Flexible website publishing technologies like WordPress have truly improved web design and web development for anyone wanting a website.
This is a great thing for individuals or businesses planning to run a web presence that is simple, easy and inexpensive to manage.
Prior to blogging and the introduction of easy-to-use CMS software, if you needed to build a professional web site built for your business, you would have to wait until both the web development and website design processes were fully completed. This process could take many weeks, sometimes even months!
The development of WordPress themes have changed all this. In this blog post, we look at what themes are, how WordPress themes help your business save money, and how themes make it easy to customize your site.
Website Design Evolution
More website owners today are benefiting from a tremendous change in web design that has been going for a number of years now. If you own a small business, you may want to know more about this, because it can save your business a lot of time and money on web development and website design costs.
Let’s briefly review what used to happen before WordPress came along:
First, you would discuss your project with a web site developer or web site designer. After this, the “web design” itself would be decided upon. This involved time being spent with someone with web site design skills going over things of the site like the, colours, formats, visual elements, content, etc.
Every page of your website then had to be individually created with all the design elements and scripts coded around your page content. The pages were then assembled into a website using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with every other file needed to make your website work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything passed testing and was functioning the way it was intended to (and looking the way the client had wanted it to look), was the web site considered to have been finished and ready to go live.
Then, web design “templates” were introduced”. A web site template allows the ”look and feel” of the web site to be worked on separately from the page content. Having template elements helped speed up the process of developing web sites and resulted in reduced costs of production. This also enabled website development agencies to work with smaller business clients and clients with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of small businesses adopting “template-based” websites increased, templates were introduced to provide a number of custom settings, like colour palettes, the ability to select different formats and layouts, etc …
As websites and website editor applications evolved, web templates also started to transform into website templating “systems” that permitted website owners to customize the visual elements of their site.
And then, a “blogging” application called WordPress was introduced and helped to kick off a new digital publishing 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
WordPress themes expand website template systems one step further.
The WordPress theme system controls and unifies all of the design areas of a web site. It lets you add a “skin” over your site much like a template system does but also gives you more control over the management, appearance and ability to customize all template features.
As per 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 quote states, one of the unique and revolutionary features of WordPress is that how your web site looks to site visitors externally is kept independent of the management of your content.
Basically, what this means is that themes let you modify the appearance of your website as much and as often as you like without modifying your site’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if WordPress website has been configured for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the web site. All e-commerce features, site settings and product information will remain unaffected, but the site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because when your website is powered by WordPress, you no longer need to wait until your site’s web design is completed. You can get your website built quickly and get started with any WP theme you want, and then change the entire look, feel and design of your site in a few minutes, whenever you decide … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your site without the need of web coding knowledge. Just choose any theme you want, install it on your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your web design and customize elements like header images, layout, styling options and more in less than a few minutes …
Because WordPress is made available as open source software, professional website design companies can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that thousands of high quality WordPress themes are made available to WP users. Themes are usually distributed for FREE under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or sold as Premium (i.e. paid) WP themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE theme directory which allows WordPress users to download, access and install thousands of excellent themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org – Theme Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress soars, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider range of uses.
WP themes range from minimal-looking, to designs that are stunning and would typically cost thousands of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, most themes are really inexpensive to buy.
You can see several WordPress theme galleries that include stunning examples of themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WordPress Themes – Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of choosing WordPress themes over using traditional web template design:
Ready To Go To Work In Minutes
WordPress themes are really easy to install on your site. Simply upload it to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the free WP theme repository at WordPress.org) directly inside your WordPress admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a thriving online community of commercial website designers and design companies who, collectively, make thousands of fantastic WP Themes available to WordPress users. And many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent “look and feel” across all of the blog’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, layouts, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your site’s content. This allows you replace WP themes as often as you like without changing your blog data.
- Many WP themes come with built-in features and settings that enable you to customize your site’s layout, style and design properties to create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many themes are built using a framework that enables users to upgrade the theme to newer theme versions without losing any customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically within your dashboard.
- Themes helps you save thousands of dollars on web design costs. Free WordPress themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are normally very affordable.
Responsive Theme Design
Many theme designers are now creating themes that incorporate “responsive” design standards.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically resize to display smoothly across different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. laptops, tablets, mobile phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each platform. Users can navigate, read and display the site on most devices without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to have installed additional themes.
Note: When selecting, WordPress themes, we strongly recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your website will display correctly on all devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore probably complies with the latest standards and practices of website design and coding.
We hope that this overview has helped you gain a clearer understanding of themes, what themes are, how themes can help your business save money on web design costs, and how WP themes allow you to easily customize your website.
To learn where to search for the best themes for your blog, visit this page: Finding Great Premium And Free Responsive WordPress Web Templates On The Web.
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