The introduction of content management platforms like the WordPress CMS has effectively improved web design and web development for users.
This greatly benefits non-technical users thinking about building a website that they can manage by themselves.
Prior to blogging and the development of user-friendly content management systems, if you wanted to get a web site built for your business, you would have to wait until both the web development and web design processes were fully completed. This could mean weeks, even sometimes many months of waiting around!
WordPress themes changed all this. In this blog post, you will learn what themes are, how they save you and your business money on web development costs, and how WordPress themes make it easy to customize your website.
Evolution In Web Site Design
More website owners have benefited from an evolution in website design that started several years ago. If you own a business, you may want to know about this, because it can save you a lot of time and money on web development and web design costs.
Very briefly, here’s what typically happened before WordPress came along:
First, you would meet with a web developer or designer for a brief. Next, the actual “web design” itself would be discussed and agreed upon. This involved spending time and money with a professional web site designer going over things of your web site like the layout, colours, formats, graphic elements, content, etc.
Each page of your site then had to be individually created with all the design elements and scripts coded around your content. All the pages were then assembled together into a website using links and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with every other file needed to make your site work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything had been tested and was working the way it was supposed to (and looking how a client had imagined it to look), was the site considered to be finished and ready for sign off.
Then, web design “templates” came along”. Web site templates allow presentation elements of the web site to be worked on separately from the page content. The introduction of template elements helped make the process of creating websites faster and resulted in reduced production costs. This also allowed website developers and designers to expand their services to include business clients and clients with smaller budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of small businesses using “template-based” web design services increased, templates were developed that offered various customization features, like the option to switch colours, styles, layouts
As web sites and website editing tools developed, web templates also started to evolve into web template ”systems”, letting users customize the design aspects of a site.
Then, WordPress was developed and helped to kick off 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 take web template systems even further.
The WP theme system controls every aspect of your web design. It lets you add a “skin” to your entire site similarly to what a template system does but it gives you complete control over the management and customization aspects of all template options.
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 the above quote states, a unique feature of a WP theme is that how your site appears to site visitors externally does not affect the way your content is managed.
Basically, what this means is that you can change the design of your site as often as you like without modifying your website’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if your site has been configured for e-commerce, changing the entire look of your site with a different theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your website. All e-commerce features, plugin settings and product information will remain intact, but your site will look completely different.
This is huge! Why?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer need to spend weeks or months waiting for your site to be done. You can get your website built simply and get started with any theme you like, and completely change the 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 site without requiring website design skills. Simply pick a theme you like, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your website design and customize elements like headers, layout, style settings and more with just a couple of mouse clicks …
Because WordPress is distributed as open source software, professional website designers all around the world can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that thousands of high quality WP themes are made available to WP users. WordPress are usually distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE directory of WordPress themes which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent web templates for free …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As more businesses turn to WordPress for publishing and managing their digital presence, more designers are now starting to develop themes for a wider audience of web users.
Themes range from functional-looking, to jaw-dropping designs that are spectacular and would easily cost many hundreds of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, most premium WP themes can be bought quite cheaply, especially when you compare the price to what it would have cost you if a web designer had to create it from scratch.
You can view several WordPress theme galleries that include many examples of great premium WordPress themes in this page:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Themes – Benefits & Advantages
Here are just a few of the benefits of using WordPress themes over choosing traditional web design:
Ready To Go To Work In Very Little Time
Themes are quite easy to install on your site. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WP themes directory at WordPress.org) directly inside your WP site’s admin area.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a large online community of commercial web developers who, collectively, make thousands of great WordPress Themes available to WordPress users. And many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent design across all of the blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This allows you change themes as often as you need without affecting the site data.
- Many themes come with built-in functionality and options that let you customize your theme’s layout, style 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 newer theme versions without losing any customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress allows you to 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 themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally quite inexpensive.
About Responsive Theme Design
Many WP theme designers are now developing themes that incorporate “responsive” web design.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly over different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different platforms) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each device type. Users can scroll, read and load your site on various device browsers without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to have installed additional browser tools.
Note: When downloading 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 should comply with the latest standards and practices of web design coding.
Hopefully, the above article has given you a better understanding of WordPress themes, what WordPress themes are, how themes can help you save money, and how themes make it easy to customize your website.
To learn where to search for the best themes for your blog, click here:
***
"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
***