Flexible web management applications like WordPress have effectively simplified web design and web development for website owners.
This is fantastic news for business owners planning to start or build an online presence that they can manage themselves.
Prior to blogging and the development of powerful CMS software, if you needed a professional business web site, you normally would have to wait until both the web development and web design processes were completely done. This could mean waiting around for many weeks, even months!
WordPress themes have changed all this. In this article, we look at what themes are, how themes save your business money on website development costs, and how themes make it easy to customize your site.
The Evolution Of Website Design
Businesses will benefit from a tremendous revolution in website design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a small business, you will want to learn about this, because it could save you a lot of time and money on web development and web design costs.
In a nutshell, this is what used to happen before CMS applications like WordPress came along:
First, you would discuss your project with a web site developer or web site designer. After this, the actual design itself would be decided upon. This meant time and money being spent with someone with website design skills discussing areas of your web site such as the layout, colours, styles, visual elements, content, etc.
Every page of your site then had to be individually created with all your design elements and codes scripted into the page content. All pages were then assembled together into a web site using links and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with all other files needed to make your website work – script libraries, graphic images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and functioned how it should (and looking how the client had wanted it to look), was the website considered to have been finished and ready for delivery.
Then, web design “templates” were introduced”. Web templates allow the ”look and feel” of the web site to be created separately from the page content. The development of template elements helped to make website creation faster and resulted in reduced costs of production. This also enabled web development agencies to service small businesses with less money to spend on marketing …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more web development firms began adopting “template-based” websites, web templates started being designed that provided clients with different customization features, such as color palettes, the ability to pick different content styles and header, footer and navigation elements, etc …
As websites and website editor software evolved, web templates also started evolving into web template “systems” that allowed website owners to control the design aspects of a site.
Then, a “blogging” tool called 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 take the idea of a web template system even further.
A WordPress theme controls every aspect of your web design. It allows you to add a “skin” over your entire site similarly to what a template system does but it provides you with more control over the management, appearance and customization of your site’s template settings.
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 stated in the quote above, one of the unique and revolutionary features of a WordPress theme is that how your web site appears to visitors is managed independently of how your site works in the backend to handle areas like content management and functionality.
In simple terms, what this means is that WordPress themes let you change the design of your site as much and as often as you like without affecting your site’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if you have configured WP site for e-commerce, changing the entire look of the site with another theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your site. All e-commerce features, plugin settings and product information will remain intact, but your site will look completely different.
This is huge! Why?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer have to wait until your website’s design is done. You can get your website built quickly and start with any WordPress theme you like, and completely change the look, feel and design of your website in mere 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 code editing skills necessary. Just pick any WP theme you like, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress lets you change your site’s design and customize elements like headers, layout, typography and more in a few seconds …
Since WordPress is made available as open source software, web design companies all around the world can design themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WordPress templating system.
This means that loads of great WP themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. WP are usually distributed for Free under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or sold as Premium (paid) WordPress themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE theme directory which allows WordPress users to access thousands of great themes completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – WP Theme Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now focusing on developing themes for a wider audience of web users.
Themes vary from professional-looking, to jaw-dropping designs that are simply stunning and could easily cost hundreds to thousands of dollars to create. Surprisingly, most themes are very inexpensive.
You can see a number of theme galleries that include stunning examples of great WP themes in this page:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits Of WordPress Themes
Here are just some of the benefits and advantages of choosing WordPress themes over choosing web building tools that require traditional web template design:
Ready To Use In Very Little Time
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 WP themes directory at WordPress.org) directly from within your WP admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a growing online community of professional website developers and development companies who make thousands of great-looking, high quality WordPress Themes available to users. Many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent look across all of the site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your website’s content. This makes it possible to replace themes as often as you want without disturbing your blog settings.
- Many themes provide additional built-in functionality and settings that enable you to customize your theme’s layout, style and design properties and create a unique look to suit your taste.
- Many WP themes are built using a framework that lets users update the theme to newer theme versions without losing any customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, import and install WordPress Themes automatically from the dashboard.
- Themes helps you save thousands of dollars on web development costs. Free WordPress themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally very inexpensive.
About Responsive WP Themes
Many WordPress theme designers are now developing WordPress themes that incorporate “responsive” functionality.
A responsive theme allows websites to automatically resize to display smoothly across different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different platforms) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for different platforms. Users can navigate, read and display your site on a range of devices without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring the website owner to have installed additional themes.
Note: When searching for WordPress themes, we recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your web site works on 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.
Hopefully, this post has provided you with a good overview of WordPress themes, what WP themes are, how WP themes can help your business save money on website design costs, and how WP themes let you easily customize a WP site.
In the next blog post on helping you understand features and functionality of WordPress, we show you where to search for great WordPress themes for your website.
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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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