The introduction of web publishing technologies like WordPress has effectively improved web design and web development for web users.
This is a great thing for businesses thinking about starting a digital presence that they can fully manage.
Prior to “blogging” and the introduction of powerful and effective CMS software, if you needed a professional business web site, you had to wait until both the website development and web design processes were fully completed. This could mean waiting for weeks, sometimes even months!
The introduction of WordPress themes have changed all this. In this blog post, we explain what WordPress themes are, how WP themes help your business save money on web development costs, and how WordPress themes make it easy to customize your site.
A Revolution In Website Design
More website owners have been benefiting from a tremendous change in web design that started several years ago. If you are a business owner, you will want to know more about this, because it could save your business thousands of dollars on website development and website design costs.
Very briefly, here’s how things typically worked in “traditional” web development before WordPress came along:
The first step would be to meet with a web developer or website designer for a brief. Next, the actual ”look and feel” of the website itself would be discussed and agreed upon. This involved time and money being spent with someone with website design skills discussing design elements of the website like the layout, colors, formats, page elements, content, etc.
Each page of your web site then had to be individually created with all of your design elements and scripts coded into the page content. The pages were then assembled together into a website using links and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with all other files 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 the way it should (and looking the way the client had imagined it to look), was the website considered as being completed and ready for delivery.
Then, web design “templates” came along”. Website templates allow the ”look and feel” of the website to be created separately from the page content. The introduction of ready-made templates helped speed up the website creation process and resulted in reduced production costs. This also enabled website developers and designers to work with business clients and clients with less money to spend on marketing …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more small businesses started adopting “template-based” web design services, templates started being introduced that could provide clients with expanding custom options, like colour palettes, the ability to pick different formats and page layouts, etc …
As websites and website editing tools evolved, website templates also started to transform into web template “systems” that let website owners manage the visual components of a site.
And then, WordPress came along and helped to start a new website 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
WordPress themes push the concept of a website template system much further.
The WordPress theme system controls every aspect of your web site design. It lets you add a “skin” over your entire site similarly to what a web template system does but it gives you more control over the management and ability to customize template options.
According to 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 the WordPress theme is that how your site appears to visitors does not affect your site’s functionality and content management.
Basically, what this means is that a WP theme lets you modify the appearance of your website as much and as often as you like without modifying your website’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if you have set up WP site for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the website. All e-commerce features, settings and product information will remain intact, but the site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer have 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 change the entire look, feel and design of your WordPress site in a few minutes, whenever you choose … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WordPress site without needing any website code editing knowledge. Just pick a WordPress theme you like, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your website design and modify elements like headers, layout, typography and more in less than a few minutes …
Because WordPress is open source software, website designers can design themes specifically for the WordPress CMS platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that loads of high quality WP themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. Themes are normally distributed for FREE under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or sold as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE theme directory which allows WordPress users to download and access, thousands of great themes at $0 cost …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As more businesses turn to WordPress for online publishing, more designers are now focusing on developing themes for a wider audience of web users.
Themes range from minimal-looking, to designs that are simply spectacular and could easily cost many hundreds of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, WP themes can be bought very cheaply, especially when you compare the cost 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 themes in this article:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits Of Themes
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over choosing applications that require traditional website design:
Ready To Go To Work In Minutes
WordPress themes are very easy to install on your site. Simply 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 dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a large online community of commercial theme developers who contribute thousands of high quality WP Themes available to users. Thousands of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent design across all of the site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your blog’s content. This allows you swap the “look and feel” of your web site as often as you need without affecting the underlying content.
- Many themes provide additional functionality and settings that allow you to customize your site’s layout, style and design properties and create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that enables users to update the theme to newer theme versions without losing any customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically directly from within your admin panel.
- Themes helps you save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on website development costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically quite inexpensive.
Responsive Themes
Many WordPress theme developers are now creating “responsive” themes for WordPress.
A responsive theme enables a website to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly across different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different devices (e.g. PCs, iPads, cell phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different platforms. Users can scroll, read and load the site on all devices without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to have installed additional browser elements.
Note: When selecting, WordPress themes, we recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that the content and layout of your site will work correctly across all of your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards and practices of web design and coding.
We hope this article has provided you with a good understanding of WP themes, what themes are, how they can help your business save money, and how WP themes let you easily customize a WP site.
In the next blog post in our article series on understanding basic WordPress features, we show you where to find the best themes for your website or blog.
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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