In another post, we have written a comprehensive overview of WordPress Themes.
If you would like to know more about the benefits of using WordPress themes and what makes themes so attractive to website owners, then make sure to check out this article: Understanding WordPress Themes – A Guide For Website Owners
In this blog post, we show you where to search for free and paid themes for your WP site. 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 avoid experiencing problems like lack of support and poorly-coded themes.
As explained in another post, a WordPress theme is a unique type of web design template used on WordPress-powered websites and blogs and designed to work specifically with the WP platform in mind.
Many professional web designers and web development companies create themes for WordPress. Consequently, members of the WordPress community can access thousands of professional WP themes designed for many website uses.
Where To Find Great Themes For WordPress: How To Avoid Information Overload
If you were to open up Google and search for the following:
- best free themes for WordPress
- best responsive themes for WordPress
- best free WordPress themes for authors (or whatever your business, search topic or blog is about)
You are probably going to get an overwhelming amount of disorganized information to sort through in your search listings.
So, to help you save time and make things easier, let’s 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 should know that WordPress offers users both a hosted and a self-hosted version. We’ll cover these differences in a later article. To keep things simple, let’s just cover the topic of 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 site’s web design.
Free vs Paid WP Themes
Next, it’s useful to know that you will easily find many Free and Paid themes being made available. Free themes are generally distributed as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they can be made available to users as Premium (paid) themes.
Theme Marketplaces And Directories & WordPress Theme Agencies
There are mostly two places where WP themes can be found. The first is in WordPress theme marketplaces and theme directories. The second are the commercial and independent WP theme companies.
Theme marketplaces and WordPress theme directories are big aggregators of themes. theme developers (both commercial and independent) list their themes (both free and paid) in the marketplace or directory and visitors find 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 developers can also create both free and commercial WordPress themes, and can vary in size, from an individual theme designer or a small team of theme designer, to large web and theme design companies.
Many commercial or independent theme companies 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 themes for your website.
Finding The Best Responsive Themes For Your Website Or Blog
WordPress.org
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
The official WordPress theme directory is the largest and best place to download 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 some free software users have learned– 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, but it also relies on a theme review team to review and ensure that each theme in the directory meets their quality and security standards.
To browse thousands of excellent FREE WordPress themes from the official WordPress Themes Repository, go here:
http://www.wordpress.org/extend/themes
Find WP Themes Inside Your WP Dashboard
Useful Tip: You can easily browse through every WP 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 inside your WP admin panel with just a few mouse clicks.
Use Theme Feature Filter
WordPress has a built-in 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 easier to find themes with specific features. For example, you could search for themes with a light colour design, with a four-column layout and a full-width template, or themes that support custom menus, etc.
Note: in an earlier article where we present an overview of WordPress themes and discuss the importance of choosing “responsive” WordPress themes, we explained how responsive themes ensure that your theme will display without problems across all devices (e.g. PCs, 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 find only WordPress themes that are “responsive” …
Pros & Cons Of Using Free WordPress 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 come with a number of customizable features, giving you great flexibility and choice in how you configure all of its various layout elements.
The downside of using free WP 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 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 more than 1 year since any change was made, then we advise you to think carefully about using it, as the theme may have been abandoned by its developer.
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 money on premium themes. Who knows, the free theme you’ve downloaded could be exactly what works for your site and your business.
Now that we’ve seen how to find free themes in the WordPress.org theme directory and how to filter your search for themes that meet your specific requirements, let’s turn our attention to finding premium themes.
Premium WordPress 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, then search through the WordPress theme galleries of the “Premium” theme design agencies listed below:
WordPress Theme Marketplaces And Directories
ThemeForest
ThemeForest is one of the biggest and most popular theme directories online.
