Powerful website publishing systems like WordPress have effectively simplified web design and web development for business users.
This is great for individuals or businesses thinking about getting a website that they can easily manage themselves.
Before “blogging” and the introduction of powerful and simple CMS applications, if you wanted to build a professional site for your business, you would have to wait until both the web development and web design processes were fully completed. This process could mean waiting for weeks, sometimes even many months!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this post, we look at what WP themes are, how they save you and your business money on web development costs, and how WordPress themes allow you to easily customize your site.
The Evolution Of Website Design
Businesses have benefited from a great change in web design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you are a small business owner, you may want to learn more about this, because it could save you a lot of time and money on website development or web design costs.
Let’s briefly take a look at how things worked in “traditional” website design before tool like WordPress was developed:
First, you would discuss your project with a website development agency or web designer. Next, the “web design” would be discussed and agreed upon. This required spending time and money with someone with web design skills discussing elements of your web site such as the layout, colors, styles, page elements, content, etc.
Each page of your website then had to be hand-coded with your elements and scripts coded into your page content. All pages were then assembled into a web site using links and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with every other file needed to make your site work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and performed the way it was intended to (and looking the way a client had wanted it to look), was the site deemed as being finished and ready to go live.
Then, web design “templates” were introduced”. A web template allows presentation elements of the website to be worked on separately from content on the page. The development of template elements helped to speed up the website creation process and resulted in reduced production costs. This also allowed web site developers and designers to expand their services to include small business clients with less money to spend on marketing …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of web development agencies choosing “template-based” websites increased, web templates were developed that offered expanding customizable settings, like color palettes, the ability to select different layouts or styles, etc …
As websites and web building tools developed, web templates also began transforming into website templating “systems” that let website owners and web designers customize their web site’s visual elements.
Then, WordPress was introduced and helped to start a new content management 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
A WordPress theme drives website templating systems further.
The WP theme system controls and unifies the design elements of the web site. It lets you add a “skin” over your site in a similar way that a template system does but it also also provides you with more control over the management, appearance and customization of all template options.
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 states, a unique feature of WordPress is that how your site appears to site visitors does not affect the management of your content.
In simple terms, what this means is that you can change the look and feel of your site as much and as often as you like without affecting your site’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if your website has been set up for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the website. All e-commerce features, plugin settings and product information will remain unaffected, but your site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because with WordPress, you no longer need to wait until your site’s web design is done. You can get your website built quickly and get started with any WP theme you like, and then completely customize the look, feel and design of your website 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 with no website code development knowledge necessary. Simply choose a WordPress theme you like, install it on your site and activate it. WordPress lets you change your entire site’s web design and modify elements like header images, page layout, style settings and more in a few seconds …
Since WordPress is distributed as open source software, commercial website design companies can design themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that thousands of great WordPress themes are made available to WordPress users. WordPress are normally distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or sold as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress team maintains a FREE theme directory which allows WordPress users to download, access and install thousands of great WP themes for free …
(WordPress.org – WP Themes Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider range of uses.
Themes vary from bare-looking, to designs that are simply stunning and could easily cost many hundreds of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, WordPress themes can be purchased very inexpensively, especially when compared to what it would have cost you if a website designer had to create it from scratch.
You can see a number of WP theme galleries containing stunning examples of great WP themes in this post:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WP Themes – Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of choosing WordPress themes over using traditional web template design:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
WP themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugin folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the themes repository at WordPress.org) directly inside your WP admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a large community of professional website designers who contribute thousands of professional WordPress Themes available to WordPress users. Many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent design across all of your site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your blog’s content. This allows you change the “look and feel” of your templates as often as you like without deleting the website’s information.
- Many WP themes provide additional functionality and options that let you easily customize your site’s style, layout and design properties to create a unique look to suit your taste.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that enables users to upgrade themes to newer theme versions without losing its unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically directly from within your admin panel.
- Themes lets you save hundreds of dollars on web development costs. Free WordPress themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are normally quite inexpensive.
Responsive Theme Design
Many theme developers are now developing WordPress themes that incorporate “responsive” web design.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly over different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as across different devices (e.g. laptops, iPads, mobile phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each platform. Users can scroll, read and display a site on all devices without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to install additional browser 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 work correctly across all 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 web design and coding.
We hope this article has given you a better overview of WordPress themes, what WP themes are, how themes help you and your business save money on web design costs, and how themes make customizing websites easy.
To learn where to find great WordPress themes for your website, click here:
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