Nearly two decades since its initial launch, WordPress (WP) continues to be the leading content management system (CMS) worldwide. WP is incredibly versatile and used for a wide range of websites from personal blogs and nonprofits to online stores. It’s the CMS of choice for globally recognized companies like Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, and Bloomberg. But what makes it so universally adored?

WP is an open-source platform that’s simple to install and manage, with a vast community backing it. It boasts thousands of pre-made plugins to support virtually any business function, alongside a plethora of themes to select from.

While a WP site’s features are crucial, a visually appealing and functional theme can significantly influence a business’s success. In this article, we’ll discuss why a custom WordPress theme is preferable to WordPress theme customization.

What exactly is a Theme? What Kinds of Themes Exist?

 A WP theme is a collection of files that determine a website’s appearance and layout. These files include CSS stylesheets, templates, images, JavaScript files, PHP files, among others.

In basic terms, a theme is a container waiting to be filled with your content.

Three options are available when it comes to acquiring themes.

• You can download a free WP theme from the official site https://wordpress.org/. 
• You can buy a premium theme on various platforms. 
• You can employ a professional designer and developer to craft a custom theme tailored to your specifications. 

Although you can customize a free or paid theme by adjusting its code, creating a theme from scratch offers more benefits for your business. Here’s why.

Benefits of Opting for a Custom WordPress Theme for Your Project 

#1: A Custom WordPress Theme Will Perfectly Align With Your Company’s Goals, Vision, and Content 

While there are countless attractive themes, particularly premium ones, modifying their look and layout may not reflect your business goals or vision. This delicate task is best left to seasoned WordPress development experts.

Choosing the right colors or fonts isn’t sufficient. There’s a series of questions that need answers before touching a single HTML or PHP tag, such as:

What are your website’s business objectives? Is it for representation, lead generation, or selling products/services? 

• What content will your main page contain? 
• Who is your target audience? 
• What do you know about them? 
• Why would they visit your site?

Only after thorough research, analyzing your business data, and understanding your primary business needs can a custom WordPress theme developer start coding. Customizing an existing theme to the required extent may take considerable time with no guarantee of the desired result.

#2: A Custom WordPress Theme Will Set You Apart from Your Competitors 

If you use the same theme as another business, even with color and content changes, potential customers may not remember you or revisit your website.

You might believe that buying a premium theme and tweaking it to your liking will distinguish you from other businesses in your field. Unfortunately, nearly 15% of the market uses just three premium themes. 

This means that even after extensive modifications to your purchased theme, its layout and features will resemble many others in the market.

In contrast, a custom WordPress theme will stand out from your competitors, as it sports a unique design that you’ve crafted. This leads to improved brand recognition, customer engagement, and ultimately, better sales.

#3: A Custom WordPress Theme Will Enhance Your Security

Security should be a top priority for any business, especially in the digital landscape, where cybercriminals constantly look for opportunities to exploit website vulnerabilities. WordPress (WP), despite its popularity, has been a frequent target for hackers, with 90% of all hacked sites a few years back being WP-powered.

Cybercriminals typically gain access to a WP site by downloading a free or premium theme and dissecting its code to identify weaknesses. Once they locate these, they search the web for sites using the same theme and infiltrate through the discovered security gaps.

However, a custom theme’s code is not accessible to hackers. While it doesn’t ensure absolute protection against cyber attacks, it certainly offers greater security than if you were using a free or premium theme.

For some valuable insights on the main reasons why WordPress websites get hacked, visit this post.

#4: Custom WordPress Themes Are SEO-Friendly 

Want your website to appear on the first page of Google’s search results? Then, you need an SEO-friendly website. While most pre-made WP themes, especially premium ones, come with SEO features, you’ll still need to put substantial effort into customizing them to meet SEO standards.

Alongside keywords, a website’s structure greatly influences its search engine visibility. With a custom WordPress theme, you can design its structure from scratch, ensuring crawlers can easily index your content.

#5: A WordPress Custom Theme Ensures Optimal Performance 

Many premium themes are packed with unnecessary features that can slow down your site. For a business website, loading speed is critical. If your site takes more than two seconds to load, you risk losing visitors, which can hurt your sales and SEO rankings due to increased bounce rates.

