Advanced website publishing tools like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) have truly improved web design and web development for non-technical users.
This greatly benefits non-technical users thinking of building a website that they can manage by themselves.
Prior to blogging and the introduction of advanced content management systems, if you wanted a business web site, you normally had to wait until both the web development and web design processes were completely done. This could mean waiting around for weeks, even months!
WordPress themes helped change all this. In this post, we will explore what WordPress themes are, how they can help you and your business save money, and how themes let you easily customize your WP site.
Web Design Revolution
Businesses are benefiting from a tremendous revolution in web design that started a number of years ago. If you are a business owner, you will want to know about this, because it can save you a lot of time and money on website development or web design costs.
Let’s take a look at how things typically worked in “traditional” web development before applications like WordPress came along:
First, you would meet with a website development firm or designer for a brief. After this, the “web design” had to be discussed and agreed upon. This meant spending time with someone with web design skills discussing things of the web site such as the, colors, formats, page elements, content, etc.
Every page of your website then had to be hand-coded with the elements and scripts coded into your content. All the pages were then assembled into a website using hyperlinks and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with every other file required to make your site work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything had been tested and functioned how it was intended to (and looking the way the client had wanted it to look), was the website deemed to have been finished and ready to go live.
The next step in the evolution of web design was the introduction of “website templating elements”. Web site templates allow the presentation of the web site to be worked on separately from content on the page. The introduction of templates helped to speed up the process of developing websites and resulted in reduced production costs. This also enabled web site development firms to expand their services to include smaller business clients and clients with smaller budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of small businesses adopting “template-based” web design services increased, web templates started being designed to provide clients with different custom settings, like the option to switch colours, styles, layouts
As web sites and web editor applications evolved, web templates also began transforming into web template “systems” that permitted users and website developers to customize their website’s design components.
Then, WordPress was developed and helped to start a new content management revolution …
(WordPress – A Content Publishing Revolution)
To learn more about content management systems and the benefits of the WordPress CMS, see the tutorial below:
The WordPress Theme
WordPress themes expand website templating systems one step further.
A WP theme controls and unifies the design aspects of your web site. It lets you add a “skin” to your entire site much like a template system does but it also also provides users with more control over the management, appearance and customization of 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 quote states, one of the unique and revolutionary features of WordPress is that the way your site displays to site visitors externally is kept independent of how your content is managed.
In simple terms, what this means is that themes let you modify the design of your site as much and 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 WordPress website for e-commerce, changing the entire look of your site with another 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 the site will look completely different.
Why is this great news for small business owners?
Because with WordPress, you no longer need to spend weeks or months waiting for your web design to be done. You can get your business website built simply and get started with any WordPress theme you like, and customize the entire look, feel and design of your website in minutes, whenever you choose … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WP site without needing website code editing skills. Simply choose any theme you want, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your entire site’s web design and customize elements like header images, page layout, typography and more with just a couple of mouse clicks …
As WordPress is made available as open source software, website design companies from all over the world can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP template system.
This means that loads of great WP themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. WP are normally distributed for FREE 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 directory of WordPress themes which allows WordPress users to access thousands of excellent WordPress themes for free …
(WordPress.org – WP Theme Directory)
As more businesses turn to WordPress for publishing and managing their digital presence, more designers are now starting to develop themes for a wider range of users.
Themes range from corporate-looking, to designs that are simply impressive and could easily cost hundreds to many thousands of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, most premium WP themes can be purchased fairly inexpensively, especially when compared to what it would have cost you if a website designer had to code it from scratch.
You can view a number of WP theme galleries that include stunning examples of great premium WP themes in this article:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits And Advantages Of WP Themes
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over using applications that require traditional website design:
Installation Is Easy, Simple And Quick
WP themes are really easy to install on your site. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your WordPress dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WP themes repository at WordPress.org) directly from your WP site’s admin area.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a growing online community of professional theme designers who, collectively, contribute thousands of high quality WP Themes available to users. And many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent “look and feel” across all the site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your digital content. This allows you swap themes as often as you like without changing the underlying content of your website.
- Many WordPress themes come with built-in features and settings that allow you to customize the theme’s layout and design elements and create a unique look to suit your taste.
- Many WordPress themes are built using a framework that allows you to update themes to newer theme versions without losing any customizations (e.g. styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload, install and update WordPress Themes automatically within your dashboard.
- WordPress themes allow users to save hundreds of dollars on website development costs. Free WordPress themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically quite affordable.
About Responsive Theme Design
Many WP theme developers are now developing themes that incorporate “responsive” design.
A responsive theme allows websites to automatically readjust the web layout to display smoothly over different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as across different platforms) …
Responsive themes are also optimized for different types of devices. Users can navigate, read and load the site on a range of device platforms without having to resize anything, or requiring the website owner to have installed additional display elements.
Note: When downloading WordPress themes, it’s a good idea to choose a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your web site works across all of your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards of web design.
We hope that this basic overview has given you a clearer understanding about themes, what WP themes are, how themes can help your business save money on web design costs, and how themes make customizing sites easy.
To learn where to search for great themes for your website or blog, visit this post: Where To Get Great Free And Premium WordPress Themes For Your Site Or Blog.
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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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