In an earlier article, we provide a comprehensive overview of WordPress Themes.
If you would like to learn more about the benefits of using themes and what makes themes so attractive to website owners, then make sure to check out our post here: Understanding WordPress Themes – A Guide For Business Owners
In this blog post, you will learn where you can discover many fantastic free and paid themes for your WordPress 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 having to deal with problems like lack of customer support and poorly-coded themes.
As we’ve explained in another article, a theme is a special type of web template used on WordPress-powered websites and blogs and designed to work specifically on WordPress.
Many professional web designers and website design agencies create themes for WordPress. Consequently, WordPress users can access thousands of exciting themes covering a wide-range of uses.
Finding Great Themes: Too Much Information … Where To Begin?
If you were to browse over to Google and type the following:
- best free WordPress themes
- best premium themes for WordPress
- best paid WordPress themes for business (type in whatever your business, area of interest or blog 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 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 a different article. 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 blog.
Free vs Paid Themes
Next, it’s important to know that you will easily find many 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 will be licensed for use as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
WP Theme Directories & Theme Agencies
There are mostly 2 kinds of places where themes can be found. The first place is in WordPress theme marketplaces and theme directories. The second place are the commercial and independent WP theme houses.
Theme marketplaces and theme directories are large aggregators of themes. WP 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 bigger 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 theme design houses can design both free and paid themes, and can vary in size, from an individual designer or a small team of developer, to large web and theme design companies.
As you will see, many commercial or independent theme shops 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 WordPress theme directories .
Let’s now show you where to find great themes for your website or blog.
Where To Find A Great Theme For Your Website Or Blog
WordPress.org
(WordPress.org – Theme Directory)
The official WordPress.org theme directory is the largest and best place to search for free WordPress themes. In fact, it’s probably the only free directory you should use when looking for free WordPress themes. The reason why, is because –as many free software users have learned– 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 WP site, but it also relies on a review team to review and make sure that each theme in the directory meets specific standards of quality and security.
To browse thousands of excellent FREE WordPress themes from the official Themes Directory, go here:
http://www.wordpress.org/extend/themes
Look For Free Themes Inside Your Own WP Dashboard
Useful Tip: You can easily browse through every WP theme in the WordPress.org directory and not only find a great theme for your website or blog, but also easily install and activate it directly from within your WP admin panel with just a couple of mouse clicks.
Use Theme Feature Filter
WordPress has a built-in 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 light colour 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 without problems on all devices (e.g. the laptops, tablets and smartphones used by visitors to view your website) …
It’s a good idea to use responsive themes, and the WordPress theme filter lets you do just that …
… and display only 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 you 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 of using free 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 dedicated support, especially if they are not getting paid. Most 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 well over 1 year since any change was made, then think twice about downloading it, as the WordPress software changes quite frequently and this can create conflicts or errors with older code.
If you’re just getting started and your website or blog 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 premium themes or even on custom web design. Who knows, the theme you downloaded for free 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 filter your search for themes that meet 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 responsive support, you can search through the WordPress theme galleries of the “Premium” theme design agencies listed below:
WordPress Theme Marketplaces
ThemeForest
ThemeForest is one of the biggest and most popular theme marketplaces online.
ThemeForest allows many professional WordPress theme creators to showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are currently over 17,000 premium WordPress themes listed (some starting from as little as $3) …
(click on the images above 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 political blogs, etc.
- Corporate – themes suitable for government sites or advertising purposes.
- Creative – themes for design, galleries, etc.
- Directory Listings – themes that suit sites about travel, buy & sell, 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. responsive 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 boutiques, trades or professionals (repairers, legal firms, etc.)
- Technology – themes related to software, newsletters, etc.
- Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and marriage consellor 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 find great WordPress themes in the ThemeForest themes site:
Creative Market
(click on the images above to browse more themes on Creative Market)
Creative Market is another leading WordPress 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 WordPress themes in its directory, but you can easily go through all of their WP themes and search through their theme categories (e.g. Magazine or Popular themes, etc.) using their dropdown “Themes” menu …
Browse through hundreds of quality premium WP themes crafted by independent WP theme developers in the Creative Market marketplace here:
Mojo Themes
(click on the above images to see all Mojo themes)
Mojo is a directory 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 find WordPress themes and search through their theme categories using the site’s dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …
Visit the site to find quality premium themes in the Mojo theme directory here:
Now that we have looked at WordPress theme marketplaces, let’s take a look at commercial WP theme shops.
Commercial WP 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 above images to browse all themes from SoloStream)
Woo Themes
Woo Themes creates stunning themes for WordPress that are very popular and highly sought after by website users and also offer a membership option that gives you access to all themes in their theme collection.
(click on the above images to see more themes from WooThemes)
StoreFront
StoreFront specializes in 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 images above to browse all StoreFront themes)
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 an auto-updating design architecture, turn-key site designs with beautiful frames for your content and unprecedented control of the framework.
Many website developers prefer using the Genesis framework not only because it’s well-coded and well-supported (the development team at StudioPress keeps the framework frequently 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 themes built with the Genesis framework 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 design.
If this sounds way too technical, don’t worry about it. StudioPress themes are very easy to work with, just like all other WordPress themes. The great thing about choosing themes from StudioPress 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)
WP Theme-Checking Tools
Here are some useful WordPress theme-related tools worth keeping in mind:
What WordPress Theme Is That – WP Theme And Plugin Search Tool
What WordPress Theme Is That is a free WP theme and plugin search tool that lets you easily detect what WP theme a website is using (including parent and child 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 site.
Tip: If you don’t know 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 WordPress: How To Check If Your Web Site Was Built With 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 whether or not a site was built on WordPress, but it will also list the theme being used and list any plugins it detects.
- To use this online tool go here: What WordPress Theme Is That
- To learn more about this tool go here: How To Check If Your Web Site Was Built With WordPress
Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) – WordPress Plugin
We suggested this earlier and it’s worth repeating again: When choosing FREE themes for your WordPress site, we strongly recommend sticking with the approved themes listed in the official WordPress theme repository.
A commonly-used tactic employed by many hackers and syndicates that engage in cyber-crime is to put up sites offering “Free” WP 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 for key phrases like “free WordPress themes“, “best free themes for WordPress”” etc. It’s best, therefore, to only download free WordPress themes from the official WordPress directory, or use established and reputable theme vendors.
If you are in doubt about whether a WordPress theme installed on your site could be infected with malware or unwanted code, you can use a free WordPress plugin like Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) to scan your WP theme files. The TAC plugin searches the source files of every them you have installed on your site for signs of malicious code and presents you with a report as shown in the screenshot below …
(TAC Report Page – Screenshot: Plugin Page, WordPress.org)
I hope that you have found this information useful.
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