A custom theme only contains features specific to your business, making it lighter and faster, resulting in improved user experience. Plus, you can trust that your custom theme’s code has undergone thorough testing to remove any bugs, something not always guaranteed with premium or free themes.

#6: Access to Direct Support from the Theme’s Developer 

Issues can arise with pre-made themes, whether free or paid. For instance, the theme might be incompatible with certain plugins, causing your site to malfunction. In such cases, you’ll need professional support.

However, if thousands or even millions of websites are using the same theme, their owners might be experiencing similar issues and also requiring technical assistance. As a result, you may have to wait for a long time to get your issue resolved.

With a custom theme, you can expect immediate, high-quality support if something goes wrong. The developer who created your theme is always available to make any necessary changes or fix bugs in your custom WP site.

#7: A Custom WordPress Theme Can Be Easily Updated 

Updates are crucial for all software, including WP themes. They ensure that your theme has the latest features and security patches, offering better protection against cyber threats.

However, over time, a premium theme provider may neglect updates, putting your website at risk. With a custom WordPress theme, you simply need to notify the developer when an update is required, ensuring a stable, secure, and up-to-date website.

To Sum Up

A custom WordPress theme offers significant advantages that could greatly enhance your website’s performance, security, and overall user experience. Custom themes are created to reflect your specific business vision and objectives, setting you apart from competitors and enhancing your brand recognition. 

They offer superior security as their code isn’t readily accessible for hackers to exploit. Custom themes are also SEO-friendly, contributing to improved visibility on search engine results. Importantly, they ensure optimal performance and provide direct developer support for any issues or updates needed. 

In essence, investing in a custom WordPress theme is investing in the long-term success of your business online.

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WordPress is undeniably a top choice among content management systems. If you’re planning to join the ranks of millions of WordPress users building their websites with this platform, it’s important to familiarize yourself with WordPress themes.

In this article, we’ll discuss:

• what a WordPress theme is,
• where to find free and premium themes,
• how to select a theme,
• and how to install a theme on WordPress.

You’ll discover comprehensive instructions and clarifications. Hence, even if you’re a WordPress novice, you can pick the most appropriate method. 

What Is a WordPress Theme and Why Do You Need It?

A WordPress theme is a set of files that dictate the look and functionality of your website. These files incorporate coding, visuals, and style sheets. With a theme, there’s no need to develop page styling from the ground up. When selecting a theme, you can preview the overall style of components like typography, spacing, etc.

Additionally, a theme allows you to manage your website elements. For example, the presentation of products in an e-commerce store will differ from the display of posts on a blog or news site. Themes make it simpler to achieve the desired appearance.

Where Can You Get a WordPress Theme?

There are numerous resources where you can find both free and paid WordPress themes. The WordPress theme directory itself offers a massive assortment of free themes.

Besides WordPress, many companies provide free and premium themes. Themeforest, Themify, CreativeMarket, TemplateMonster are just to name a few. 

How to Select the Right Theme?

If you’re still undecided about a theme, consider these tips to assist you in making the best choice. 

Free or Premium Themes: Which Is Superior?

Free Themes by WordPress

The primary benefit of themes available at WordPress.org is their quality. To be listed in the WordPress directory, themes must undergo thorough vetting by developers. This ensures that you’ll receive a dependable theme. 

Additionally, you can read reviews and see feedback on each theme. Also, free themes by WordPress are guaranteed to be compatible with all free plugins available in the directory.

However, free themes by WordPress have limited design and support. Typically, these themes only include basic pages (homepage and blog post samples) that you can modify. Moreover, it can be challenging to receive quick support if needed. Similarly, free themes may not be updated as frequently as their paid counterparts. 

Third-party Sources: Free and Premium

Many companies offer both free and premium WordPress themes. For premium themes, you have the option of a one-time purchase or a subscription, which usually offers more frequent updates for optimal functionality.

Furthermore, premium themes often come with a larger selection of pre-designed pages for customization. In some cases, you might find similar pages with different colors or styles within the same theme.

