Category: WordPress Themes

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

If you would like to learn more about the benefits of using themes and what makes themes unique, then go here to read the article: An Introduction to WordPress Themes

In this blog post, we will show you where to browse hundreds of free and paid themes for your site. You will also learn about the different types of WP theme resources and get tips on how to ensure that you get the right themes for your needs and avoid experiencing problems like lack of product support and poor theme coding.

As we’ve explained in another post, a theme is a unique kind of web design template that is used on WordPress-powered sites and designed specifically in the WordPress platform.

Many skilled website designers and web design agencies create themes for WordPress. Consequently, WordPress users enjoy access to thousands of exciting WP themes designed to cover many website uses.

Finding Responsive Themes For WordPress: Let’s Simplify Things!

Let’s say you were to open up Google and type a key phrase like this:

• best responsive WordPress themes
• WordPress themes free
• best free WordPress themes for churches (or whatever your business, search topic or website is about)

You are probably going to get an overwhelming amount of information to sort through in the search results.

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

WordPress.com vs WordPress.org Themes

Before we start, you should know that WordPress offers users both a hosted and a self-hosted version. We’ll explain these differences in another post. In this article, we’ll only be covering themes for the self-hosted version of WordPress (WordPress.org) in this article, which gives you more freedom, more options and more control over the design aspects of your website.

Free vs Paid Themes

Next, it’s useful to know that there are thousands of Free and Paid themes made available. Free WordPress themes are normally distributed as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they can be listed as Premium (paid) themes.

Theme Marketplaces vs Commercial WP Theme Stores

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

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

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

Commercial and independent theme agencies typically will create both free and paid WP themes, and can vary in size, from an individual developer or a small team of developer, to large theme design companies.

As you will see, most commercial theme shops 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 WP theme directories .

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

Where To Find Responsive WP Themes For Your Website Or Blog

WordPress.org

(WordPress.org – WP Theme Directory)

The official WordPress.org theme directory is the biggest and best place to download free WP themes. 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 put your computer, digital presence … even your entire business at risk.

The WordPress.org directory is not only a trustworthy and reputable place to download themes for your WordPress site, but it also uses a review team comprised of dedicated and code-savvy volunteers to review and make sure that each theme in the directory complies with specific quality and security standards.

To browse thousands of professionally-designed FREE WordPress themes from the official Themes Directory, go here:

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

Find Themes Inside Your WP Dashboard

Useful Tip: You can easily browse through every theme in the WordPress directory and not only find a great theme for your website or blog, but also easily install and start using it directly from within your WordPress admin panel with a couple of mouse clicks.

Use WP Theme Filtering

WordPress provides a filtering function inside the admin 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 a orange color design, with a three-column layout and a full-width template, or themes that support custom menus, etc.

Note: in another article where we discuss the importance of using “responsive” themes, we explained how responsive themes allow your site to be viewed correctly on all devices (e.g. your PC, smartphone and tablet) …

You should use responsive themes, and the WordPress theme filtering option lets you do just that …

… and bring up only WP themes that have been built using “responsive” design standards …

Pros & Cons Of Using Free Themes

The obvious “pro” to using free WP themes is that it costs you nothing to download and use the theme. An added plus, is that many free themes are professionally designed and come with a number of customizable settings, giving you great flexibility and choice in how you configure all of its various layout elements.

The ”cons” 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 developer to provide personal support, especially if they are not getting paid. Many free themes ask users for donations 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 a year since any changes were made, then think twice about using it, as WordPress changes quite often and this can result in conflicts or errors with older code.

If you’re just getting started and your website is still quite 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 money on a premium theme. 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 themes in the WordPress theme directory and ways to narrow down your search for themes that meet specific requirements, 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 responsive support, you can search through the WordPress theme galleries of the “Premium” theme design agencies listed below:

Theme Marketplaces

ThemeForest

ThemeForest is one of the biggest and well known theme directories online.

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

(click on the above images to browse all themes on ThemeForest)

If you visit the ThemeForest theme directory, you will be able to browse for specific WordPress themes in a range of categories, such as:

• Blog/Magazine – themes for personal blogs and environmental blogs, etc.
• Corporate – themes suitable for medical sites or advertising purposes.
• Creative – themes for design, crafts, etc.
• Directory Listings – themes ideal for sites about employment opportunities, holiday rentals, business directories, etc.
• eCommerce – themes for online shopping, event bookings and registrations, etc.
• Education – themes that suit sites related to teaching, etc.
• Entertainment – themes for music and bands blogs, nightlife, etc.
• Mobile – e.g. retina-ready themes.
• NonProfit – themes for nonprofit organizations, charities, etc.
• Real Estate – themes for real estate and real estate listings (e.g. rentals, etc.)
• Retail – themes for boutiques, trades or professionals (electricians, engineering, etc.)
• Technology – themes related to hosting, landing pages, etc.
• Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and dating advice blogs
• Miscellaneous – themes suitable for writing or discussing political issues, 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 browse many great premium themes in the ThemeForest site:

• ThemeForest

Creative Market

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

Creative Market is another leading WordPress theme directory where you can search through many quality premium WordPress 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 WP themes in its marketplace, but you can easily browse hundreds of WordPress themes and narrow your search using theme categories (e.g. Blog or Popular themes, etc.) from their dropdown “Themes” menu …

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

• Creative Market

Mojo Themes

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

Mojo is a marketplace for premium-quality 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 themes for WordPress and narrow your search with theme categories (e.g. Responsive or Photography themes and theme frameworks, etc.) by selecting the site’s dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …

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

• Mojo

Now that we have looked at WP theme aggregators, let’s look at commercial and independent theme stores.

Commercial And Independent WordPress Theme Stores

SoloStream

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

(click on images above to view all SoloStream themes)

Woo Themes

Woo Themes designs stunning premium themes that are very popular and highly sought after by website users and also offer a membership option that gives you access to their entire theme collection.

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

StoreFront

StoreFront specializes in creating e-commerce themes for WordPress. StoreFront 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 allows you to quickly and easily build a professional and search optimized WordPress website, and provides an auto-updating design architecture, turn-key designs with beautiful frames for your content and unprecedented control of the framework.

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

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

If this all sounds way 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 you pay one low price 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 see all StudioPress themes)

WP Theme-Checking Tools

To round things up, here are a few more useful WP theme-related tools worth knowing about:

What WordPress Theme Is That WP Theme Checker

What WordPress Theme Is That is a free online tool that lets you easily detect what WordPress theme a website uses (including parent and child WP themes).

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

Tip: If you can’t tell whether a site uses WordPress or not, we have posted a a great tutorial that helps you tell whether or not a website is powered by WordPress: How To Check If A Site Was Built Using 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, but it will also list the theme being used and list any WP plugins detected.

• To use this online tool visit the website here: What WordPress Theme Is That.com
• To learn how to use this tool go here: The Easy Way To Tell If Your Website Runs On WordPress Software

Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) – WordPress Plugin

We said this earlier and it’s worth repeating again: If you decide to use FREE themes for your WordPress site, we highly recommend sticking with the reviewed and approved themes listed in the official WordPress theme directory.

A well-known strategy used by many hacking groups and syndicates that engage in cyber criminal activities is to put up websites and directories offering “Free” WordPress themes all over the web and distribute modified themes and plugins that contain malicious code. In fact, some of these sites even come up on Google’s search results for key phrases like “free WordPress themes“, “best free themes for WordPress”” etc. It’s safer, therefore, to stick with the official WordPress theme repository, or use well-known and reputable sites.

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

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

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

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