Tag: Free Themes

In an earlier article, we provide new WordPress users with a comprehensive overview of WordPress Themes.

If you would like to know more about the benefits of using themes and what makes WordPress themes so special, then go here to read the article: Understanding WP Themes – A Non-Technical User’s Guide

In this blog post, you will learn where to search for free and paid themes for your website or blog. You will also learn about the different types of WordPress theme resources and get tips on how to make sure that you get the right themes for your needs and how to avoid dealing with problems like lack of support and poor theme coding.

As explained in our previously-mentioned post, a WordPress theme is a unique type of web design template that is used on WordPress-driven websites and blogs and designed to work specifically on WordPress.

Many talented web designers and web development houses create themes for WordPress. Consequently, members of the WP community can access thousands of high quality themes designed to cover many purposes.

Finding Great Themes: Too Much Information … Where To Begin?

If you were to launch Google and search for the following:

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

You are probably going to get an overwhelming amount of disorganized information to sort through in your 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 WP themes really simple.

WordPress.com vs WordPress.org Themes

Before we get started, you need to know that WordPress offers users both a hosted and a self-hosted version. We’ll cover these differences in a different article. To keep things simple, we’ll only cover the topic of finding 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 areas of your website.

Free vs Paid Themes

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

Theme Marketplaces And Directories & WP Theme Vendors

There are mostly two types of places where you can find themes. The first is in theme marketplaces and theme directories. The second are the commercial and independent theme vendors.

Theme marketplaces and WP 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 customers find these just like they would if they were shopping for apps on an app store or software directory.

Some of the bigger directories 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 WP theme agencies typically design both free and premium themes, and can vary in size, from an individual theme designer or a small team of theme developer, to large web and theme development companies.

As you will see, most commercial or independent 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 directories .

Let’s now show you where to find great WordPress themes for your website or blog.

Choosing The Best Themes For Your WordPress Website

WordPress.org

(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)

The official WordPress.org theme directory is the biggest and best place to find free WP themes. In fact, it’s probably the only free directory you should use when looking for free WordPress themes. The reason for this, is because –as some 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.org directory is not only a trustworthy and reputable place to download themes for your website or blog, but it also uses a theme review team to review and make sure that each theme listed in the directory meets specific quality and security standards.

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

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

You Don’t Even Have To Leave Your WordPress Dashboard

Useful Tip: You can easily browse through every theme in the WordPress.org directory and not only find what you are looking for, but also easily install and start using it directly from within your WordPress dashboard with only a few mouse clicks.

Use The WP Theme Feature Filter

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 easy to find themes with specific features. For example, you could search for themes with predominantly orange color design, with a four-column layout and a full-width template, or themes that support custom menus, etc.

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

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

… and display only themes that are “responsive” …

Pros & Cons Of Using Free Themes

The obvious “pro” to using free themes is that there is no cost to download and use the theme. Additionally, 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 WordPress themes are that your themes may not get updated as often with new features and bug fixes, and you shouldn’t expect the theme developer to provide personal support, especially if they are not getting paid. Most free themes ask users for donations to help cover their costs of providing support and updates, bug fixes, etc..

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

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 a theme. Who knows, the theme you downloaded for free could be exactly what works for your site and for converting your site visitors into customers.

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 criteria, it’s time to turn our attention to finding paid WP themes.

Premium WP 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 ongoing 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 well known theme marketplaces online.

ThemeForest lets many professional WP theme creators showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are currently over 17,000 premium themes to choose from (some starting from as little as $3) …

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

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

• Blog/Magazine – themes for personal blogs and activism blogs, etc.
• Corporate – themes suitable for business sites or marketing purposes.
• Creative – themes suitable for video galleries, writers, etc.
• Directory Listings – themes suitable for sites about employment opportunities, buy & sell, social directories, etc.
• eCommerce – themes for ecommerce, membership sites, etc.
• Education – themes that suit sites related to tutoring, etc.
• Entertainment – themes for music and bands blogs, nightlife, etc.
• Mobile – e.g. responsive themes.
• NonProfit – themes for nonprofit organizations, charities, etc.
• Real Estate – themes for real estate and real estate listings (e.g. home sales, etc.)
• Retail – themes for specialty stores, trades or professionals (electricians, medical centers, etc.)
• Technology – themes related to hosting, affiliate marketing, seo, product reviews, direct sales, etc.
• Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and marriage celebrant blogs
• Miscellaneous – themes suitable for writing or discussing environmental issues, 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 emails you theme update notifications)

Browse thousands of great themes in the ThemeForest marketplace here:

• ThemeForest

Creative Market

(click on the images above to browse all themes on Creative Market)

Creative Market is another leading WP theme directory where you can search through thousands of 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 directory, but you can easily browse hundreds of WordPress themes and search through their theme categories (e.g. Landing Page or Popular themes, etc.) from the site’s dropdown “Themes” menu …

Browse through hundreds of quality premium themes crafted by independent WordPress theme designers in the Creative Market marketplace here:

• Creative Market

Mojo Themes

(click on the above images 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 find themes for WordPress and search through their theme categories (e.g. Portfolio or Photography themes and theme frameworks, etc.) by selecting the site’s dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …

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

• Mojo

Now that we have looked at WordPress theme marketplaces, let’s take a look at commercial and independent theme stores.

Commercial And Independent Theme Design Houses

SoloStream

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

(click on above images to see more SoloStream themes)

Woo Themes

Woo Themes creates great themes and offers a membership option that gives you access to their entire WordPress theme portfolio.

(click on the images above to see all themes from WooThemes)

StoreFront

StoreFront specializes in WordPress 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 browse more themes from StoreFront)

StudioPress

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

Many web developers prefer using this framework not only because it’s well-coded and well-supported (the development team at StudioPress keeps the framework regularly up-to-date to reflect best practices for coding and to make sure 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 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 theme framework and gives your site its unique design.

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 you pay just 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 browse more themes from StudioPress)

Theme-Checking Tools

Let’s finish this post with a few more useful WP theme-related tools worth knowing about:

What WordPress Theme Is That.com

What WordPress Theme Is That.com is a free online tool that allows you to easily detect what WordPress theme a site 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 theme is being used on the website.

Tip: If you can’t tell if a site runs on WordPress or not, we have posted a a great tutorial that helps you tell if a website uses WordPress: How Can I Check If A Web 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 is built on WordPress, but it will also list the WP theme being used and list any WP plugins it detects.

• To use the online tool visit the website here: What WordPress Theme Is That
• To learn how to use this tool go here: Is Your Site Built With WordPress?

Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC)

A word of warning: When choosing FREE themes for your WordPress site, we strongly recommend sticking with the themes listed in the official WordPress theme directory.

A commonly-used method employed by a number of hacking groups and networks that engage in cyber-crime is to put up sites and directories offering “Free” themes for WordPress all over the web and distribute modified themes and plugins with malicious code embedded in their files. In fact, some of these sites even display on Google for phrases like “free WordPress themes“, “best free themes for WordPress”” etc. It’s safer, therefore, to only download free themes from the official WordPress.org theme repository, or use well-known and trusted theme vendors.

If you have any concerns about whether a WordPress theme that you have installed on your blog may contain malicious or unwanted code, use a free WordPress plugin like Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) to scan your theme files. The plugin scans the source files of every installed theme on your site for signs of suspicious code and presents you with a report as shown in the screenshot below …

(Theme Authenticity Checker Report Page – Screenshot Source: Plugin, WordPress.org)

I hope that you have found the information on how to find great WP useful.

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