ThemeForest allows many professional WordPress theme developers to showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are well over 15,000 premium themes listed (some starting from as little as $3) …
(click on the above images to view more themes on ThemeForest)
If you visit the ThemeForest theme marketplace, you will be able to browse for specific themes in various categories, such as:
- Blog/Magazine – themes for bloggers and environmental blogs, etc.
- Corporate – themes suitable for legal sites or advertising purposes.
- Creative – themes suitable for visual galleries, kindle book authors, etc.
- Directory Listings – themes ideal for sites about directory listings, dining out & restaurants, community resources, etc.
- eCommerce – themes for online shopping, membership sites, etc.
- Education – themes that suit sites related to teaching, etc.
- Entertainment – themes for fashion blogs, restaurants, 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. commercial property, etc.)
- Retail – themes for shopping, trades or professionals (plumbers, dental practitioners, etc.)
- Technology – themes related to software, affiliate marketing, seo, product reviews, direct sales, etc.
- Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and dating advice blogs
- Miscellaneous – themes suitable for writing or discussing political 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)
Browse thousands of great themes in the ThemeForest themes directory here:
Creative Market
(click on the images above to browse 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 marketplace, but you can easily find themes for WordPress 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 developers in the Creative Market directory here:
Mojo Themes
(click on the images above to see more themes at Mojo)
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 WordPress themes, but you can easily go through all of their WP themes and search through their 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 WordPress themes in the Mojo directory here:
Now that we have looked at WP theme marketplaces, let’s look at commercial WP theme developers.
Commercial WordPress Theme Shops
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 see all themes from SoloStream)
Woo Themes
Woo Themes creates stunning themes that are very popular and highly sought after by website users and offer a membership option that allows members access to all themes in their growing WordPress theme portfolio.
(click on the above images to browse all themes from WooThemes)
StoreFront
StoreFront Themes specializes in creating 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 above images to see all themes from StoreFront)
StudioPress
StudioPress designs WordPress themes based on a framework (called the “Genesis” framework) that enables 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 web developers like this framework not only because it’s well-coded and well-supported (the development team at StudioPress keeps this framework frequently up-to-date to reflect best coding practices and to make sure that themes remain always 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 themes built with 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 sounds 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 themes from StudioPress is that one low price allows 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 themes from StudioPress)
Theme-Checking Tools
Let’s finish this article with a few more useful WP theme-related tools worth keeping in mind:
What WordPress Theme Is That?
What WordPress Theme Is That? is a free WordPress theme-checking tool that allows you to easily detect what WP theme and plugins a site is using.
This is a great resource if you have come across a WordPress site that you like and would like to know what theme the website or blog is using.
Tip: If you don’t know whether a site was built using WordPress or not, go here for a great tutorial that helps you tell if a site is powered by WordPress: 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 not only confirm if a site is powered by the WordPress CMS platform, but it will also list the theme being used and list any WordPress plugins it detects.
- To use this tool go here: What WordPress Theme Is That.com
- To learn how to use this tool go here: Tell-Tale Signs It’s A WordPress Blog And WordPress-Checking Tools
Theme Authenticity Checker - Plugin
A word of warning: When choosing FREE themes for your WordPress site, we recommend sticking with the WordPress themes listed in the official WordPress theme directory.
A strategy that is commonly used by many hacking groups and networks that engage in cyber criminal activities is to put up websites and directories offering “Free” WordPress themes all over the web and distribute themes and plugins that contain malicious code. In fact, some of these sites even display on Google’s search results for search phrases like “free WordPress themes“, “best free WordPress themes”” etc. It’s best, therefore, to only download free themes from the official WordPress directory, or use established and reputable sites.
If you are in doubt about whether a WordPress theme installed on your blog may contain malware or unwanted code, use a free WordPress plugin like Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) to scan your WP theme files. This plugin scans the source files of every them you have installed on your site for signs of malicious code and then outputs a report as shown in the screenshot below …
(Theme Authenticity Checker Report Page – Screenshot: Plugin, WordPress.org)
We hope that you have found this information useful.
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