In a previous post, we provide new WordPress users with a comprehensive overview of WordPress Themes.
If you would like to know more about the benefits of using WP themes and what makes WP themes so attractive to website owners, then make sure to check out this article: A Handy Guide To WP Themes
In this article, you will learn where you can browse hundreds of free and paid themes for your WP website. 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 having to deal with problems like lack of support and poor theme coding.
As explained in another post, a theme is a unique type of web template used on WordPress-driven sites and designed specifically in WordPress.
Many web designers and website development companies create themes for WordPress. Consequently, members of the WordPress community enjoy access to thousands of exciting WordPress themes covering a wide-range of uses and applications.
Where To Find Great WP Themes: Your Time-Saving Guide
If you were to fire up Google and search for the following:
- best themes for WordPress
- WordPress themes free
- best responsive WordPress themes for writers (type in whatever your business, area of interest or blog is about)
You are probably going to get an overwhelming amount of information to sort through in the search results.
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 start, you need to know that WordPress offers users both a hosted and a self-hosted version. We’ll explain these differences in a later post. To keep things simple, we’ll only be covering the topic of 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 useful to know that you will find thousands of Free and Paid themes made available. Free themes are generally distributed as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they are listed as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
WP Theme Marketplaces And Directories & Theme Design Houses
There are two different 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 WP 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 buyers find these just like they would if they were shopping for apps on an app store or software directory.
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 theme development firms can also develop both free and premium WordPress themes, and can vary in size, from an individual designer or a small team of developer, to large web and theme development companies.
Most commercial 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 WP theme directories .
Let’s now show you where to search for great themes for your blog.
Where To Find Great Themes For Your Website Or Blog
WordPress.org
(WordPress.org – 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 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 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 website or blog, but it also relies on a review team comprised of dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers to review and ensure that each theme listed in the directory meets high 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
Look For Free WordPress Themes Inside Your Own WordPress Dashboard
Useful Tip: You can easily browse through every theme in the WordPress directory and not only find what you are looking for, but also easily install and activate it directly from within your WordPress admin panel with just a few clicks.
Use Theme Filters
WordPress has a built-in 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 easy to find what you are looking for. For example, you could search for themes with predominantly blue color design, with a 4-column layout and a full-width template, or themes that support custom menus, etc.
Note: in another article where we discuss the importance of choosing “responsive” WordPress themes, we explained how responsive themes allow your site to be viewed without problems on all devices (e.g. your laptop, smartphone and tablet) …
You should use responsive themes, and the WordPress theme filtering option lets you search across its entire database of free themes …
… and bring back only WordPress themes that use “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. 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” to using free WordPress themes are that your themes may not get updated as often with new features and bug fixes, and you shouldn’t expect the theme developer to provide dedicated support, especially if they are not getting paid. Most free themes ask for donations to help cover their costs of providing support.
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 you should think twice about using it, as the theme may have been abandoned by its developer.
If you’re just getting started and your website is still relatively 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 paid themes. Who knows, the free theme you’ve downloaded may just be the thing that works for you and for converting your site visitors into customers.
Now that we’ve seen how to find free WP themes in the WordPress 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 responsive support, then 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 best-known WordPress theme marketplaces online.
ThemeForest lets many professional WordPress theme developers showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are over 17,000 premium themes listed (you can find great themes from as little as $3) …
(click on the above images to view all themes on ThemeForest)
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 personal blogs and activism blogs, etc.
- Corporate – themes suitable for legal sites and advertising purposes.
- Creative – themes suitable for photography, writing professionals, etc.
- Directory Listings – themes that suit sites about directory listings, dining out & restaurants, tourism directories, etc.
- eCommerce – themes for selling products online, event bookings and registrations, etc.
- Education – themes that suit sites related to tutoring, etc.
- Entertainment – themes for fashion 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 beauty products, trades or professionals (plumbers, engineering, etc.)
- Technology – themes related to hosting, affiliate marketing, seo, product reviews, direct sales, etc.
- Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and romance tips and 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 emails you theme update notifications)
Browse thousands of quality premium themes in the ThemeForest theme marketplace here:
Creative Market
(click on the images above to see more Creative Market themes)
Creative Market is another leading WordPress theme directory where you can search through many quality premium WP 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 find WordPress themes and narrow your search using theme categories (e.g. Magazine or Popular themes, etc.) using the site’s dropdown “Themes” menu …
Browse through hundreds of quality premium themes crafted by independent WP theme developers in the Creative Market directory here:
Mojo Themes
(click on the images above to browse more Mojo themes)
Mojo is a directory for premium 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 browse hundreds of WP themes and narrow your search with theme categories using the dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …
Visit the site to find quality premium themes in the Mojo marketplace here:
Now that we have looked at WP theme aggregators, let’s look at commercial and independent WordPress theme design houses.
Commercial Theme Stores
SoloStream
SoloStream provides WordPress users with a great selection of high quality premium WP themes and the option of accessing all themes through a WordPress theme membership.
(click on above images to browse more themes from SoloStream)
Woo Themes
Woo Themes designs great themes for WordPress that are very popular and highly sought after by website users and offers a membership option that lets you access their entire WP theme collection.
(click on the images above to view all themes from WooThemes)
StoreFront
StoreFront 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 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 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 the Genesis framework not only because it’s well-coded and well-supported (the development team at StudioPress keeps the framework consistently up-to-date 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 themes built using the Genesis framework without losing any customizations you 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, don’t worry about it. StudioPress themes are very easy to work with, just like all other WordPress themes. The great thing about choosing StudioPress themes is that you pay one low price to receive unlimited support and updates, and you can install your themes on unlimited domains.
For more details, click here: StudioPress.
(click on the above images to view all themes from StudioPress)
WP Theme-Checking Tools
Let’s finish this article with some useful WP theme-related tools worth keeping in mind:
What WP Theme Is That WP Theme Checker
What WordPress Theme Is That.com is a free online tool that allows you to easily detect what WP theme and plugins a site uses (including parent and child WP 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 if a site uses WordPress or not, go here for a great tutorial that helps you tell if a site uses the WordPress CMS platform: Is Your Website 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 is built using the WP CMS platform, but it will also list the WP theme being used on the site and list any WordPress plugins it detects.
- To use this tool go here: What WordPress Theme Is That?
- To learn more about this tool go here: The Easy Way To Tell If Your Website Runs On WP Software
Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC)
We suggested this earlier and it’s worth repeating it again: When choosing FREE themes for your WordPress site, we highly recommend sticking with the reviewed and approved WordPress themes listed in the official WordPress theme repository.
A method that is commonly used by many hacking groups 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 themes and plugins that contain malicious code. In fact, some of these sites even display on Google for search phrases like “free WordPress themes“, “best free WordPress themes”” etc. It’s safer, therefore, to stick with the official WordPress.org theme repository, or use established and trusted theme merchants.
If you are in doubt about whether a WordPress theme that you have installed on your blog could be infected with malware or unwanted code, use a free WordPress plugin like Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) to perform a scan of your WP theme files. The TAC plugin searches the source files of every them you have installed on your site for signs of suspicious code and presents you with a report with the results …
(Theme Authenticity Checker Report Page – Screenshot: Plugin)
I hope that you have found the information on how to find great WordPress useful.
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