web template design:
Be Up And Running In No Time
Themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WP themes repository at WordPress.org) directly inside your WordPress dashboard.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a growing community of professional theme designers and design companies who, collectively, make thousands of excellent WP Themes available to users. Thousands of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent “look and feel” across all the site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your site’s content. This means you can swap WP themes as often as you like without changing your settings.
- Many WordPress themes come with additional built-in features and options that allow you to customize the site’s layout and design properties to create a unique look to suit your taste.
- Many themes are built using a framework that lets users upgrade themes to newer theme versions without losing its unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, import, install and update WordPress Themes automatically within your site’s administration interface.
- WP themes allow WP users to save hundreds of dollars on web design costs. Free WordPress themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically quite inexpensive.
About Responsive Themes
Many theme designers are now developing WordPress themes that incorporate “responsive” functionality.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different platforms) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each device type. Users can scroll, read and load your site on all device browsers without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to have installed additional display elements.
Note: When downloading 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 across your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards and practices of web design and web coding.
Hopefully, the above article has given you a clearer understanding of themes, what themes are, how themes can help your business save money, and how themes make customizing websites easy.
To learn where to search for the best themes for your blog, see this post: How To Find Great Premium And Free Responsive WordPress Web Themes On The Web.
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"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
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