Tag: Premium WP Themes

In another 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 revolutionary in terms of website design, then make sure to check out this article: About WordPress Themes – A Practical Guide For Website Owners

In this blog post, we show you where to 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 avoid having to deal with problems like lack of customer support and poor theme coding.

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

Many skilled website designers and web development houses create themes for WordPress. Consequently, members of the WordPress community can access thousands of quality WP themes designed to cover a wide range of purposes.

Where To Find Great Responsive Themes For WordPress: Let’s Keep Things Simple!

If you were to fire up Google and type key phrases like this:

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

Chances are that you are going to get an overwhelming amount of junk to sort through in your search results.

So, to help you save time and make your life easier, let’s just cut through the clutter and make the process of finding great WP 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 separate post. To keep things simple, please note that we will only be covering 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 the design areas of your website.

Free vs Paid Themes

Next, it’s useful to know that typically, you’ll find both Free and Paid WP themes made available. Free WP 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.

WordPress Theme Marketplaces And Directories vs Theme Developers

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

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

Some of the larger 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 WordPress theme vendors can also design both free and commercial themes, and can vary in size, from an individual theme designer or a small team of developer, to large theme design companies.

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 directories .

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

Finding Themes For Your Website Or Blog

WordPress.org

(WordPress.org – WordPress Themes Directory)

The official WordPress.org theme directory is the biggest and best place to find WP themes for free. In fact, it’s probably the only free 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 place your computer, digital presence and even your entire business at risk.

The WordPress.org directory is not only a trustworthy and reputable place to download themes for your website, but it also uses a review team comprised of dedicated and hard working volunteers to review and make sure that each theme in the directory meets certain quality and security standards.

To browse thousands of professionally-designed FREE WordPress themes from the official WP 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 theme in the WordPress theme 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 a couple of mouse clicks.

Use 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 Colours, Layout and Features …

This makes it easy to find themes with specific features. For example, you could search for themes with predominantly dark colour design, with a two-column layout and a full-width template, or themes that support custom menus, etc.

Note: in the article where we discuss the importance of choosing “responsive” WP themes, we explained how these allow your site to be viewed correctly across all devices (e.g. the laptops, tablets and smartphones used by visitors to browse your web content) …

You should use responsive themes, and the WordPress theme filtering function lets you search across its entire database of free themes …

… and bring back only themes that are “responsive” …

Pros & Cons Of Using Free WP Themes

The obvious “pro” to using free 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 provide a number of built-in customizable settings, 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 immediate support, especially if they are not getting paid. Many free 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 change was last made, then think twice about downloading it, as the theme may have been abandoned by its developer.

If you’re just getting started and your website or blog is still relatively 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 theme you downloaded for free 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 filter your search for themes that meet specific requirements, it’s time to turn our attention to premium WordPress 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 Marketplaces

ThemeForest

ThemeForest is one of the largest 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 17,500 premium themes to choose from (you can find great themes from as little as $3) …

(click on the images above to see more ThemeForest themes)

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

• Blog/Magazine – themes for general blogs and parenting blogs, etc.
• Corporate – themes suitable for corporate sites and marketing purposes.
• Creative – themes for creative work, ebook authors, etc.
• Directory Listings – themes suitable for sites about directory listings, holiday rentals, business directories, etc.
• eCommerce – themes for selling products online, membership sites, etc.
• Education – themes that suit sites related to teaching, etc.
• Entertainment – themes for gossip 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. commercial property, etc.)
• Retail – themes for retail stores, trades or professionals (plumbers, legal practitioners, etc.)
• Technology – themes related to hosting, 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 emails you theme update notifications)

Go here to browse many great premium WP themes in the ThemeForest marketplace:

• ThemeForest

Creative Market

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

Creative Market is another leading WP theme marketplace where you can browse 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 WordPress themes in its directory, but you can easily find WP themes and narrow your search using theme categories (e.g. Minimal or Wedding themes, etc.) using the site’s dropdown “Themes” menu …

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

• Creative Market

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 WordPress themes, but you can easily browse hundreds of themes for WordPress and narrow your search with theme categories using the dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …

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

• Mojo

Now that we have looked at WP theme marketplaces, let’s turn our attention to commercial WordPress theme stores.

Commercial And Independent WordPress Theme Stores

SoloStream

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

(click on images above to view all themes from SoloStream)

Woo Themes

Woo Themes creates great themes for WordPress that are very popular and highly sought after by web users and offers a membership option that lets you access all themes in their growing theme collection.

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

StoreFront

StoreFront Themes creates amazing 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 view more StoreFront themes)

StudioPress

StudioPress develops WordPress themes based on a framework that lets you quickly and easily build a professional and search optimized WordPress website, and provides an auto-updating design architecture, turn-key site designs with beautiful frames for the 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 regularly updated to reflect best practices for coding and to ensure 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 way too technical, there’s no need to feel concerned 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)

Theme-Checking Tools

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

What WP Theme Is That WP Theme Checker

What WordPress Theme Is That is a free WP theme and plugin-checking tool that lets you easily detect what WordPress theme a site uses.

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

Tip: If you don’t know whether a site uses WordPress or not, go here for a great tutorial that helps you tell if a website is powered by WordPress: How To Tell If Your Website 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 then not only confirm whether or not the site was built using the WP CMS platform, but it will also list the theme being used and list any WP plugins it detects.

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

Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC)

We suggested this earlier and it’s worth repeating it again: When choosing FREE themes for your WordPress site, we recommend sticking with the approved WordPress themes listed in the official WordPress theme directory.

A strategy that is commonly used by a number of hackers and networks that engage in cyber criminal activities is to put up sites and directories offering “Free” themes for WordPress all over the web and then distribute modified themes and plugins with malicious code embedded in their files. In fact, some of these sites even display on Google’s search results for phrases like “free WordPress themes“, “best free WordPress themes”” etc. It’s safer, therefore, to stick with the official WordPress directory, or use well-known and trusted sites.

If you are concerned about whether a WordPress theme that you have installed on your blog may contain malware or unwanted code, use a free WordPress plugin like Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) to scan your WordPress theme files. The plugin scans the source files of every installed theme on your site for signs of injected code and then presents you with a report …

(Theme Authenticity Checker Report Page – Screenshot Source: Plugin)

I hope that you have found the information on how to find the best free and premium themes for WordPress useful.

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