In another post, we provide new WordPress users with a comprehensive overview of WordPress Themes.
If you would like to learn more about themes and what makes themes so attractive to website owners, then go here to read our post: A Useful Guide To WordPress Themes
In this article, we show you where you can explore many excellent 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 how to avoid experiencing problems like lack of customer support and poor coding.
As we’ve explained in another post, a WordPress theme is a special kind of web template used on WordPress-powered sites and designed to work specifically on WordPress.
Many professional web designers and web design companies create themes for WordPress. Consequently, WordPress users enjoy access to thousands of exciting themes designed for many website uses.
Where To Find Great Themes For WordPress: Your Time-Saving Guide
Let’s say you were to fire up Google and type the following:
- best free themes for WordPress
- WordPress themes free
- best paid WordPress themes for business (type in whatever your business, area of interest or website is about)
You are probably going to get an overwhelming amount of disorganized information to sort through in the search results.
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 should know that WordPress offers users both a hosted and a self-hosted version. We’ll cover these differences in a different post. In this post, we’ll only cover the topic of finding themes for the self-hosted version of WordPress (WordPress.org) in this article, as these give you more freedom, more options and more control over your site’s web design.
Free vs Paid Themes
Next, it’s important to know that there are both Free and Paid WordPress themes being made available. Free themes for WordPress are normally distributed as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they can be listed as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
WordPress Theme Marketplaces And Directories & Theme Stores
There are 2 kinds of places where you can find WP themes. The first type of place is in theme marketplaces and WordPress theme directories. The second place are the commercial and independent theme developers.
WP theme marketplaces and WordPress theme directories are large aggregators of themes. theme developers (both commercial and independent) list their themes (both free and paid) in the marketplace or directory and buyers find 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 design both free and premium themes, and can vary in size, from an individual developer or a small team of designer, to large theme design companies.
As you will see, many commercial theme companies sell their 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 search for great WP themes for your website.
Choosing A Responsive WordPress Theme For Your Website Or Blog
WordPress.org
(WordPress.org – Theme Directory)
The official WordPress theme directory is the largest and best place to find free WP themes. In fact, it’s probably the only free directory you should use when looking for free WP themes. The reason why, is because –as many free software users have discovered– downloading free software, add-ons, apps, templates or themes from untrustworthy places can place 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 team of theme reviewers to review and ensure that each theme uploaded to the directory meets certain standards of quality and security.
To browse thousands of professionally-designed FREE WordPress themes from the official WordPress Themes Repository, go here:
http://www.wordpress.org/extend/themes
Look For Free WP Themes Without Leaving Your Own 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 WP admin panel with a few clicks.
Use The Theme Feature Filters
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 easy to find themes with specific features. For example, you could search for themes with a light color design, with a 4-column layout and a full-width template, or themes that support custom menus, etc.
Note: in another post 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 visitors’ computers, smartphones and tablets) …
It’s a good idea to use responsive themes, and the WordPress theme filter lets you do just that …
… and find only themes that are “responsive” …
Pros & Cons Of Using Free WordPress Themes
The obvious “pro” to using free themes is that it’s free to download and use the theme on your site. Additionally, many free themes are professionally designed and provide a number of built-in customizable options, giving you great flexibility and choice in how you configure all of its various layout elements.
The ”cons” of using free WordPress themes are that your themes may not get updated as often with new features and bug fixes, and you shouldn’t expect the developer to provide urgent support, especially if they are not getting paid. Most freely distributed themes ask users for donations to help cover their 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 changes were last made, then you should think twice about using it, as the theme may have been abandoned by its developer.
If you’re just getting started and your website is still quite new, it’s a good idea to start with 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 you and your business.
Now that we’ve seen how to find free themes in the WordPress theme directory and how to filter your search for themes that meet your specific requirements, let’s turn our attention to finding paid themes.
Premium Themes
If you are looking for themes with stunning web 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 Directories
ThemeForest
ThemeForest is one of the largest and most popular WP theme marketplaces online.
ThemeForest allows many professional WP theme developers to showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are currently over 17,000 premium themes listed (you can find great themes from as little as $3) …
(click on the above images to browse more ThemeForest themes)
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 general blogs and blog magazines, etc.
