Powerful content management platforms like the WordPress CMS platform have effectively improved web design and web development for anyone wanting a website.
This is a great thing for business owners planning to start a digital presence that is simple and easy to manage.
Before “blogging” and the development of easy-to-use CMS applications, if you needed a business website, you had to wait until both the website development and website design processes were fully completed. This could take many weeks, sometimes even many months!
The development of WordPress themes have changed all this. In this article, we take a look at what WP themes are, how they help you save money on website development costs, and how themes make it easy to customize your site.
The Evolution Of Website Design
Businesses are benefiting from a tremendous change in website design that started a number of years ago. If you own a small business, you will want to know more about this, because it can save you thousands of dollars on website development and web design costs.
Let’s briefly review how things typically worked in “traditional” web design before WordPress came along:
First, you would discuss your requirements with a web developer or website designer. Then, the actual “web design” would be decided upon. This required time and money being spent with a professional web site designer discussing elements of your web site like the, colours, formats, page elements, content, etc.
Each page of your website then had to be individually created with all of your elements and scripts coded into your page content. The pages were then assembled together into a web site using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with every other file needed to make your site work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and worked how it should (and looking how a client had wanted it to look), was the site considered as being finished and ready to go live.
Then, website “templates” came along”. A web site template allows the presentation of the web site to be worked on separately from content on the page. Having templates helped to make developing websites faster and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also allowed web developers to expand their services to include businesses and clients with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of businesses using “template-based” websites increased, templates were created to provide a number of custom options, such as the option to switch colours, styles, layouts
As web sites and website editor tools evolved, website templates also started to transform into web template “systems” that allowed website owners to customize the design aspects of a website.
And then, WordPress came along 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:
WordPress Themes
WordPress themes improve website template systems much further.
A WordPress theme controls and unifies every aspect of your web site design. It lets you add a “skin” to your entire site similarly to what a template system does but it provides users with complete control over the management and customization aspects of template options.
As WordPress has described in its official 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 stated in the quote above, one of the unique features of WordPress is that the way your website appears to visitors is a separate system from the management of your content.
In simple terms, what this means is that you can modify the appearance of your website as much and as often as you like without modifying your website’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if your website has been configured for e-commerce, replacing the 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.
This is important. Why?
Because with WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your site to be done. You can get your business website built simply and start with any WordPress theme you want, and then modify the entire look, feel and design of your WordPress site in mere seconds, whenever you want … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site with no website design knowledge necessary. Simply choose any theme you like, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your site’s design and modify elements like header images, page layout, styling options and more in less than a few minutes …
Because WordPress is made available as open source software, website design companies all around the world can create themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WP template system.
This means that loads of high quality WP themes can be downloaded by WP users. Themes are normally distributed for FREE under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they can be purchased as Premium (paid) WP themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE theme directory which allows WordPress users to access thousands of great website templates for free …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now starting to develop themes for a wider range of uses.
Themes range from minimal-looking, to designs that are simply beautiful and could normally cost thousands of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, WP themes can be bought fairly cheaply, especially when you compare the price to what it would have cost you if a web designer had to code it from scratch.
You can see a number of theme galleries containing stunning examples of great themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits & Advantages Of Themes
Here are just some of the benefits of using WordPress themes over choosing traditional web design:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
WordPress themes are very easy to install on your site. Just upload a zip file that contains the plugin files to your Plugins folder via your WP administrator section and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the themes repository at WordPress.org) directly from within your WP dashboard.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a growing community of commercial web developers and development companies who, collectively, make thousands of excellent WordPress Themes available to users. Thousands of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent “look and feel” across all of your blog’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, layouts, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This means you can change themes as often as you like without disturbing the site’s underlying settings.
- Many themes come with additional functionality and options that allow you to customize the site’s style and design properties to create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many themes are built using a framework that enables users to upgrade themes to a newer theme version without losing any unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically inside the site’s administration interface.
- Themes allow users to save thousands of dollars on web design costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally very inexpensive.
About Responsive WP Themes
Many WP theme developers are now creating themes that incorporate “responsive” design.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly across different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as different platforms) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each platform. Users can scroll, read and load a site on most device platforms without having to resize anything, or requiring the website owner to install additional browser tools.
Note: When searching for WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your website will display correctly across all of your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards, practices and techniques of website design and web coding.
We hope that this basic overview has helped you gain a better understanding about themes, what themes are, how themes help your business save money on web design costs, and how themes make customizing web sites easy.
To learn where to find the best WP themes for your website or blog, see this post: Where To Find Great Paid And Free WordPress Web Themes For Your WordPress Web Site Or Blog.
***
"I love the way your email series "Infinite Web Content Creation Training Series" is documented and presented. It is very absorbing and captivating. The links and tutorials are interesting and educational. This has motivated me to rewrite my content following the concepts I am learning from the email series." - Mani Raju, www.fortuneinewaste.com
***