Specialized Themes

If your business caters to a specific niche, you might want to consider a WordPress theme designed for that particular niche. These themes are crafted with the unique needs of various businesses in mind, tailoring their layout and functionality accordingly. 

For instance, there are themes designed for medical clinics, salons, restaurants, logistics firms, cleaning services, and more. As an entrepreneur, you have the opportunity to explore numerous designs within your field to achieve the desired website look.

In a similar vein, you might want to look into e-commerce themes tailored to different types of stores, including food, beauty products, clothing, and more. 

Unique Features

In addition to being niche-specific and responsive, WordPress themes are distinguished by several other features.

For starters, themes offer varying degrees of customization options. Generally, free themes provide a limited set of features that can be modified, whereas premium themes offer a broader range of variability.

Secondly, if your business involves transactions (not just limited to online stores but also booking services), it’s crucial to ensure that your chosen theme is compatible with WooCommerce.

Thirdly, WordPress themes may come with a variety of custom widgets. These widgets complement the overall theme style while offering additional customization options.

Moreover, features that facilitate social sharing can be crucial, especially for news sites and blogs where high user engagement is key to success. 

Trustworthy Sources

When hunting for the perfect WordPress theme, it’s important to consider the reliability of the sources. Some websites like Colorlib, provide WordPress themes developed by their own team. This means you can contact the team for support after purchasing or downloading a theme.

Other sites, such as TemplateMonster, function as marketplaces where various vendors sell their products. When choosing a theme from a marketplace, you should consider:

• The number of products offered by the vendor (usually, the more reliable a vendor, the more products they offer)
• The number of sales
• The support options available for the theme
• Customer ratings and reviews (to get an honest perspective on what customers think about the theme)

The image below displays educational WordPress themes available on the TemplateMonster website.

Typically, you can preview demo versions of themes before making a purchase or download to get a feel for what to expect. 

Mobile-Friendly Design

A responsive design ensures your website appears and operates optimally across all devices. Given the increasing number of people accessing websites through mobile phones, search engines prioritize mobile-friendly sites in their search engine results pages. Therefore, it’s not just about aesthetics.

While most companies offer responsive themes, some do not regard responsive design as a priority. We strongly advise verifying this point before installing a WordPress theme. 

Theme Support

As previously mentioned, free themes typically do not offer comprehensive support at all times. However, even with premium themes, support can sometimes be limited. When selecting a theme from a marketplace, it’s important to understand the level of support the vendor offers.

Transitioning to a New Theme: Key Considerations

If you’re contemplating switching from your current custom theme to a new one, there are several steps to ensure a seamless transition.

1. Create a Backup of Your Existing Website

Prior to implementing a new theme, it’s wise to back up your existing website. This way, you preserve your posts, pages, databases, and media content.

2. Preserve Tracking Codes

If you’ve incorporated analytics or advertising codes into your theme files, ensure to duplicate them before the new theme installation.

3. Ensure Compatibility with Functions and Plugins

When migrating to a new theme, maintaining current functions is essential. Hence, verify that your new theme supports all necessary functions. Similarly, confirm compatibility with the plugins you intend to use. Also, remember to uninstall any unnecessary plugins. 

Steps to Install a WordPress Theme

Here are the primary techniques for installing a WordPress theme.

#1: Using the WordPress Admin Theme Search for Installation

If you aim to install a theme from the WordPress directory, the built-in theme search option is the easiest route.

Once you’ve logged in to your WordPress admin panel, navigate to the Themes submenu under the Appearance menu on your dashboard. Click the ‘Add new‘ button.

You’ll then be presented with available themes. You also have the option to organize the themes by:

• featured
• popular
• latest
• favorites

Additionally, you can locate a specific theme by name or apply feature filters.

Feature filters are an excellent tool to select the most fitting WordPress theme for your needs. These filters allow you to search by:

• subject (like e-commerce, education, news, etc.)
• required features
• theme layout (if you prefer a particular website layout, such as three columns or left sidebar)

Upon receiving your search results, you’ll find the themes that align with your search criteria. You can then preview these themes and learn more about them.

