The introduction of flexible content publishing tools like the WordPress CMS platform has effectively improved web design and web development for users.
This greatly benefits business owners planning to start or build an online business presence that is simple and easy to manage.
Before “blogging” and the introduction of user-friendly CMS solutions, if you needed a website, you would have to wait until both the website development and website design processes were completely done. This process could mean waiting around for weeks, sometimes even many months!
The development of WordPress themes have changed all this. In this article, we will explore what WP themes are, how they save you money on website development costs, and how themes let you easily customize your website.
A New Development In Web Site Design
Website owners will benefit from a change in web design that started several years ago. If you own a small business, you may want to know more about this, because it can save your business thousands of dollars on web development and website design costs.
In a nutshell, this is how things used to work in “traditional” website development before WordPress were introduced:
First, you would meet with a website development agency or designer for a brief. Next, the actual ”look and feel” of your website itself would be decided upon. This required spending time with someone with website design skills going over elements of the website like the layout, colors, formats, page elements, content, etc.
Each page of your website then had to be hand-coded with all of your design elements and scripts coded into your content. All of the pages were then assembled into a website using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with all other files needed to make your site work – script libraries, images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything passed testing and functioned how it was supposed to (and looking the way a client had wanted it to look), was the web site considered as being completed and ready to go live.
The next phase in the evolution of web design was the introduction of “website templating elements”. A website template allows the design of the web site to be created separately from the page content. Having template elements helped to make web site development faster and resulted in reduced costs of production. This also allowed web site developers and designers to service businesses with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more businesses started using “template-based” websites, web templates started being introduced that could offer a number of custom options, like colour palettes, the ability to select different styles, formats, header, footer and navigation elements, page layouts, and so on.
As web sites and web building software developed, web templates also started transforming into website template ”systems”, letting website owners manage the visual elements of their web site.
And then, a “blogging” application called WordPress was developed 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:
The WordPress Theme
WordPress themes push the idea of a website templating system much further.
A WordPress theme controls and unifies every aspect of your website design. It allows you to add a “skin” to your site similarly to what a website template system does but it gives you more control over the management and customization of all template settings.
As stated in 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 the WordPress theme is that how your website displays to site visitors externally is kept independent of the way your site works internally to handle areas like content management and functionality.
Basically, what this means is that a WP theme lets you change the appearance 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 set up WP site for e-commerce, changing the entire look of the site with a different theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the site. All e-commerce features, settings and product information will remain intact, but your site will look completely different.
Why is this great for business owners?
Because with WordPress, you no longer need to spend weeks or months waiting for your website design to be done. You can get your business website built quickly and start with any theme you like, and completely customize the look, feel and design of your WordPress site in a few minutes, whenever you want … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your WordPress site with no web design knowledge necessary. Simply pick any theme you want, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress lets you change your site’s design and modify elements like headers, layout, style settings and more with just a couple of mouse clicks …
Because WordPress is made available as open source software, commercial web design companies can design themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP template system.
This means that loads of great WordPress themes are made available to WordPress users. WP are usually distributed for FREE under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
The WordPress team maintains a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent WP themes for free …
(WordPress.org – WP Themes Directory)
As more businesses turn to WordPress for publishing and managing their content online, more designers are now focusing on creating themes for a wider audience of web users.
Themes vary from professional-looking, to designs that are quite impressive and would easily cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, most WordPress themes are very inexpensive.
You can view several theme galleries containing various examples of great premium WordPress themes in this page:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits Of Themes
Here are just a few of the benefits of using WordPress themes over using applications that require traditional website design:
Be Up And Running In Very Little Time
WordPress themes are quite easy to install on your site. Just upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your admin area and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the free WP theme directory at WordPress.org) directly from your WP dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a growing community of professional website developers who, collectively, contribute thousands of quality WordPress Themes available to WordPress users. Many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent “look and feel” across all the site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your site’s content. This means you can change the “look and feel” of your web site as often as you need without modifying the underlying content.
- Many WP themes provide built-in functionality and options that allow you to customize your theme’s style and design elements and create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many themes are built using a framework that allows users to upgrade the theme to newer theme versions without losing its unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically right within your dashboard.
- Themes helps you save thousands of dollars on web design costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally quite inexpensive.
About Responsive Themes
Many WP theme designers are now creating WP themes that incorporate “responsive” functionality.
A responsive theme allows websites to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different platforms) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for different types of devices. Users can navigate, read and display the site on most device platforms without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to install additional browser tools.
Note: When purchasing WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that the content and layout of your site will display correctly on all of your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore probably complies with the latest standards of web design and web coding.
Hopefully, the above overview has helped you gain a better understanding about WordPress themes, what themes are, how WP themes can help you save money, and how themes make it easy to customize a WP site.
In the next article in the article WordPress newbies on understanding basic WP features, we show you where to find great themes for your blog.
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