The introduction of advanced website management applications like the WordPress CMS has effectively simplified web design and web development for business users.
This is terrific news for business owners thinking about starting a website that is simple and easy to manage.
Prior to “blogging” and the introduction of easy-to-use CMS software, if you needed to get a website for your business, you would have to wait until both the web development and web design processes were completely done. This could mean waiting for many weeks, even months!
The introduction of WordPress themes have changed all this. In this article, you will learn what themes are, how themes save you and your business money on website design costs, and how WordPress themes let you easily customize your site.
A Revolution In Web Design
Businesses will benefit from a change in website design that began shortly after websites were first introduced. If you own a small business, you may want to know about this, because it can save you a lot of time and money on website development and website design costs.
Let’s review how things typically worked in “traditional” web design before WordPress were developed:
The first step would be to discuss your requirements with a website development firm or website designer. Next, the actual design of the web site would be discussed and agreed upon. This involved time and money being spent with a professional website designer discussing areas of the website such as the layout, colours, styles, visual elements, content, etc.
Each page of your website then had to be individually created with your design elements and codes inserted into the content. All pages were then assembled into a web site using hyperlinks and custom coded navigation menus and uploaded to your server, along with all other files required to make your site work – script libraries, images, media elements, etc.
(image source:adobe.com)
Only once everything had been tested and worked how it should (and looking the way the client had imagined it to look), was the website deemed to be completed and ready to go live.
The next stage in the evolution of business website design was the introduction of “website templates”. A web template allows the ”look and feel” of the web site to be created separately from the page content. The introduction of ready-made templates helped to speed up the website creation process and resulted in reduced production costs. This also allowed web site designers to work with smaller business clients with smaller budgets …
(image source: www.dreamweaver-templates.org)
As the number of web development firms adopting “template-based” websites increased, web templates started being developed that could provide expanding customization options, such as the option to switch colours, styles, layouts
As websites and website building applications evolved, web templates also began transforming into website template ”systems”, permitting users and website designers to manage their site’s visual aspects.
And then, 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:
The WordPress Theme
A WordPress theme takes the concept of a website template system further.
The WP theme system controls and integrates all of the design areas of your web site. It lets you add a “skin” over your site similarly to what a template system does but it provides you with more control over the management, presentation and customization of all template settings.
As the official WordPress site states …
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 a WP theme is that how your site looks to site visitors is a completely separate system from the way your content is managed.
Basically, what this means is that a theme lets you modify the appearance of your site as much and as often as you like without touching your site’s content and all the functionality you’ve built into it. For example, if your website has been set up for e-commerce, changing the entire look of your site with another theme won’t affect the content or the functionality of the site. All e-commerce features, plugin settings and product information will remain unaffected, but your site will look completely different.
This is huge! Why?
Because with WordPress, you no longer have to spend weeks or months waiting for your website to be completed. You can get your business website built quickly and get started with any WordPress theme you like, and modify the entire look, feel and design of your website in a few seconds, whenever you decide … and as often as you like!
Even better, you can easily replace any theme on your WP site with no website code development knowledge required. Just pick any WordPress theme you like, upload it to your website and activate it. WordPress lets you change your website design and customize elements like headers, layout, typography and more in minutes …
Since WordPress is made available as open source software, thousands of web design companies from all over the world can create themes specifically for the WordPress platform using the WordPress template system.
This means that loads of high quality WordPress themes are made available to WordPress users. WP are usually distributed for Free 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 directory of WP themes which allows WordPress users to access thousands of great website templates for free …
(WordPress.org – Theme Directory)
As more users turn to WordPress for publishing and managing their digital presence, more designers are now starting to develop themes for a wider audience of web users.
Themes range from functional-looking, to designs that are visually beautiful and could easily cost many hundreds of dollars to develop. Surprisingly, WordPress themes can be purchased quite cheaply, especially when you compare the price to what it would have cost you if a web designer had to create it from scratch.
You can see several WordPress theme galleries that include many examples of WordPress themes here:
(Browse Thousands Of FREE WordPress Themes!)
Benefits Of Themes
Here are just some of the many benefits of using WordPress themes over choosing tools that require traditional website design:
Easy, Fast And Simple To Install
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 within your WordPress admin’s “Theme” section.
Additionally,
- WordPress has a thriving online community of professional theme developers and development companies who make thousands of quality WP Themes available to users. And many of these themes are 100% free to use!
- Themes give sites a consistent “look and feel” across all of the site’s elements, like pages, headers, footers, menus, etc …
- A “theme” works independently of your site’s content. This means you can swap WP themes as often as you need without modifying the settings.
- Many themes provide built-in functionality and options that allow you to customize the site’s layout and design elements to create a unique look to suit your needs.
- Many WP themes are built using a framework that allows you to update the theme to newer theme versions without losing any customizations (e.g. CSS styles)
- WordPress allows you to search, import and install WordPress Themes automatically within your admin panel.
- Themes helps you save thousands of dollars on website development costs. Free WP themes cost nothing and most “Premium”themes are typically quite inexpensive.
About Responsive WordPress Themes
Many theme developers are now creating WordPress themes that incorporate “responsive” design standards.
A responsive theme allows a website to automatically readjust screen size to display smoothly over different screen sizes and resolutions, as well as different devices (e.g. computers, tablets, cell phones, etc.) …
A responsive theme is also optimized for each platform. Users can navigate, read and display a site on all device platforms without having to resize anything, or requiring website owners to have installed additional browser tools.
Note: When purchasing WordPress themes, we recommend choosing a responsive WordPress theme. Not only will a responsive theme ensure that your website will display correctly on all devices, it also means that the theme is newer than non-responsive themes and therefore complies with the latest standards and practices of web design and web coding.
We hope this article has provided you with a good overview of themes, what WordPress themes are, how they can help your business save money, and how themes make customizing websites easy.
To learn where to search for the best WordPress themes for your website or blog, see this page: How To Find Great Premium And Free WordPress Themes For Your Business Online.
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