In another post, we have written a comprehensive overview of WordPress Themes.
If you haven’t yet discovered themes and what makes WP themes unique, then go here to read the article: An Overview of WP Themes
In this article, you will learn where to search for free and paid themes for your WP 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 previous article, a WordPress theme is a unique kind of web template that is used on WordPress-powered blogs and designed to work specifically for the WP CMS platform.
Many skilled web designers and web design houses create themes for WordPress. Consequently, WordPress users can access thousands of exciting WordPress themes designed to cover many website uses.
Finding Great Themes: Your Time-Saving Guide
Let’s say you were to fire up Google and search for key phrases like this:
- best WP themes
- WordPress themes free
- best responsive WordPress themes for business (or whatever your business, search topic or blog is about)
Chances are that you are going to get an overwhelming amount of information to sort through in the 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 WP themes 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 explain these differences in a later article. To keep things simple, we’ll only be focusing on finding themes for the self-hosted version of WordPress (WordPress.org) in this post, which gives you more freedom, more options and more control over your web design.
Free vs Paid Themes
Next, it’s important to know that there are both Free and Paid WP themes made available. Free WordPress themes are generally distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they are licensed for use as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
WordPress Theme Directories Commercial And Independent WP Theme Stores
There are mostly two types of places where WP themes can be found. The first place is in theme marketplaces and theme directories. The second type of place are the commercial and independent WP theme development firms.
Theme marketplaces and theme directories are big aggregators of themes. WordPress 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 directory.
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 WP theme design houses typically will develop both free and commercial WordPress themes, and can vary in size, from an individual theme developer or a small team of developer, to large theme design and development companies.
Most commercial or independent theme design firms 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 great themes for your blog.
Choosing Great Themes For Your WP Website Or Blog
WordPress.org
(WordPress.org – WordPress Themes Directory)
The official WordPress theme directory is the largest and best place to find free WP themes. In fact, it’s probably the only free WP theme directory you should use when looking for free WordPress themes. The reason why, is because –as many 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 … even your entire business at risk.
The WordPress.org directory is not only a trustworthy and reputable place to download themes for your site, but it also relies on a team of theme reviewers comprised of dedicated and hard working volunteers to review and make sure that each theme uploaded to the directory complies with their standards of quality and security.
To browse thousands of great-looking FREE WordPress themes from the official Themes Repository, go here:
http://www.wordpress.org/extend/themes
Search For Free WP Themes Inside Your Own WordPress Dashboard
Useful Tip: You can easily browse through every theme in the WordPress theme directory and not only find a great theme for your website or blog, but also easily install and activate it directly from inside your WordPress dashboard with only a few mouse clicks.
Use WordPress 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 what you are looking for. For example, you could search for themes with predominantly light colour design, with a 2-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” WordPress themes, we explained how responsive themes allow your site to be viewed correctly on all devices (e.g. your visitors’ PCs, smartphones and tablets) …
You should use responsive themes, and the WordPress theme filtering function lets you search across its entire database of free themes …
… and find only themes that are “responsive” …
Pros & Cons Of Using Free WP Themes
The obvious “pro” to using free WP themes is that there is no cost to download and use the theme on your site. An added plus, is that many free themes are professionally designed and offer a number of customizable settings, giving you great flexibility and choice in how you configure all of its various layout elements.
The ”cons” 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 immediate support, especially if they are not getting paid. Many freely distributed themes will ask you for a donation to help cover their 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 changes were made, then you should think carefully 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 paid themes. Who knows, the free theme you’ve downloaded could be exactly what works for you and for converting your site visitors into customers.
Now that we’ve seen how to find free themes in the WordPress.org theme directory and ways to filter your search for themes that meet your specific criteria, let’s turn our attention to finding paid themes.
Paid 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 great support, then search through the WordPress theme galleries of the “Premium” theme design agencies listed below:
Theme Marketplaces
ThemeForest
ThemeForest is one of the largest and most popular WordPress theme marketplaces online.
