Category: WordPress Themes

In a previous post, we provide a comprehensive overview of WordPress Themes.

If you haven’t yet discovered WordPress themes and what makes WP themes so revolutionary in terms of website design, then make sure to check out our post: Understanding WP Themes – A Guide For Beginners

In this article, you will learn where to discover loads of professional free and paid themes for your WP site. You will also learn about the different types of WP theme resources and get tips on how to make sure that you get the right themes for your needs and avoid experiencing problems like lack of support and poorly-coded themes.

As we’ve explained in our previously-mentioned article, a WordPress theme is a unique kind of web design template that is used on WordPress-driven blogs and designed to work specifically with WordPress in mind.

Many professional web designers and web development houses create themes for WordPress. Consequently, WordPress users have access to thousands of professional themes designed to cover a wide range of website uses.

Finding Themes: Too Much Information … Where To Begin?

If you were to open up Google and search for a key phrase like the following:

• best paid themes for WordPress
• best responsive WordPress themes
• best paid WordPress themes for writers (enter whatever your business, search topic or blog is about)

Chances are that you are going to get an overwhelming amount of junk to sort through in your search listings.

So, to help you save time and make things easier, we’ll just cut through the clutter and make the process of finding great WordPress themes simple.

WordPress.com vs WordPress.org Themes

Before we start, you need to know that WordPress offers both a hosted and a self-hosted version. We’ll explain these differences in another post. For now, we’ll only cover themes for the self-hosted version of WordPress (WordPress.org) in this post, which gives you more freedom, more options and more control over your web design.

Free vs Paid WordPress Themes

Next, it’s important to know that you will find thousands of Free and Paid WP themes made available. Free themes are normally distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they will be licensed for use as Premium (paid) themes.

Theme Marketplaces vs Commercial Theme Development Firms

There are mostly 2 places where WordPress themes can be found. The first type of place is in WP theme marketplaces and WP theme directories. The second type of place are the commercial and independent theme shops.

WP theme marketplaces and theme directories are big theme stores. WordPress theme developers (both commercial and independent) list their themes (both free and paid) in the marketplace or directory and buyers shop for these just like they would if they were shopping for apps on an app store or software directory.

Some of the larger theme stores don’t just sell WordPress themes. They can also sell WP plugins and templates for other web applications (e.g. Joomla, Drupal, etc.)

Commercial and independent WordPress theme development firms can also develop both free and premium themes, and can vary in size, from an individual theme designer or a small team of developer, to large web and theme development companies.

Most commercial or independent theme companies sell themes exclusively on their own web sites, but some will also list their themes in marketplaces and directories, or even create a free or “lite” version of their themes for free directories .

Let’s now show you where to find great WP themes for your blog.

Choosing Great Themes For Your Website Or Blog

WordPress.org

(WordPress.org – Free WordPress Theme Directory)

The official WordPress.org theme directory is the largest and best place to find WordPress themes for free. In fact, it’s probably the only free directory you should use when looking for free WP themes. The reason for this, is because –as many free software users have discovered– downloading free software, add-ons, apps, templates or themes from untrustworthy places can contain malicious code and put your computer, digital presence … even your entire business at risk.

The WordPress theme directory is not only a trustworthy and reputable place to download themes for your website, but it also uses a review team to review and ensure that each theme uploaded to the directory complies with certain standards of quality and security.

To browse thousands of great-looking FREE WordPress themes from the official WP Themes Directory, go here:

http://www.wordpress.org/extend/themes

Find WP Themes Inside Your WordPress Dashboard

Useful Tip: You can easily browse through every theme in the WordPress.org theme directory and not only find what you are looking for, but also easily install and activate it directly from within your WordPress admin panel with just a couple of mouse clicks.

Use WordPress Theme Feature Filter

WordPress provides a filtering function inside the dashboard area that lets you narrow down your search for themes based on criteria like Colors, Layout and Features …

This makes it easier to find themes with specific features. For example, you could search for themes with predominantly blue colour design, with a 2-column layout and a full-width template, or themes that support custom menus, etc.