If you open the Details and Preview window, read the provided information, and decide to install that theme, simply click on the ‘Install’ button.

If you opt not to preview the theme, you can simply hover your mouse and click ‘Install’ directly from the search results page.

Upon successful installation, you’ll see an ‘Installed’ message on your Themes page. The final step is to click the ‘Activate’ button.

Some themes might necessitate further settings. You may receive a message suggesting the installation of additional plugins for simpler customization. Follow these instructions and add the suggested features.

You can then begin customizing your theme. To do this, either press the ‘Customize’ button or select the ‘Customize’ submenu in the Appearance menu on the dashboard. 

#2: Using the Upload Method from WordPress Admin to Install a Theme

The first method outlined above is only applicable for themes available in the WordPress repository. If you’ve downloaded a free or premium theme from elsewhere, you can install it via uploading. Here are the steps for this process.

Navigate to the Appearance – Themes submenu on the dashboard and click the ‘Add new‘ button (as previously discussed). On the following screen, click the ‘Upload Theme’ button.

Next, an instruction will appear prompting you to upload a theme file. This should be a .zip file stored on your computer. Once you’ve uploaded it, click on the ‘Install Now’ button.

Upon completion of WordPress’s installation process, a notification confirming its success will appear along with links to preview and activate the theme.

#3: Theme Installation via FTP

This technique is ideal for installing intricate themes with large files or bespoke themes. Apart from knowing how to incorporate a theme into WordPress, you’ll also need proficiency in handling FTP clients. Here are the steps to follow.

Firstly, download the theme onto your computer and extract the .zip file into a folder.

Secondly, access your website (or your hosting account) using an FTP client. If you lack an FTP client, download and install one onto your computer.

Thirdly, once connected to the site, navigate to the /wp-content/themes/ folder. This contains the folders of the themes already installed on your site.

The subsequent step is to locate the folder housing the theme files you wish to install (you’ve extracted the theme file into this folder on your computer).

Next, right-click on the relevant folder and select ‘Upload’. The FTP client will commence the uploading process.

Upon completion of the theme upload, navigate to the Appearance – Themes menu on your WordPress dashboard. Here, you’ll find a list of installed themes. Click on the new one you want to apply and select ‘Activate’. 

Free Theme vs. Premium Theme: Installation Differences

As previously mentioned, the theme installation process hinges on the source of the theme rather than whether it’s free or paid.

Free themes from the WordPress repository can be installed using the theme search method in the admin panel. However, both free and premium themes from alternative sources necessitate installation either by uploading or using an FTP client.

To Sum Up

Transitioning to a new WordPress theme requires careful preparation and purposeful steps. Firstly, it’s crucial to back up your existing website to avoid losing any content. Secondly, any tracking codes that have been incorporated need to be preserved before installation of the new theme. Compatibility with important functions and plugins should also be confirmed. 

Installation methods vary based on the source of your theme. Themes from the WordPress repository can be added via the admin theme search while themes from external sources require either uploading or FTP. 

Whether a theme is free or premium doesn’t affect the installation process; the source does. Understanding these intricacies will ensure a smooth and successful theme transition.

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SEO is characterized by the following advantages:

1. High competitiveness. You can’t succeed in online business if you neglect SEO. If you do not care about search engine optimization, your potential customers will find goods and services on the websites of your competitors. Working with SEO allows you to bring your website to the top for certain queries.
2. Sustainable results. If the search engine promotion strategy is chosen correctly, you can achieve good results in maintaining high positions. Once your company is in the TOP, it will be able to get customers steadily for a long time.
3. Good return on investment. In the long run, high coverage of potential customers will allow your company to make an order of magnitude more sales with much less investment in SEO. It doesn’t take much time, effort, and money to maintain your position in the top rankings. For comparison, contextual advertising costs generally remain at the same level throughout the entire advertising campaign. If it is a competitive niche, you have to raise your bids to get the best results.
4. Increase the reach of potential users. To search for a particular product, a person usually needs to browse dozens of pages with results. As practice shows, users usually pay attention to the stores that are on the first and second pages of the search results. If your site is not there, then even if you offer high-quality and affordable goods, you will lose to your competitors.
5. Increase brand loyalty. Website promotion provides an influx of higher quality traffic from search engines compared to that provided by contextual advertising. People trust organic search results more. Recently, users are quickly getting tired of advertising because it often does not meet their expectations. If a person is looking for a certain product and finds it through search, it increases trust and loyalty to the store or company.