ThemeForest lets many professional WP theme developers showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are over 17,500 premium WP themes listed (you can find great themes from as little as $3) …
(click on the above images to see more ThemeForest themes)
If you visit the ThemeForest theme marketplace, you will be able to browse for specific WP themes in various categories, such as:
- Blog/Magazine – themes for general blogs and blog magazines, etc.
- Corporate – themes suitable for corporate sites or marketing purposes.
- Creative – themes for video galleries, galleries, etc.
- Directory Listings – themes ideal for sites related to employment opportunities, buy & sell, business directories, etc.
- eCommerce – themes for selling products online, event bookings and registrations, etc.
- Education – themes that suit sites related to training, etc.
- Entertainment – themes for photo gallery 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. commercial property, etc.)
- Retail – themes for catalogs, trades or professionals (plumbers, medical practitioners, etc.)
- Technology – themes related to software, 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, 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 premium themes in the ThemeForest marketplace here:
Creative Market
(click on the images above to see more Creative Market themes)
Creative Market is another leading WP theme marketplace where you can search through many 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 marketplace, but you can easily go through all of their themes for WordPress and narrow your search using theme categories (e.g. Magazine or Popular themes, etc.) from their dropdown “Themes” menu …
Browse through hundreds of great premium themes crafted by independent WordPress theme developers in the Creative Market themes directory here:
Mojo Themes
(click on the images above to see more Mojo themes)
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 find WP themes and search through their theme categories by using the site’s dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …
Visit the site to find quality premium WordPress themes in the Mojo theme marketplace here:
Now that we have looked at WordPress theme aggregators, let’s look at commercial theme design companies.
Commercial WP Theme Shops
SoloStream
SoloStream provides WordPress users with a selection of high quality themes and the option of accessing all themes through a WordPress theme membership.
(click on above images to see all SoloStream themes)
Woo Themes
Woo Themes designs stunning WordPress themes and offer a membership option that lets you access all themes in their growing theme collection.
(click on the images above to see all themes from WooThemes)
StoreFront
StoreFront specializes in 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 images above to browse more themes from StoreFront)
StudioPress
StudioPress provides WordPress themes based on a framework that lets users quickly and easily build a professional and search optimized WordPress website, and provides a self-updating design architecture, turn-key site designs with beautiful frames for your 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 updated to reflect best coding practices and to ensure that themes remain always 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 framework and gives your site its unique look and feel.
If this all 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 see all StudioPress themes)
Theme-Checking Tools
Here are 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 web tool that allows you to easily detect what WP theme and plugins a site is using.
This is a great resource if you ever come across a WordPress site that you like and would like to know what WordPress theme the website uses.
Tip: If you can’t tell if a site runs on WordPress or not, we have published a a great tutorial that shows you how to tell whether or not a website is WordPress-driven: Tell-Tale Signs It’s A WordPress Blog And WP-Checking Tools
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 if the site has been built on WordPress software, but it will also list the WP theme being used and list any WP plugins it detects.
- To use the tool visit the website here: What WordPress Theme Is That.com
- To learn more about using this tool go here: Is My Website WordPress?
Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC)
A word of warning: When choosing FREE themes for your WordPress site, we strongly recommend sticking with the reviewed and approved themes listed in the official WordPress theme directory.
A commonly-used strategy employed by many hacking groups and syndicates that engage in cyber-crime is to put up sites offering “Free” WP themes all over the web and then distribute themes with malicious code embedded in their files. In fact, some of these sites even display on search engine results for key phrases like “free WordPress themes“, “best free themes for WordPress”” etc. It’s best, therefore, to stick with the official WordPress theme directory, or use established and reputable theme download sites.
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. This plugin scans the source files of every installed theme on your site for signs of malicious code and then presents you with a report …
(Theme Authenticity Checker Report Page – Source: Plugin, WordPress.org)
I hope that you have found this information useful.
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"Wow! I never knew there's so much to learn about WordPress! I bought one of the WordPress for Dummies three years ago, such authors need to be on this course!" - Rich Law, Create A Blog Now
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