Flexible web management technologies like the WordPress CMS have effectively improved web design and web development for anyone wanting to start a website.
This is a great thing for businesses wanting a digital presence that they can manage themselves.
Prior to “blogging” and the development of advanced content management systems, if you wanted to build a professional web site for your business, you typically had to wait until both the website development and web design processes were completely done. This process could mean waiting for many weeks, sometimes even months!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this blog post, you will learn what WP themes are, how WP themes save your business money on website design costs, and how themes allow you to easily customize your website.
The Evolution Of Web Site Design
More website owners today will benefit from a tremendous revolution in website design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you are a business owner, you will want to know more about this, because it can save you a lot of time and money on website development and web design costs.
Very briefly, here’s what used to happen before WordPress came along:
First, you would discuss your requirements with a web site developer or web designer. After that, the “web design” itself would be decided upon. This meant time and money being spent with someone with website design skills going over things of your site like the layout, colors, formats, page elements, content, etc.
Each page of your web site then had to be hand-coded with your elements and scripts coded around the content. The pages were then assembled into a web site using links and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with every other file required to make your site work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything passed testing and was functioning how it should (and looking how the client had wanted it to look), was the website deemed as being completed and ready to go live.
Then, web design “templates” were developed”. Web site templates allow the presentation of the web site to be created separately from content on the page. Having template elements helped make the process of site development faster and resulted in reduced production costs. This also enabled website developers to work with business clients with smaller budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of businesses choosing “template-based” websites increased, web templates started being created to offer clients with a range of customization settings, like the option to switch colours, styles, layouts
As websites and website editor applications evolved, website templates also began to evolve into web templating “systems” that enable users and website developers to customize their site’s visual aspects.
And then, WordPress came along and helped to start a new web revolution …
(WordPress – A Content Publishing Revolution)
To learn more about content management systems and the benefits of the WordPress CMS, see the tutorial below:
About WordPress Themes
WordPress themes expand web templating systems further.
A WordPress theme controls and unifies every aspect of your web site design. It lets you add a “skin” over your site similarly to what a template system does but it also also gives you more control over the management and ability to customize all template options.
According to 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 the above states, one of the unique and revolutionary features of WordPress is that how your site looks to visitors on the outside is managed separately from the management of your content.
In simple terms, what this means is that themes let you modify the look and feel of your website as much and as often as you want without touching your website’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if you have configured WP site for e-commerce, changing the entire look of your site with a different theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the website. All e-commerce features, plugin settings and product information will remain intact, but the site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer need to spend weeks or months waiting for your website to be completed. You can get your business website built quickly and start with any WP theme you like, and then edit the entire look, feel and design of your site in a few minutes, whenever you want … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site with no web code editing skills required. Simply choose a WP theme you like, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress lets you change your entire site’s web design and modify elements like header images, layout, style settings and more in minutes …
Since WordPress is made available as open source software, hundreds of website design companies can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP template system.
This means that thousands of high quality WP themes can be downloaded by WP users. WordPress are usually distributed for Free under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they can be purchased as Premium (paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress team maintains a FREE theme directory which allows WordPress users to download and access, thousands of great themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org – WordPress Themes Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress increases, more designers are now focused on creating themes for a wider audience of WordPress site owners.
Themes range from professional-looking, to jaw-dropping designs that are simply stunning and could typically cost thousands of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, most premium WordPress themes are fairly inexpensive.
You can view a number of WordPress theme galleries containing many examples of themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits Of Using WP Themes
Here are just some of the many benefits and advantages of choosing WordPress themes over using traditional website design:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
Themes are very easy to install on your site. Simply upload it to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the free theme directory at WordPress.org) directly inside your WP site’s admin area.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a large community of professional web developers who, collectively, make thousands of great-looking, high quality WordPress Themes available to users. Thousands of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent design across all of your site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your web site’s content. This allows you change WP themes as often as you need without modifying your underlying content of your blog.
- Many themes come with additional functionality and options that let you easily customize the site’s layout and design elements to create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many themes are built using a framework that enables you to update themes to a newer theme version without losing any customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically directly from within the dashboard.
- WordPress themes helps you save hundreds of dollars on website design costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically very inexpensive.
About Responsive WP Theme Design
Many theme developers are now creating “responsive” WordPress themes.
A responsive theme allows websites to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly over different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. PCs, tablets, smart phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different types of devices. Users can scroll, read and load your site on all device browsers without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to have installed additional themes.
Note: When purchasing WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your website displays well on all devices, it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards, practices and techniques of website design and coding.
I hope that this post has helped you gain a clearer understanding of WordPress themes, what themes are, how they can help you and your business save money on web development costs, and how themes make customizing sites easy.
In our next blog post on basic WP features, we show you where to search for the best themes for your website.
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