The development of flexible content management platforms like the WordPress CMS has truly simplified web design and web development for business owners.
This is a great thing for individuals or businesses thinking about getting a website that is relatively simple and easy to manage.
Prior to blogging and the introduction of sophisticated content management systems, if you needed to build a site built for your business, you normally would have to wait until both the website development and web design processes were completely done. This process could take weeks, sometimes even months!
The introduction 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 website.
A Revolution In Website Design
More website owners today have benefited from a tremendous change in web design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you are a small business owner, you may want to learn more about this, because it can save your business thousands of dollars on website development or website design costs.
In a nutshell, here’s how things worked in “traditional” website development before WordPress came along:
The first step would be to discuss your requirements with a website developer or website designer. Next, the actual design of your site would be discussed and agreed upon. This involved time and money being spent with a professional web designer going over elements of the website like the layout, colors, formats, graphic elements, content, etc.
Every page of your web site then had to be hand-coded with all of your elements and scripts coded into the content. All pages were then assembled together into a website using links and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with every other file needed to make your website work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything passed testing and functioned the way it should (and looking how a client had wanted it to look), was the website considered as being finished and ready to go live.
Then, website “templates” came along”. A web template allows ”look and feel” elements of the web site to be worked on separately from the page content. The introduction of templates helped speed up the web creation process and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also enabled web developers and designers to work with business clients with less money to spend on marketing …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more web development agencies began using “template-based” web design services, web templates started being developed to offer clients with a number of custom features, like color palettes, the ability to select different formats or header, footer and navigation elements, and so on.
As websites and website editing applications evolved, web templates also started transforming into website templating ”systems”, letting users customize the design elements of their website.
Then, a “blogging” tool called 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
A WordPress theme drives the concept of a web templating system one step further.
The WordPress theme system controls and integrates the design aspects of your web site. It allows you to add a “skin” to your entire site much like a template system does but also provides users with complete control over the management, presentation and customization of template options.
As described in 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 how your website displays to site visitors on the outside is an entirely separate thing from your site’s content management aspects.
In plain English terms, what this means is that you can change the look and feel of your website as often as you like without affecting your site’s content and all the work you’ve put into it. For example, if WordPress 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 unaffected, but your site will look completely different.
This is important. Why?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your web design to be done. You can get your website built simply and start with any theme you want, and then completely change the look, feel and design of your site in seconds, whenever you want … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your site with no website code editing knowledge required. Just pick any WordPress theme you want, upload it to your site and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your web design and modify elements like header images, layout, styling options and more in less than a few minutes …
Because WordPress is made available as open source software, website design companies can design themes specifically for the WP CMS platform using the WP template system.
This means that thousands of great WordPress themes are made available to WP users. WordPress are generally distributed freely under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (paid) WP themes.
The WordPress development team maintains a FREE theme directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of great WordPress themes at $0 cost …
(WordPress.org – WordPress Themes Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress soars, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider audience of web users.
WordPress themes range from corporate-looking, to clever designs that are simply stunning and could typically cost many hundreds of dollars to create. Surprisingly, most WP themes can be bought fairly inexpensively, especially when compared to what it would have cost you if a web designer had to develop it from scratch.
You can view several theme galleries containing many examples of themes in this post:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Themes – Benefits & Advantages
Here are just some of the many benefits of using WordPress themes over choosing traditional web template design:
Ready To Start Using In Very Little Time
WordPress themes are quite easy to install on your site. Simply upload a zip file containing the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the themes repository at WordPress.org) directly inside your WordPress site’s admin area.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a thriving community of commercial theme designers and design companies who, collectively, make thousands of high quality WordPress Themes available to WP users. And many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent look across all of your blog’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This means you can replace the “look and feel” of your site as often as you like without changing the site’s information.
- Many themes provide additional built-in features and settings that let you customize your site’s layout and design elements and create a unique look to suit your preferences.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that allows you to update themes to newer theme versions without losing its unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, import and install WordPress Themes automatically inside the admin panel.
- WordPress themes allow WordPress users to save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on web development costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are typically quite affordable.
About Responsive WordPress Themes
Many WP theme designers are now developing themes that incorporate “responsive” design standards.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly across different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. computers, iPads, cell phones, etc.) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different types of devices. Users can scroll, read and load the site on a range of device browsers without having to readjust their browser settings, or requiring website owners to install additional display elements.
Note: When searching for WordPress themes, we recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will the theme ensure that the content and layout of your site will display correctly on all of your visitors’ devices, but it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore probably complies with the latest standards of web design and coding.
We hope this overview has given you a clearer understanding about WP themes, what WP themes are, how WordPress themes help you save money on website design costs, and how themes make customizing websites easy.
To learn where to find the best themes for your website or blog, click here:
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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