Search engine promotion increases conversion and brand awareness. A well-implemented strategy will attract steady traffic to your website.

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You can also promote your website through social networks, and in most cases it gives a good result. The first stage of promotion is free. To get started, it is enough to create an account and regularly post there with a direct link to the site. It should also be present in the account description.

If you create interesting, engaging content, the number of subscribers will gradually increase, and with them the number of potential customers. In this case, it is recommended to work for those who use social media as an auxiliary tool for developing and maintaining their brand.

Affiliate programs

Affiliate programs involve two parties:

• sponsor: a business that organizes an affiliate program to promote its products or services;
• partner (agent): a program participant who places promotional materials on his or her website.

The format of cooperation and payment model may vary. It all depends on the company’s business goals:

Increase brand awareness – the sponsor pays for the ad impressions;
traffic to the website – the partner earns on each click from the user’s resource to the advertiser’s website;
direct sales – an agent receives a reward if a person follows his or her referral link and places an order.

Display advertising

Display advertising campaigns provide advertisers with a great opportunity to announce their product to the target audience and thus significantly increase traffic to their websites. In practice, it looks like placing promotional content on side resources. Usually, popular online publications, news sites, movie trackers, and other frequently visited resources are used for this purpose.

Unlike contextual advertising, display advertising does not work to sell “here and now” but to increase brand awareness.

Types of display advertising:

• banners
• video clips;
• page branding.

Launching this type of advertising involves spending significant budgets: because this type of promotional materials should be placed on donor sites with big names and high popularity among Internet users.

Email marketing

Sending emails can be an unobtrusive reminder of the company’s product to the customer. However, there is one important condition: the recipient must first consent to the newsletter, otherwise it will be considered spam.

Price aggregators

Price aggregators are websites that collect offers from hundreds of online stores in the country, with the ability to filter products by popular criteria and choose the best option.

In order to increase the competitiveness of goods or services on similar resources, it is necessary to constantly monitor the level of declared prices compared to other offers, as well as to track the quality of customer reviews.

Successful website promotion is the result of the work of a whole team of specialists who work together to develop a promotional strategy and implement it correctly. At this stage, it is important to eliminate those methods that will definitely be unproductive and focus on the most promising options.

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Search advertising. The peculiarity of this type is that ads are shown based on queries. Search advertising is considered to be the most effective because the subject matter of the ads fully corresponds to the current interests of the user.

It looks similar to regular search results, and its effectiveness depends on the correct selection of keywords, i.e. queries for which ads will be displayed in the search. The number of ads will depend on the device used to access the Internet.

Today there are several options for placing search contextual advertising:

• Special placement unit: ads are placed above the search results and bring the largest number of clicks;
• guaranteed display unit: ads are placed below the search results or to the right of them;
• Dynamic display unit: usually located below the search results on the second and subsequent pages, and ads are displayed in rotation with ads of other users.

Thematic contextual advertising (display network). Ads that are relevant to the user’s interests are displayed on the page of a website that is a member of the Partner Network of advertising systems. These can be both thematic portals and news sites, blogs, and much more.

Ads are displayed both on the main and internal pages. As a rule, resources with higher daily traffic are chosen for this purpose.

For example, when a user is looking for information about landscape modeling software, they visit a website. And there he can see ads for the sale of garden plants, water pumps, and other products related to the topic.

Thematic contextual advertisingThematic advertising, unlike search advertising, is less user-focused because the user is not interested in immediate results. The user can click on a link, but he or she may skip it.

The following technologies have been developed to display thematic ads:

• Topical targeting: the system reads the content of website pages and displays ads that are most relevant to the content of the pages;
• behavioral targeting: relevant ads are selected based on the analysis of user search queries;
• remarketing/retargeting: ads will be seen by users who have already visited a particular website but have not made a purchase.