- Corporate – themes suitable for corporate sites or marketing purposes.
- Creative – themes suitable for photography, freelancers, etc.
- Directory Listings – themes that suit sites about employment opportunities, classifieds, , etc.
- eCommerce – themes for selling products online, membership sites, etc.
- Education – themes that suit sites related to tutoring, etc.
- Entertainment – themes for film & tv 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 shops, trades or professionals (electricians, medical practitioners, etc.)
- Technology – themes related to hosting, landing pages, etc.
- Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and wedding advice blogs
- Miscellaneous – themes suitable for topics related to activism, green living 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)
Browse lots of quality premium WP themes in the ThemeForest themes directory here:
Creative Market
(click on the images above to view all themes on Creative Market)
Creative Market is another leading WP theme marketplace where you can browse thousands of 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 WP themes in its directory, but you can easily find WordPress themes and narrow your search using theme categories using the site’s dropdown “Themes” menu …
Browse through hundreds of great premium themes crafted by independent WP theme designers in the Creative Market themes marketplace here:
Mojo Themes
(click on the above images to view more Mojo themes)
Mojo is a marketplace for premium-quality WordPress 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 WordPress themes 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 quality premium WP themes in the Mojo marketplace here:
Now that we have looked at WP theme directories, let’s look at commercial and independent WP theme vendors.
Commercial Theme Vendors
SoloStream
SoloStream provides WordPress users with a great selection of high quality themes and the option of accessing all themes through a WordPress theme membership.
(click on images above to browse more SoloStream themes)
Woo Themes
Woo Themes designs great WordPress themes that are very popular and highly sought after by web users and offers a membership option that gives you access to all themes in their WP theme collection.
(click on the images above to browse more WooThemes themes)
StoreFront
StoreFront Themes specializes in creating WP themes for e-commerce. StoreFront themes also integrate well with some of the most powerful e-commerce platforms and plugins available.
(click on the images above to view all StoreFront themes)
StudioPress
StudioPress builds WordPress themes based on a framework (called the “Genesis” 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 web developers like the Genesis framework not only because it’s well-coded and well-supported (the development team at StudioPress keeps this framework regularly updated to reflect best practices for coding and to make sure that it always remains compatible with the latest version of WordPress, but because you can update your themes 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 framework and gives your site its unique look and feel.
If this sounds too technical, don’t worry about it. StudioPress themes are 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 above images to see all StudioPress themes)
WP Theme-Checking Tools
Let’s finish this post with a couple of useful WordPress theme-related tools worth keeping in mind:
What WP Theme Is That – WP Theme Checker
What WordPress Theme Is That is a free online tool that allows you to easily detect what WordPress theme a website uses (including parent and child WordPress themes).
This is a great resource if you have come across a WordPress site that you like and would like to know what WordPress theme is being used on the site.
Tip: If you can’t tell whether a site runs on WordPress or not, we have posted a a great tutorial that helps you tell whether or not a site uses the WP CMS platform: Is My Website 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 then not only confirm if a site has been built on WordPress, but it will also list the WP theme being used and list any plugins it detects.
- To use the tool visit the website here: What WordPress Theme Is That
- To learn how to use this tool go here: How Can I Tell If My Website Was Built Using WordPress?
Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC)
A word of warning: When choosing FREE themes for your WordPress site, we strongly recommend sticking with the approved WP themes listed in the official WordPress theme directory.
A tactic that is commonly used by a number of hackers and cyber criminals is to put up sites offering “Free” WP themes all over the web and then distribute themes with malicious code embedded in their files. In fact, some of these sites even display on Google’s search results for key phrases like “free WordPress themes“, “best free themes for WordPress”” etc. It’s safer, therefore, to only download free WordPress themes from the official WordPress.org directory, or use well-known and trusted sites.
If you are in doubt about whether a WordPress theme installed on your site may be infected with malicious or unwanted code, you can use a free WordPress plugin like Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) to run a scan of your WordPress theme files. The TAC plugin scans the source files of every them you have installed on your site for signs of suspicious code and presents you with a report as shown in the screenshot below …
(TAC Report Page – Screenshot Source: Plugin)
We hope that you have found this information useful.
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