The development of advanced website management tools like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) has effectively improved web design and web development for business users.
This is a great thing for businesses planning on getting a website that is relatively simple, easy and inexpensive to manage.
Before “blogging” and the introduction of powerful content management systems, if you needed a site, you would have to wait until both the web development and web design processes were fully completed. This could mean waiting around for weeks, even months!
WordPress themes changed all this. In this blog post, you will learn what WordPress themes are, how themes save you and your business money on web development costs, and how themes make it easy to customize your site.
A Revolution In Web Design
More businesses today will benefit from a great change in website design that started many years ago. If you are a business owner, you will want to learn about this, because it can save your business thousands of dollars on web development or website design costs.
Let’s go over how things worked in “traditional” web development before a CMS software like WordPress was introduced:
The first step would be to discuss your requirements with a web site development agency or designer. After this, the ”look and feel” of the web site would be decided upon. This meant time and money being spent with someone with web design skills discussing elements of your web site like the, colors, formats, graphic elements, content, etc.
Each page of your site then had to be hand-coded with the design elements and codes scripted into your content. All pages were then assembled into a website using links and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with all other files required to make your website work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything had been tested and worked how it should (and looking how the client had wanted it to look), was the site deemed to have been finished and ready for delivery.
The next phase in the evolution of website design was the introduction of “website templating elements”. Web templates allow ”look and feel” elements of the website to be created separately from the page content. The development of ready-made templates helped to make web site development faster and resulted in lowered production costs. This also allowed website development companies to service businesses and clients with less money to spend …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of small businesses choosing “template-based” websites increased, templates started being designed to offer various customization settings, such as colour palettes, the ability to specify different menu styles, formats, header, footer and navigation elements, page layouts, etc …
As websites and web editing applications developed, web templates also began evolving into website templating ”systems”, allowing website owners to customize the design elements of their website.
And then, a “blogging” tool called WordPress was introduced and helped to kick off a new online 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:
About WordPress Themes
A WordPress theme expands the concept of a website templating system even further.
The WordPress theme system controls every aspect of your website design. It lets you add a “skin” over your site similarly to what a template system does but it also also gives you complete control over the management, appearance and customization aspects of template options.
As WordPress has explained in its official web 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 WordPress is that the way your website looks to site visitors externally is controlled independently of the management of your content.
In simple terms, what this means is that you can modify the design of your website as often as you want without affecting your site’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if you have configured your website 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, site and plugin settings and product information will remain intact, but the site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because when your website is powered by WordPress, you no longer need to wait until your site’s web design is completed. You can get your website built simply and get started with any WordPress theme you like, and completely change the look, feel and design of your website in minutes, whenever you decide … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your WP site without requiring web code programming skills. Simply pick any theme you like, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress lets you change your site’s design and modify elements like headers, layout, styling options and more in less than a few minutes …
As WordPress is distributed as open source software, website design companies can design themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that loads of great WP themes can be downloaded by WP users. WP are generally distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
The WordPress team keeps a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent WordPress themes at no cost …
(WordPress.org – Theme Directory)
As more users turn to WordPress for publishing and managing their digital presence, more designers are now starting to develop themes for a wider audience of WordPress site owners.
WordPress themes range from simple-looking, to dynamic designs that are visually stunning and could normally cost thousands of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, most WordPress themes are quite inexpensive to purchase.
You can view a number of theme galleries containing many examples of great WP themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits & Advantages Of WP Themes
Here are just a few of the benefits of using WordPress themes over choosing traditional web design:
Ready To Go To Work In Very Little Time
WordPress themes are really easy to install on your site. Just upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WP dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the themes repository at WordPress.org) directly inside your WP admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a large community of professional theme designers and design companies who, collectively, make thousands of high quality WordPress Themes available to WordPress users. Thousands of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent design across all the site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, layouts, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This allows you change themes as often as you need without affecting your blog information.
- Many WordPress themes come with additional features and options that let you easily customize your site’s style, layout and design properties and create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many themes are built using a framework that allows you to upgrade themes to a newer theme version without losing its unique customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, import, install and update WordPress Themes automatically directly from within your site’s administration interface.
- WordPress themes allow WP users to save thousands of dollars on website design costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are normally quite affordable.
About Responsive Themes
Many theme designers are now developing “responsive” themes for the WordPress platform.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different platforms) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different types of devices. Users can navigate, read and display a site on all device platforms without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to have installed additional display elements.
Note: When searching for WordPress themes, we strongly recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that your web site displays well on your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore probably complies with the latest standards of website design coding.
I hope that this overview has given you a clearer understanding of themes, what WordPress themes are, how themes can help you and your business save money on web development costs, and how WordPress themes make it easy to customize your web site.
To learn where to find great themes for your website or blog, go here:
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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