The introduction of content publishing applications like the WordPress CMS platform has effectively simplified web design and web development for anyone wanting to start a website.
This greatly benefits non-technical users thinking about starting an online business presence that is simple, easy and inexpensive to manage.
Before “blogging” and the introduction of user-friendly CMS solutions, if you needed a business website, you typically had to wait until both the website development and website design processes were completely done. This could mean waiting around for many weeks, sometimes even months!
The development of WordPress themes changed all this. In this post, you will learn what WordPress themes are, how WordPress themes help your business save money, and how themes make it easy to customize your website.
Web Site Design Evolution
More website owners will benefit from a tremendous change in website design that started a number of years ago. If you are a small business owner, you may want to know more about this, because it can save you thousands of dollars on web development or website design costs.
Let’s briefly review what used to happen before applications like WordPress were developed:
The first step would be to discuss your project with a website developer or web designer. Then, the “web design” would be discussed and agreed upon. This meant spending time with a professional web site designer discussing things of your website like the, colors, formats, page elements, content, etc.
Every page of your website then had to be individually created with all of your design elements and scripts coded around your page content. All pages were then assembled into a web site using links and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with every other file required to make your website work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything had been tested and was functioning the way it should (and looking how a client had imagined it to look), was the website deemed to be completed and ready to go live.
The next step in the evolution of business web design was the introduction of “web templating elements”. Web templates allow the design of the web site to be created separately from the page content. The introduction of template elements helped to speed up the process of developing websites and resulted in reduced production costs. This also allowed website development agencies to work with smaller businesses with smaller budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more web site development agencies began adopting “template-based” websites, templates were designed that offered clients with various customization features and options, such as the ability to choose different colours, styles, layouts
As websites and website editor software developed, web templates also began transforming into web template “systems” that let website owners control their site’s visual components.
Then, WordPress was introduced 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:
WordPress Themes
A WordPress theme pushes web templating systems even further.
The WP theme system controls all of the design areas of a web site. It allows you to add a “skin” to your site in a similar way that a template system does but also provides you with complete control over the management, appearance and customization of template settings.
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 stated above, a unique and revolutionary feature of a WordPress theme is that how your site appears to visitors externally is managed separately from how your site works in the backend to handle areas like content management and functionality.
Basically, what this means is that you can modify the design of your website as much and as often as you want without affecting your website’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if you have configured your site 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 built with WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your website design to be done. You can get your website built quickly and start with any theme you want, and then completely modify the look, feel and design of your website in mere seconds, whenever you choose … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site without requiring website coding skills. Simply choose any theme you want, install it on your site and activate it. WordPress lets you change your website design and customize elements like header images, layout, typography and more in minutes …
Because WordPress is distributed as open source software, thousands of web design companies can design themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WP template system.
This means that loads of high quality WordPress themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. Themes are generally distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they can be purchased as Premium (i.e. paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which allows WordPress users to download, access and install thousands of great web templates at $0 cost …
(WordPress.org – WordPress Theme Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now starting to develop themes for a wider range of users.
Themes range from minimal-looking, to fancy designs that are beautiful and would typically cost hundreds to thousands of dollars to design. Surprisingly, WordPress themes are really inexpensive.
You can see several theme galleries containing various examples of great premium WP themes in this post:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WordPress Themes – Benefits
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of choosing WordPress themes over choosing traditional website design:
Ready To Use In Minutes
WP themes are quite easy to install on your site. Just upload it to your Plugins folder via your admin area and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WordPress themes directory at WordPress.org) directly from within your WP site’s admin area.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a thriving community of commercial website developers and development companies who, collectively, make thousands of great-looking, high quality WordPress Themes available to users. And many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent design across all of your blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your blog’s content. This allows you swap the “look and feel” of your site as often as you need without modifying your website’s content.
- Many WordPress themes come with additional built-in functionality and settings that enable you to customize the theme’s layout and design elements to create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that enables you to upgrade the theme to newer theme versions without losing any unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically inside your admin panel.
- WP themes helps you save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on website development costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally quite inexpensive.
Responsive WP Themes
Many WordPress theme designers are now developing themes that incorporate “responsive” functionality.
A responsive theme allows websites to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly over different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as across different platforms) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each device type. Users can scroll, read and display the site on most if not all device browsers without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to have installed additional display elements.
Note: When searching for WordPress themes, we strongly recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your website works on all of your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore should comply with the latest standards, practices and techniques of website design coding.
Hopefully, the above article has given you a better understanding of themes, what themes are, how WordPress themes can help your business save money on web design costs, and how themes let you easily customize your WP site.
In our next article on basic WordPress features, we show you where to find great themes for your blog.
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"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
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