Contextual advertising is also distinguished depending on the format. It can be of the following types:

• Textual. Advertisements look like plain text with a hyperlink. They can be open or in the form of a text fragment.
• Banner. Users are shown graphic images of an advertising nature. It can be just a picture or a picture with text and a link. Images can be static, dynamic, interactive.

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The visitor can stay a while, familiarize himself with the offered products, place an order, or come back later. In any case, the potential client has learned about the site, and its owner has not paid for a click in vain. This means that one of the functions of contextual advertising is to notify users about a new brand (resource, product, etc.), i.e. to expand the potential clientele.

User loyalty, as well as their transition from potential to real customers, also depends on the quality of the landing page of the site to which the buyer lands. If it is easy to view, with a clear product catalog and relevant advertising, it will increase the chances of the visitor performing the targeted action.

Online business owners who have decided to use contextual advertising are primarily interested in its cost. It depends on several factors:

• the subject of placement (some of the most expensive, for example, are finance, tourism, real estate, construction, etc;)
• selection of keywords (contextual or non-contextual, high or low frequency);
• selection of the ad display position (special placement, 1st place, dynamic or guaranteed display);
• time of ad display (day and night), working days or weekends;
• setting up geotargeting (regional contextual advertising is usually cheaper);

You should also keep in mind that the cost of contextual advertising is determined on a promotional basis, i.e. in comparison with the prices at which competitors buy clicks. Of course, ads of advertisers who paid a higher CPC will be displayed in higher positions.

At the same time, high-quality ads, even if their CPC is set lower, can occupy a higher position in the SERP. This happens because the systems take into account the ad’s conversion rate (CTR).

Increasing sales and business development is the main goal of launching an advertising campaign. These are the results that are intended to justify all advertising costs. Of course, you should keep in mind that not every website visitor will place an order. After all, not everyone leaves a brick-and-mortar store with a purchase. But if you manage to get them interested, you will know where to look for the right product next time.

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Search engine optimization and website promotion: how does it work?
Website optimization includes different ways and algorithms of action. Let’s talk about the main ones.

Page load speed. This indicator is important for users and affects search engine results. It can be improved by optimizing image files and reducing page size.

Improving page structure and navigation. This helps users find what they are looking for and understand how the page is organized.

Optimize content. It should be attractive and useful to users. It’s worth making sure to use keyword promotion to better position the page.

Improving accessibility

There are many methods to promote the site in Google and other search engines. The most popular and effective are SEO and advertising.

Is it possible to independently promote the site in search engines?

Theoretically, with knowledge and effort, you can independently promote the site on search queries. This is especially true for small towns. However, in order to succeed, you need to master a whole algorithm of actions. The presence of a website does not promise an increase in sales and number of users. To attract potential customers, you need to:

• Create an attractive offer;
• stand out against the background of competitors;
• take care of a unique content;
• to keep the visitor’s attention.

These elements are the basis of effective positioning. If a site does not generate enough traffic and cannot be easily found, it is almost as if it does not exist at all. Given the importance of optimization and promotion, it is obvious that this work is better left to professionals and order services for the promotion of sites in a reliable company that can provide excellent results.

Effective Internet marketing can be seen with the naked eye – a real increase in profits, the number of customers, inquiries and sales.

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Layout: HTML and CSS.

Let’s start with something simple. To be frank, it’s not yet programming. HTML is Hypertext Markup Language. It defines the structure of pages and the elements that make them up. These elements are defined by tags: headings, text, links, lists, etc. An important task of tags is to define the semantics of web documents. For example, the first level heading (h1) should be a single heading, and the correct layout of structural elements (header, footer, article etc.) will facilitate the reading of the code and its reading by search engine crawlers (and not only).

CSS language is needed to style HTML-writing. The name stands for Cascading Style Sheets. . Cascading Style Sheets is because the language uses inheritance from parent to descendant, going down through the elements. With CSS we can position elements, resize them, set rules for typography, create animations, and more.

