In an earlier post, we provide a comprehensive overview of WordPress Themes.
If you haven’t yet discovered themes and what makes WP themes unique, then go here to read our post: An Introduction to WP Themes
In this blog post, we will show you where you can browse hundreds of free and paid themes for your website or blog. 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 how to avoid having to deal with problems like lack of product support and poorly-coded themes.
As we’ve explained in another article, a theme is a unique type of web template that is used on WordPress-driven websites and designed to work specifically with WordPress in mind.
Many website designers and website design firms create themes for WordPress. Consequently, WordPress users can access thousands of quality themes designed for many purposes and needs.
Where To Find Great Great Themes For WordPress: So Many Choices … Where To Begin?
Let’s say you were to go to Google and type something like the following:
- best free themes for WordPress
- WordPress themes free
- best free WordPress themes for writers (enter whatever your business, search topic or website is about)
Chances are that you are going to get an overwhelming amount of information to sort through in the search results.
So, to help you save time and make your life easier, we’ll just cut through the clutter and make the process of finding great WordPress themes really simple.
WordPress.com vs WordPress.org Themes
Before we get started, you need to know that WordPress offers both a hosted and a self-hosted version. We’ll cover these differences in another post. To keep things simple, we’ll only be focusing on finding themes for the self-hosted version of WordPress (WordPress.org) in this post, as these give you more freedom, more options and more control over your web design.
Free vs Paid WP Themes
Next, it’s important to know that you can find thousands of Free and Paid themes being made available. Free themes are generally distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they are made available to users as Premium (paid) themes.
Theme Marketplaces And Directories & Theme Design Companies
There are 2 places where WordPress themes can be found. The first is in WP theme marketplaces and WordPress theme directories. The second type of place are the commercial and independent WP theme shops.
WordPress 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 shop for these just like they would if they were shopping for apps on an app store or software directory.
Some of the larger 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 theme stores typically will develop both free and commercial themes, and can vary in size, from an individual designer or a small team of designer, to large theme development companies.
Many commercial or independent theme stores 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 blog.
Finding The Best WordPress Themes For Your Website Or Blog
WordPress.org
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
The official WordPress.org theme directory is the largest and best place to find WP themes for free. In fact, it’s probably the only free theme directory you should use when looking for free WP themes. The reason why, 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 WP 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 ensure that each theme in the directory meets certain 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 WP Dashboard
Useful Tip: You can easily browse through every WordPress 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 WP dashboard with just a couple of mouse clicks.
Use The WordPress Theme Filtering
WordPress provides a filtering function inside the dashboard area that lets you narrow down your search for themes based on criteria like Colours, Layout and Features …
This makes it easier to find what you are looking for. For example, you could search for themes with predominantly pink color design, with a three-column layout and a full-width template, or themes that support custom menus, etc.
Note: in another post where we discuss the importance of choosing “responsive” WordPress themes, we explained how responsive themes ensure that your theme will display without problems on all devices (e.g. your visitors’ 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 bring back only WordPress themes that have been built using “responsive” design standards …
Pros & Cons Of Using Free Themes
The obvious “pro” to using free themes is that it costs nothing to download and use the theme on your site. An added plus, is that many free themes are professionally designed and provide 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 theme developer to provide personal support, especially if they are not getting paid. Many free themes ask 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 1 year since any change was last made, then think carefully about downloading 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 money on premium themes or even on custom web design. Who knows, the free theme you’ve downloaded may just be the thing that works for your site and for your business.
Now that we’ve seen how to find free themes in the WordPress theme directory and how to narrow down your search for themes that meet your specific requirements, it’s time to turn our attention to finding paid WordPress 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 ongoing support, you can search through the WordPress theme galleries of the “Premium” theme design agencies listed below:
WordPress Theme Directories
ThemeForest
ThemeForest is one of the biggest and most popular WP theme directories online.
ThemeForest allows many professional WordPress theme designers to showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are well over 17,000 premium WP themes to choose from (some starting from as little as $3) …
(click on the above images to view more ThemeForest themes)
If you visit the ThemeForest theme directory, you will be able to browse for specific themes in a range of categories, such as:
- Blog/Magazine – themes for bloggers and activism blogs, etc.
