Content management systems are the root of the success behind almost all major websites. Without a good CMS most sites would cease to exist, as many site owners simply don’t have the skills necessary to design a site without the help of a friendly template-based user interface. With content management systems complete novices have been able to make incredible looking websites in just a few minutes time. In previous years this was not possible unless you had advanced site design skills. The secret behind the convenience of content management systems is the amount of themes that are readily available, which are complete designs that can be uploaded and activated instantly.
Theme Selection
There are a variety of content management systems available on the market today, including but not limited to WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. Since the popularity of each content management system varies, there are a different amount of themes available for each one. WordPress is by far the most popular out of all mainstream content management systems, so there are many more themes available for WordPress. You can find cheap and high quality themes for WordPress on sites like Theme Forest and Dream Templates, however there are also sites that offer WordPress themes for free.
Uploading the Theme
Once you’ve found a theme for your content management system you can easily upload it and activate it. In the WordPress interface this can be done within the “Themes” section of the Appearance module on the left side. Simply click on the “add new” button and then click the upload option. After uploading the theme you’ll be able to activate it, at which point it will become visible on your site. The best part about a WordPress theme is that it can be changed without the content of the site being deleted. Therefore, if you ever decide to change the design you can keep all of the pages, categories and articles that are currently on your site.
How Themes Work
Many people fail to understand how the design of an entire site can change without changing the content of the site. This is because the site’s content and the site’s design are kept in different MySQL databases. A theme is a basically a collection of HTML pages that are brought together using PHP, and the design of each HTML page is modified with CSS coding. The colors and placement of every element in the theme can be changed by simply editing a few snippets of code in the style.css sheet of each theme.
Conclusion
While most people are convinced that site design is reserved for those with web development experience, there are options available for people with no technical knowledge at all. WordPress provides a venue that novice webmasters can use to get a site setup and operating with no special skills or monetary investment. If you’ve been struggling to learn HTML just to put up the simplest site then you should know that all of your problems could be solved with a simple WordPress theme.