HTML handles structure, CSS handles layout
The ability to layout will help you create a realistic and implementable design, communicate with developers, and make your work come to life. Moreover, this skill is already a market standard in Europe and the USA and will help you comply with its requirements.

JavaScript

This language was originally created to be executed in a browser, making web pages “live”. It can create and delete HTML tags, send requests to the server, fetch data without reloading the page, respond to user actions and much more.

SQL

If a lot of people have already heard about the necessity of the page makeup and JavaScript knowledge before my article, they might hear about the SQL for the first time. If you are doing UX research, you cannot do without data manipulation, and SQL will be exactly the help you need. SQL stands for Structured Query Language.

R

R is a programming language that was created about 20 years ago exclusively for academic research in data analysis. Since the language is closely related to statistics and applied data analysis, it can be a useful tool for the UX analyst. The language allows you to apply basic statistical analysis techniques: t-test, correlation, variance and regression analysis, etc.

Python

Python is a high-level programming language focused on code readability and developer productivity. The language adheres to its distinct philosophy, called “The Zen of Python”, which states (in a nutshell) that any program in the language (like the language itself) should be simple and not ambiguous. Because of its simplicity, Python is the first programming language that many students around the world learn.

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What is web-design?

The concept of “web-design” is the broadest term describing the professional skills of workers in this industry. Calling themselves “web-designers”, people often want to say that they have a fairly wide range of skills – one of which is visual design.

In this phrase particle “design” has to do with facing the client (or interface) of the web-site. In other words, web-designer is responsible for how the web-site will look like and how users will interact with it (so web-designers are sometimes called the user interface designers or UX-designers).

Good web-designers create websites to apply graphic design skills, so their work looks just fine. They also have a clear understanding of what is usability, and therefore create sites with which visitors enjoy working Their design calls for interactivity, because it’s so easy to intuitively understand. In short, designers don’t just create “beautiful sites.” They are laying the foundations of a user-friendly interface for web sites.

What is web-programming?

Web-programming is divided into two main areas: the development of the client part and development of the server part. Some of the skills required for these areas overlap, but the purpose of developers in each area are different.

The developer of the client side uses the graphical layout of the future web-site (created by him or received from a graphic designer) and translates it into programming code. The client-side developer uses HTML for website layout, CSS to control the visual styles and layout, and sometimes even Javascript. For some small, simple sites, the development of the client part is the only task facing web-programmers. More complex projects require development of the server side as well.

Good web developers must be able to program CGI and work with scripts such as PHP. They must also understand how web forms work and how different software packages and application program interfaces combine different types of software products to create solutions that can respond to specific customer requests.

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What his team wants from a web designer

Suppose the team consists of a manager, front end, back end, designer and tester. We asked what skills their dream designer has and if development is on that list.

Soft skills and standard design duties like designing static interfaces, creating clickable prototypes and mocaps scored the highest. JS and even HTML layout were not in the top five.

However, the question of programming knowledge for designers would have been solved a long time ago if it were that simple. From the comments we learned the reason – coding is not important for everyone involved in the process.

Manager
The manager’s goal is to meet the deadline, successfully roll out and close the client’s “want.” He cares little about the technical side of the issue, just like he cares little about how the designer works with the layout. The manager needs someone who understands Tilda, typeset newsletters, makes animated prototypes, and understands user flow. No mention of code.

Front/vertiser.
A layout designer or front-end developer renders the layout in the browser. The quality of this layout determines the speed of work, because it takes more time and effort to layout a sloppy design.

The designer sees a picture on the layout, and the layout designer sees a grid of squares. During rendering, the designer must keep this in mind to create a beautiful and customizable layout. For all titles, indents, texts layout designer sets a single style, if the design does not – unnecessary headache front and QA provided.

The designer has no contact with the backend developer in 90% of cases. The remaining 10% include cases of “crutch” layout because of low-quality design and other non-standard solutions.

To sum it up and get argument #1 – if a designer knows JS and Hypertext Markup Language, he draws a layout that is easy to layout. The frontender won’t waste time on indents, fonts, and headers. The backender will pull all this happiness onto the engine. The manager will meet the deadline, the client will get the product. Everyone is happy.

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