Flexible web site management systems like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) have truly simplified web design and web development for website owners.
This is great for business owners wanting to start a digital presence that is simple and easy to manage.
Prior to blogging and the introduction of easy-to-use content management systems, if you wanted to get a professional website built for your business, you had to wait until both the web development and website design processes were completely done. This could take many weeks, sometimes even many months!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this article, we take a look at what themes are, how themes save your business money on web design costs, and how WP themes make it easy to customize your WordPress site.
A Revolution In Web Site Design
More website owners are benefiting from a great change in website design that started a number of years ago. If you own a small business, you will want to know about this, because it could save you thousands of dollars on web development or website design costs.
In a nutshell, here’s what normally took place before system like WordPress came along:
First, you would meet with a web developer or designer for a brief. Next, the actual “web design” itself would be decided upon. This involved time and money being spent with someone with web design skills going over elements of the site like the, colours, formats, visual elements, content, etc.
Every page of your site then had to be individually created with the design elements and scripts coded into the content. The pages were then assembled together into a website using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with every other file required to make your site work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything had been tested and performed the way it was supposed to (and looking how the client had wanted it to look), was the website deemed as being completed and ready for sign off.
Then, web design “templates” came along”. Web templates allow the design of the website to be worked on separately from content on the page. Having template elements helped to make the process of building web sites faster and resulted in reduced production costs. This also enabled web site development companies to expand their services to include small businesses with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more businesses started choosing “template-based” websites, templates started being designed that offered different customization options, like the ability to choose different colors, styles, layouts
As websites and website editor software evolved, web templates also started to evolve into web templating ”systems”, letting website owners control their web site’s visual components.
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:
WordPress Themes
WordPress themes drive the idea of a website templating system further.
The WP theme system controls and integrates all of the design aspects of a web site. It allows you to add a “skin” to your site much like a template system does but also provides users with more control over the management and customization of the template features.
As WordPress explains in its official website …
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, one of the unique and revolutionary features of the WP theme is that how your website displays to site visitors on the outside is managed independently of how your content is managed.
Basically, what this means is that a theme lets you change the look and feel of your website as often as you want without affecting your website’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if you have configured WordPress site for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your website. All e-commerce features, site settings and product information will remain unaffected, but your site will look completely different.
Why is this great news for small business owners?
Because when your site is powered with WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your site to be completed. You can get your website built quickly and start with any theme you want, and then change the entire look, feel and design of your site in a few minutes, whenever you decide … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your WP site without having website design knowledge. Just choose a theme you want, install it on your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your entire site’s web design and customize elements like header images, layout, typography and more in a few seconds …
As WordPress is open source software, hundreds of web design companies from all over the world can design themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that loads of high quality WP themes are made available to WordPress users. Themes are normally distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or sold as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE theme directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of great themes for free …
(WordPress.org – Theme Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress increases, more designers are now starting to develop themes for a wider range of users.
WordPress themes vary from professional-looking, to designs that are stunning and would typically cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars to create. Surprisingly, most themes are quite inexpensive.
You can see several WP theme galleries containing stunning examples of great themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Themes – Benefits And Advantages
Here are just a few of the benefits of choosing WordPress themes over choosing traditional web template design:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
Themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WordPress administrator area and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the themes directory at WordPress.org) directly inside your WordPress site’s admin area.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a growing online community of professional web designers and design companies who contribute thousands of quality WordPress Themes available to users. And many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent “look and feel” across all of your site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your web site’s content. This means you can change themes as often as you want without affecting the site’s content.
- Many themes provide built-in functionality and options that allow you to customize the theme’s style, layout and design elements and create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many themes are built using a framework that allows you to upgrade 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 inside the dashboard.
- WP themes helps you save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on website development costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally very inexpensive.
About Responsive Themes
Many theme designers are now developing “responsive” themes for WordPress.
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.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for different platforms. Users can navigate, read and load your site on most if not all device platforms without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring the website owner to install additional display elements.
Note: When selecting, WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your web site will display correctly on 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 and web coding.
Hopefully, the above article has given you a clearer understanding of themes, what WP themes are, how themes help you and your business save money, and how themes make customizing sites easy.
In our next blog post in our article WordPress newbies on basic features and functionality of WordPress, we show you where to find the best themes for your website or blog.
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