The introduction of flexible web publishing tools like the WordPress CMS platform has effectively improved web design and web development for anyone wanting a website.
This greatly benefits businesses that want a website that is relatively easy to manage.
Before blogging and the introduction of easy-to-use CMS solutions, if you needed to build a website for your business, you had to wait until both the web development and web design processes were fully completed. This could mean weeks, sometimes even many months of waiting!
WordPress themes changed all this. In this post, you will learn what themes are, how WP themes save you money on web development costs, and how themes let you easily customize your website.
Evolution In Web Site Design
More website owners today will benefit from a revolution in website design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you are a small business owner, you may want to know about this, because it can save your business a lot of time and money on website development or web design costs.
In a nutshell, this is how things typically worked in “traditional” website development before CMS applications like WordPress were developed:
The first step would be to discuss your requirements with a website developer or web designer. After this, the “web design” would be discussed and agreed upon. This required time and money being spent with someone with web site design skills discussing elements of your site such as the layout, colors, styles, visual elements, content, etc.
Each page of your web site then had to be hand-coded with all the design elements and codes written into your content. All of the pages were then assembled together into a web site using hyperlinks and navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with every other file needed to make your site work – script libraries, images, media, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only after everything passed testing and functioned how it was intended to (and looking the way the client had wanted it to look), was the web site deemed as being finished and ready for delivery.
Then, web design “templates” were introduced”. A web template allows presentation elements of the web site to be created separately from content on the page. Having template elements helped speed up the website creation process and resulted in lowered costs of production. This also enabled website development companies to work with businesses and clients with smaller marketing budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As more businesses began using “template-based” websites, web templates started being developed that could offer a number of customization options, like the option to choose different colors, styles, layouts
As web sites and web editing tools developed, website templates also started evolving into web templating “systems” that enable website owners and web designers to control their web site’s visual components.
Then, a “blogging” tool called WordPress was introduced and helped to start 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:
The WordPress Theme
WordPress themes improve the idea of a web template system even further.
A WP theme controls every aspect of your web design. It lets you add a “skin” over your site in a similar way that a template system does but it provides users with more control over the management, presentation and customization of all 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 the above quote states, one of the unique features of the WP theme is that how your web site looks to visitors is managed separately from the way your website functions in the backend to handle areas like content management and functionality.
Basically, what this means is that a WordPress theme lets you modify the design of your site as much and as often as you like without touching your website’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if WordPress site has been set up for e-commerce, changing the entire look of the site with a different theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of your website. 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 with WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your website to be done. You can get your business website built quickly and get started with any theme you like, and completely edit the look, feel and design of your site in seconds, whenever you decide … and as many times as you like!
Even better, you can easily install a theme on your site with no web code programming skills necessary. Simply pick any theme you like, install it on your site 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 in minutes …
Since WordPress is open source software, professional web designers anywhere in the world can design themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WP template system.
This means that loads of great WP themes can be downloaded by WP users. Themes are usually distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU License Definition, or they can be purchased as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
The WordPress development team keeps a FREE theme directory which allows WordPress users to download, access and install thousands of excellent themes completely free of charge …
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
As more users turn to WordPress for online publishing, more designers are now focused on creating themes for a wider audience of web users.
Themes vary from professional-looking, to elegant designs that are quite impressive and could typically cost many hundreds of dollars to commission. Surprisingly, most themes are quite inexpensive.
You can view a number of WordPress theme galleries that include stunning examples of great WordPress themes in this page:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Themes – Benefits
Here are just a few of the benefits of choosing WordPress themes over choosing traditional web template design:
Easy Installation
Themes are quite easy to install on your site. Simply upload a zip folder containing the plugin files to your Plugin folder via your administrator account and activate. Even easier still, you can install any of the themes listed in the WordPress themes directory at WordPress.org) directly inside your WordPress dashboard.
Additionally …
- WordPress has a thriving online community of professional website developers who make thousands of great WP Themes available to WP users. Thousands of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a unified and consistent “look and feel” across all your site’s elements, i.e. pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your site’s content. This makes it possible to change the “look and feel” of your web site as often as you like without modifying the settings.
- Many WP themes provide built-in functionality and settings that allow you to easily customize your site’s layout and design elements and create a unique look to suit your business.
- Many themes are built using a framework that enables you to upgrade themes to newer versions without losing any unique customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, import, install and update WordPress Themes automatically directly from within the site’s administration interface.
- WP themes helps you save hundreds, even thousands of dollars on web development costs. Free themes cost nothing and most “Premium”WordPress themes are typically quite inexpensive.
About Responsive WordPress Themes
Many WordPress theme designers are now creating “responsive” themes for WordPress.
A responsive theme enables websites to automatically resize to display smoothly across different monitor sizes and screen resolutions, as well as across different platforms) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each device type. Users can scroll, read and load the site on a range of devices without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to install 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 website will work correctly on all of your visitors’ devices, it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore should comply with the latest standards, practices and techniques of web design coding.
I hope the above article has given you a good overview of themes, what themes are, how WP themes help your business save money, and how themes make it easy to customize a site.
In our next article on helping you understand features and functionality of WordPress, we show you where to find the best WordPress themes for your website.
***
"I am beyond impressed with what you have put together. I can tell that you put a ton of hard work into building what you have. You have the absolute best content on WordPress I have ever seen!" - Robert T. Jillie
***