The development of web site publishing systems like the WordPress CMS has effectively simplified web design and web development for anyone wanting a website.
This greatly benefits non-technical users planning to start a website that they can easily manage themselves.
Prior to blogging and the development of easy-to-use content management systems, if you needed a business web site, you typically would have to wait until both the web development and web design processes were completely done. This process could take weeks, even months!
WordPress themes helped change all this. In this post, we explore what themes are, how themes can help you save money, and how themes let you easily customize your WordPress site.
A Revolution In Web Design
Businesses have been benefiting from a tremendous change in web design that started a number of years ago. If you own a small business, you will want to learn about this, because it could save your business thousands of dollars on website development and web design costs.
Let’s go over how things worked in “traditional” website development before WordPress was developed:
First, you would meet with a web developer or web designer for a brief. After this, the actual design itself would be discussed and agreed upon. This meant spending time and money with a professional web designer going over elements of your website such as the, colors, styles, graphic elements, content, etc.
Every page of your website then had to be individually created with all of the design elements and scripts coded into your content. The pages were then assembled into a website using hyperlinks and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with all other files required to make your site work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and functioned how it should (and looking how the client had imagined it to look), was the site deemed to be finished and ready to go live.
Then, web design “templates” were developed”. A web site template allows design elements of the web site to be worked on separately from the page content. Having ready-made templates helped make the process of building websites faster and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also allowed website development agencies to service smaller businesses with less money to spend on marketing …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of businesses adopting “template-based” websites increased, templates were introduced to provide a number of custom features and options, such as colour palettes, the ability to select different layouts or content styles, and so on.
As web sites and website editor software developed, website templates also began transforming into website template ”systems”, letting users and website developers control their website’s design components.
Then, WordPress came along and helped to kick off 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 website templating systems even further.
A WP theme controls all of the design elements of the web site. It allows you to add a “skin” to your entire site in a similar way that a web template system does but it provides users with more control over the management, appearance and customization of all 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, a unique and revolutionary feature of WordPress is that the way your site appears to visitors on the outside is controlled independently of the management of your content.
Basically, what this means is that a WP theme lets you modify the design of your website as often as you want without affecting your site’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if you have set up your site for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your web site. All e-commerce features, 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 spend weeks or months waiting for your site to be completed. You can get your website built simply and get started with any WP theme you like, and modify the entire look, feel and design of your WordPress site in a few minutes, whenever you want … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site without the need of website design knowledge. Just choose any theme you like, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress lets you change your site’s design and customize elements like header images, page layout, typography and more in less than a few minutes …
Because WordPress is open source software, web designers anywhere in the world can design themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP templating system.
This means that thousands of high quality WordPress themes can be downloaded by WP users. Themes are normally distributed for Free under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (paid) WP themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE directory of WordPress themes which allows WordPress users to download and access, thousands of excellent web templates for free …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As WordPress becomes more popular, more designers are now focusing on developing themes for a wider audience of web users.
Themes range from simple-looking, to creative designs that are visually stunning and would typically cost thousands of dollars to create. Surprisingly, most WP themes are quite inexpensive.
You can see a number of theme galleries containing many examples of themes in this article:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits Of WordPress Themes
Here are just a few of the benefits of using WordPress themes over using tools that require traditional web design:
Easy Installation
WordPress themes are really easy to install on your site. Just upload a zip file that contains the plugin to your Plugin folder via your WordPress admin user area and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the theme directory at WordPress.org) directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a large community of commercial theme designers and design companies who, collectively, make thousands of excellent WordPress Themes available to users. And many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent look across all of your site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, layouts, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your website’s content. This means you can change the “look and feel” of your web site as often as you want without deleting your site data.
- Many themes come with additional built-in features and settings that enable you to customize your site’s layout, style and design elements and create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many themes are built using a framework that enables you to update themes to newer versions without losing any unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically directly from within the admin panel.
- WordPress themes helps you save hundreds of dollars on web development costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are normally very affordable.
About Responsive WP Themes
Many theme designers are now developing WP themes that incorporate “responsive” design.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically reconfigure the layout to display smoothly over different monitor sizes and screen 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 various devices without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to install additional display elements.
Note: When searching for WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your website will display correctly on all of your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore should comply with the latest standards of web design and web coding.
Hopefully, this article has provided you with a good overview of WP themes, what WordPress themes are, how WordPress themes help your business save money on website development costs, and how WP themes make customizing web sites easy.
To learn where to search for great themes for your blog, go here:
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