Flexible content publishing technologies like the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) have effectively simplified web design and web development for anyone wanting to start a website.
This is a great thing for businesses that want an online presence that is simple and easy to manage.
Prior to blogging and the introduction of advanced CMS solutions, if you wanted a business website, you typically had to wait until both the website development and web design processes were completely done. This could mean waiting for many weeks, even months!
WordPress themes changed all this. In this blog post, we will explore what WordPress themes are, how themes help your business save money on website design costs, and how themes allow you to easily customize your website.
Website Design Revolution
Businesses have benefited from a change in website design that has been going for many years now. If you own a small business, you may want to learn about this, because it could save you a lot of time and money on web development and website design costs.
Let’s briefly go over what used to happen before system like WordPress was introduced:
First, you would meet with a web developer or designer for a brief. Then, the design would be decided upon. This required spending time with someone with web site design skills discussing design elements of your website such as the layout, colours, styles, graphic elements, content, etc.
Every page of your website then had to be hand-coded with all the elements and codes scripted into the page content. All pages were then assembled into a web site using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, together with all other files required to make your website work – script libraries, graphic images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything had been tested and was performing the way it was intended to (and looking how a client had imagined it to look), was the site deemed as being finished and ready to go live.
Then, web design “templates” came along”. Web templates allow presentation elements of the website to be worked on separately from the page content. The introduction of template elements helped speed up the website development process and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also allowed web site development agencies to work with small business clients with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more web site development agencies started using “template-based” web design services, templates were designed that offered clients with expanding customizable features, such as the ability to choose different colors, styles, layouts
As web sites and website building software developed, web templates also started to transform into web templating ”systems”, letting users and website designers control the design components of a site.
Then, a “blogging” application called WordPress came along and helped to start 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
WordPress themes improve the idea of a web templating system one step further.
The WP theme system controls every aspect of your web design. It allows you to add a “skin” over your site much like a website template system does but it provides users with complete control over the management and ability to customize all template features.
As WordPress puts it …
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, one of the unique and revolutionary features of WordPress is that how your website looks to site visitors on the outside in no way affects your site’s content management aspects.
In simple terms, what this means is that you can modify the design of your site as often as you like without affecting your site’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if WP site has been configured for e-commerce, replacing the theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the web site. All e-commerce features, settings and product information will remain intact, but the site will look completely different.
This is huge! Why?
Because when you use WordPress, you no longer need to spend weeks or months waiting for your site to be done. You can get your website built simply and start with any WordPress theme you want, and then completely change the look, feel and design of your site in a few minutes, whenever you want … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site without needing any website code programming skills. Simply pick any theme you like, install it on your website and activate it. WordPress allows you to change your web design and customize elements like headers, page layout, style settings and more in a few seconds …
Since WordPress is made available as open source software, hundreds of web designers all around the world can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP templating system.
This means that thousands of high quality WordPress themes can be downloaded by WordPress users. Themes are usually distributed for Free under the terms of the GNU General Public License Definition, or sold as Premium (paid) themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE WordPress Theme Directory which gives WordPress users access thousands of excellent themes for free …
(WordPress.org – Free Theme Directory)
As the popularity of WordPress soars, more designers are now starting to create themes for a wider audience of WordPress users.
Themes range from minimal-looking, to jaw-dropping designs that are visually impressive and could easily cost thousands of dollars to create. Surprisingly, most WP themes can be bought very inexpensively, especially when compared to what it would have cost you if a website designer had to create it from scratch.
You can view a number of WP theme galleries that include various examples of great WordPress themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits & Advantages Of WordPress Themes
Here are just a few of the benefits of choosing WordPress themes over choosing traditional website design:
Be Up And Running In Very Little Time
WordPress themes are really easy to install on your site. Simply upload the plugin file to your Plugins folder via your dashboard and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WordPress theme directory at WordPress.org) directly from your WordPress dashboard.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a large community of professional web designers and design companies who make thousands of high quality WordPress Themes available to users. Many of these themes are completely free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent look across all of the site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, layout, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your web site’s content. This makes it possible to replace WP themes as often as you like without changing the website’s information.
- Many themes provide additional functionality and settings that let you easily customize the theme’s style, layout and design properties to create a unique look to suit your taste.
- Many WP themes are built using a framework that enables you to update themes to newer versions without losing any customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress lets you search, upload and install WordPress Themes automatically directly from the admin panel.
- Themes helps you save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on website development costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WP themes are normally very affordable.
About Responsive Themes
Many WordPress theme developers are now developing “responsive” WordPress themes.
A responsive theme allows a website to automatically resize 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 most device platforms without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to have installed additional browser tools.
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 will work correctly on your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than most non-responsive themes and therefore should comply with the latest standards and practices of web design and web coding.
We hope this basic overview has given you a clearer understanding about WordPress themes, what themes are, how themes can help you save money, and how WordPress themes allow you to easily customize a WP site.
To learn where to find the best themes for your website, 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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