The introduction of flexible content publishing technologies like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) has effectively improved web design and web development for users.
This is great for non-technical users planning on getting a website that is relatively easy to manage.
Prior to blogging and the development of user-friendly content management systems, if you wanted a business site, you had to wait until both the web development and website design processes were completely done. This could take many weeks, even many months!
The development of WordPress themes have changed all this. In this blog post, we take a look at what themes are, how they can help you and your business save money on web design costs, and how themes make it easy to customize your site.
Website Design Revolution
Businesses will benefit from a change in website design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a small business, you will want to learn more about this, because it could save you thousands of dollars on website development or website design costs.
Let’s briefly review what typically took place before CMS applications like WordPress came along:
The first step would be to meet with a website development agency or website designer for a brief. Then, the actual “web design” itself would be discussed and agreed upon. This required time being spent with a professional web site designer going over elements of the web site like the layout, colors, styles, visual elements, content, etc.
Every page of your web site then had to be individually created with all of your elements and scripts coded around the content. All of the pages were then assembled together into a web site using hyperlinks and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with every other file needed to make your website work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything had been tested and functioned how it was intended to (and looking how a client had wanted it to look), was the site considered to be finished and ready for delivery.
The next phase in the evolution of web design was the introduction of “website templating elements”. Web site templates allow the ”look and feel” of the website to be created separately from content on the page. The introduction of template elements helped to make the process of web site creation faster and resulted in reduced production costs. This also allowed web site development firms to expand their services to include small businesses with less money to spend on marketing …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of small businesses adopting “template-based” web design services increased, web templates were created that could provide a number of custom features and options, such as color palettes, the ability to pick different content styles or page layouts, etc …
As websites and website building applications developed, web templates also began to transform into web template ”systems”, enabling users and website designers to manage the visual elements of a site.
And then, a “blogging” software called WordPress was introduced and helped to start a new digital 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:
WordPress Themes
A WordPress theme drives the concept of a web templating system even further.
A WordPress theme controls all of the design areas of your web site. It lets you add a “skin” to your site similarly to what a website template system does but also provides users with more control over the management, appearance and customization aspects of template options.
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 above, one of the unique features of WordPress is that the way your web site looks to visitors is controlled separately from the way your content is managed.
In plain English terms, what this means is that a WordPress theme lets you modify the appearance of your site as often as you like without affecting your site’s content and all the work you’ve put 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, plugin settings and product information will remain intact, but the site will look completely different.
This is huge! Why?
Because when your website is powered with WordPress, you no longer need to wait until your website’s design is completed. You can get your business website built simply and get started with any theme you like, and completely edit the 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 WP site with no website coding skills necessary. Simply pick a theme you like, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your site’s design and modify elements like headers, page layout, typography and more in less than a few minutes …
Since WordPress is made available as open source software, professional website designers can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP templating system.
This means that thousands of great WordPress themes are made available to WP users. Themes are usually distributed freely under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or sold as Premium (paid) WP themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent web templates for free …
(WordPress.org – Free Theme Directory)
As more users turn to WordPress for publishing and managing their digital presence, more designers are now focused on developing themes for a wider range of uses.
Themes range from professional-looking, to creative designs that are simply breathtaking and could easily cost thousands of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, most premium WordPress themes can be bought quite cheaply, especially when compared to what you would have had to pay if a web designer had to code it from scratch.
You can view several WP theme galleries containing stunning examples of great premium themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
WP Themes – Benefits & Advantages
Here are just a few of the benefits and advantages of using WordPress themes over using traditional website design:
Be Up And Running In Minutes
WordPress themes are quite easy to install on your site. Simply upload a zip file that contains the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your WP admin section and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the themes repository at WordPress.org) directly from within your WP admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a thriving online community of professional website developers who, collectively, make thousands of fantastic WP Themes available to WP users. Thousands of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent look across all your site’s elements, i.e. 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 modifying your blog content.
- Many themes come with additional built-in features and settings that let you easily customize your site’s style, layout and design properties to create a unique look to suit your preferences.
- Many WP themes are built using a framework that allows you to update the theme to a newer theme version without losing any customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically inside the admin panel.
- Themes allow users to save hundreds of dollars on website development costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically very inexpensive.
About Responsive WP Theme Design
Many WP theme designers are now developing themes that incorporate “responsive” functionality.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly over different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different platforms) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each platform. Users can scroll, read and display a site on different device platforms without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to install additional browser elements.
Note: When searching for WordPress themes, we strongly recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that the content and layout of your site works across your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore probably complies with the latest standards and practices of web design coding.
I hope that this overview has given you a better understanding of WordPress themes, what WP themes are, how WordPress themes can help your business save money, and how themes make customizing your web design easy.
To learn where to find great WordPress themes for your blog, go here:
***
"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)
***