Note: in another article where we present an overview of WordPress themes and discuss the importance of choosing “responsive” themes, we explained how responsive themes allow your site to be viewed without problems across all devices (e.g. computers, tablets and smartphones) …

It’s a good idea to use responsive themes, and the WordPress theme filter lets you search across its entire database of free themes …

… and display only WP themes that are “responsive” …

Pros & Cons Of Using Free Themes

The obvious “pro” to using free WordPress themes is that it costs nothing to download and use the theme on your site. Additionally, many free themes are professionally designed and provide a number of customizable options, giving you great flexibility and choice in how you configure all of its various layout elements.

The downside to using free themes are that your themes may not get updated as often with new features and bug fixes, and it’s unrealistic to expect the theme developer to provide urgent support, especially if they are not getting paid. Many freely distributed themes will ask you for a donation to help cover support costs.

When downloading free themes, therefore, check to see when the theme was last updated. If it’s been more than 1 year since any updates were last made, then you should think twice about downloading it, as the WordPress software changes quite often and these changes can create conflicts or errors with older code.

If you’re just getting started and your website is still relatively new, there is nothing wrong with using a free theme until you have a better idea of the kind of site design that would work best for your site before spending any money on paid themes. Who knows, the free theme you’ve downloaded could be exactly what works for your site and for your business.

Now that we’ve seen how to find free WP themes in the WordPress theme directory and how to filter your search for themes that meet specific criteria, it’s time to turn our attention to premium themes.

Premium Themes

If you are looking for themes with stunning design, or professional quality yet highly affordable WordPress web design themes with a distinctive look, unique customizable options and great support, you can search through the WordPress theme galleries of the “Premium” theme design agencies listed below:

Theme Marketplaces And Directories

ThemeForest

ThemeForest is one of the largest and most popular theme directories online.

ThemeForest lets many professional WP theme creators showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are well over 15,000 premium WordPress themes to choose from (some starting from as little as $3) …

(click on the above images to see more ThemeForest themes)

If you visit the ThemeForest theme marketplace, you will be able to browse for specific WordPress themes in various categories, such as:

• Blog/Magazine – themes for bloggers and activism blogs, etc.
• Corporate – themes suitable for business sites or marketing purposes.
• Creative – themes for creative work, cv and resume writing, etc.
• Directory Listings – themes that suit sites related to employment opportunities, holiday rentals, social directories, etc.
• eCommerce – themes for ecommerce, event bookings and registrations, etc.
• Education – themes that suit sites related to training, etc.
• Entertainment – themes for music and bands blogs, cafes, etc.
• Mobile – e.g. retina-ready themes.
• NonProfit – themes for nonprofit organizations, churches, etc.
• Real Estate – themes for real estate and real estate listings (e.g. rentals, etc.)
• Retail – themes for specialty stores, trades or professionals (plumbers, medical practitioners, etc.)
• Technology – themes related to technology, affiliate marketing, seo, product reviews, direct sales, etc.
• Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and wedding advice blogs
• Miscellaneous – themes suitable for topics related to activism, parenting sites or blogs … even themes you can use if your site is still under-construction!

When you purchase WordPress themes from ThemeForest, you will receive email notifications when a new update is available for your theme …

(ThemeForest sends you theme update notifications)

Go here to discover great WP themes in the ThemeForest themes website:

• ThemeForest

Creative Market

(click on the above images to view more themes on Creative Market)

Creative Market is another leading WP theme marketplace where you can browse many quality premium themes from independent theme creators.

As stated on their website …

“Creative Market is a platform for handcrafted, mousemade design content from independent creatives around the world.”

Creative Market doesn’t just sell WordPress themes in its marketplace, but you can easily browse hundreds of WordPress themes and narrow your search using theme categories (e.g. Landing Page or Wedding themes, etc.) using the site’s dropdown “Themes” menu …

Browse through hundreds of great premium WP themes crafted by independent WP theme developers in the Creative Market marketplace here:

• Creative Market

Mojo Themes

(click on the above images to view more Mojo themes)

Mojo is a directory for premium WP themes where theme vendors are strongly encouraged to provide customers with lifetime support and upgrades.