- Corporate – themes suitable for corporate sites and marketing purposes.
- Creative – themes suitable for video galleries, crafts, etc.
- Directory Listings – themes that suit sites about travel, holiday rentals, tourism directories, etc.
- eCommerce – themes for e-commerce, membership sites, etc.
- Education – themes that suit sites related to tutoring, etc.
- Entertainment – themes for music and bands blogs, nightlife, etc.
- Mobile – e.g. mobile-switching themes.
- NonProfit – themes for nonprofit organizations, churches, etc.
- Real Estate – themes for real estate and real estate listings (e.g. home sales, etc.)
- Retail – themes for catalogs, trades or professionals (plumbers, medical centers, etc.)
- Technology – themes related to apps, landing pages, etc.
- Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and dating advice blogs
- Miscellaneous – themes suitable for writing or discussing environmental 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 find great themes in the ThemeForest themes site:
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 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 WP themes in its directory, but you can easily browse hundreds of themes for WordPress and search through their theme categories (e.g. Minimal or Business themes, etc.) using their dropdown “Themes” menu …
Browse through hundreds of quality premium WP themes crafted by independent WordPress theme designers in the Creative Market theme directory here:
Mojo Themes
(click on the above images to browse more themes at Mojo.com)
Mojo is a directory 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 go through all of their themes for WordPress and search through their theme categories using the site’s dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …
Visit the site to find great WP themes in the Mojo directory here:
Now that we have looked at WP theme aggregators, let’s look at commercial and independent theme agencies.
Commercial And Independent Theme Developers
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 creates stunning themes for WordPress and offers a membership option that gives you access to all themes in their growing theme portfolio.
(click on the above images to see all themes from WooThemes)
StoreFront
StoreFront creates stunning WP themes for e-commerce. Their themes also integrate well with some of the most powerful e-commerce platforms and plugins available.
(click on the above images to browse all themes from StoreFront)
StudioPress
StudioPress develops WordPress themes based on a framework (called the “Genesis” framework) that lets you quickly and easily build a professional and search optimized WordPress website, and provides a self-updating design architecture, turn-key designs with beautiful frames for your content and unprecedented control of the framework.
Many web developers prefer using the Genesis framework not only because it’s well-coded and well-supported (the development team at StudioPress keeps this framework consistently updated to reflect best coding practices and to make sure that it is always compatible with the latest version of WordPress, 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 themes built using the Genesis framework 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 all 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 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 all StudioPress themes)
WP Theme-Checking Tools
Here are a couple of useful WP theme-related tools worth knowing about:
What WordPress Theme Is That
What WordPress Theme Is That? is a free WordPress theme and plugin-checking tool that lets you easily detect what WP theme a site uses.
This is a great resource if you ever come across a WordPress site that you like and would like to know what WordPress theme is being used on the website.
Tip: If you can’t tell whether a site was built using WordPress or not, we have published a a great tutorial that shows you how to tell if a site is WordPress-driven: Is It A WordPress Blog?
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 using the WP CMS platform, but it will also list the WordPress theme being used on the site and list any plugins detected.
- To use the online tool go here: What WordPress Theme Is That
- To learn how to use this tool go here: How Can I Tell If A Web Site Was Built With WordPress?
Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC)
We said this before and it’s worth repeating it again: When choosing FREE themes for your WordPress site, we recommend sticking with the reviewed and approved themes listed in the official WordPress theme repository.
A commonly-used method employed by a number of hacking groups and cyber criminals is to put up websites 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 come up on search engine results for phrases like “free WordPress themes“, “best free themes for WordPress”” etc. It’s best, therefore, to stick with the official WordPress repository, or use well-known and reputable theme merchants.
If you are in doubt about whether a WordPress theme installed on your site could be infected with malicious or unwanted code, you can use a free WordPress plugin like Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) to perform a scan of your WordPress theme files. The plugin scans the source files of every them you have installed on your site for signs of suspicious code and outputs a report …
(TAC Report Page – Screenshot: Plugin)
I hope that you have found this information useful.
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