According to their website …

“Mojo is a marketplace where anyone can find, rate and buy quality themes & templates in one trusted place.”

Like Envato and Creative Market, Mojo doesn’t focus exclusively on WP themes, but you can easily browse hundreds of WP themes and narrow your search with theme categories by choosing the dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …

Visit the site to find great themes in the Mojo theme directory here:

• Mojo Themes

Now that we have looked at WordPress theme aggregators, let’s look at commercial theme agencies.

Commercial WordPress Theme Design Houses

SoloStream

SoloStream provides WordPress users with a selection of high quality themes and the option of accessing all themes through a WordPress theme membership.

(click on images above to see more SoloStream themes)

Woo Themes

Woo Themes creates stunning themes and offer a membership option that allows you to access all themes in their growing theme collection.

(click on the above images to browse more themes from WooThemes)

StoreFront

StoreFront specializes in creating e-commerce themes for WordPress. Their themes also integrate well with some of the most powerful e-commerce platforms and plugins available.

(click on the above images to view more StoreFront themes)

StudioPress

StudioPress provides WordPress themes based on a framework that lets users quickly and easily build a professional and search optimized WordPress website, and provides a self-updating design architecture, turn-key site designs with beautiful frames for your content and unprecedented control of the framework.

Many website developers like this framework not only because it’s well-coded and well-supported (the development team at StudioPress keeps the framework regularly updated to reflect best practices for coding and to ensure that it is always compatible with the latest WordPress version, but because you can update themes built using the Genesis framework without losing any customizations you have made to your theme.

This is because StudioPress themes use something called “child themes,” which are like “skins” that sit on top of the framework and gives your site its unique look and feel.

If this sounds too technical, there’s no need to feel concerned about it. StudioPress themes are very easy to work with, just like all other WordPress themes. The great thing about choosing StudioPress themes is that one low price entitles you to receive unlimited support and updates, and you can install your themes on unlimited domains.

For more details, click here: StudioPress.

(click on the images above to browse more themes from StudioPress)

Theme-Checking Tools

To round things up, here are a couple of useful WordPress theme-related tools worth knowing about:

What WP Theme Is That – WP Theme And Plugin Search Tool

What WordPress Theme Is That.com is a free WP theme and plugin-checking tool that lets you easily detect what WP theme and plugins a website uses.

This is a great resource if you have come across a WordPress site that you like and would like to know what theme is being used on the website.

Tip: If you don’t know if a site runs on WordPress or not, go here for a great tutorial that helps you tell whether or not a site is WordPress-driven: Does My Website Run On WordPress?

Using this tool is very simple. Just enter the site’s domain name into the field and click the search icon or hit “Enter.” The tool will not only confirm whether or not a site was built on WordPress software, but it will also list the WordPress theme being used by the site and list any plugins detected.

• To use this tool go here: What WordPress Theme Is That.com
• To learn how to use this tool go here: Is Your Web Site Powered By WordPress?

Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC)

We said this earlier and it’s worth repeating again: When choosing FREE themes for your WordPress site, we recommend sticking with the themes listed in the official WordPress theme directory.

A well-known strategy used by a number of hackers and cyber criminals is to put up sites offering “Free” themes for WordPress all over the web and distribute themes and plugins that contain malicious code. In fact, some of these sites even display on Google’s search results for key phrases like “free WordPress themes“, “best free WordPress themes”” etc. It’s safer, therefore, to only download free themes from the official WordPress.org repository, or use well-known and trusted theme vendors.

If you are in doubt about whether a WordPress theme that you have installed on your blog could be infected with potentially malicious or unwanted code, you can use a free WordPress plugin like Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) to perform a scan of your theme files. This plugin searches the source files of every installed theme on your site for signs of suspicious code and outputs a report with the results …

(TAC Report Page – Source: Plugin Page, WordPress.org)

We hope that you have found the information on how to find great WordPress free and commercial themes useful.

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