Tag: WordPress Themes

In another post, we provide new WordPress users with a comprehensive overview of WordPress Themes.

If you haven’t yet discovered WP themes and what makes WP themes so revolutionary in terms of website design, then make sure to check out our post: Understanding WP Themes – A Useful Guide For Business Owners

In this article, you will learn where you can search for free and paid themes for your WordPress 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 product support and poor theme coding.

As we’ve explained in our previous article, a WordPress theme is a special type of web template used on WordPress-driven websites and blogs and designed to work specifically with WordPress in mind.

Many skilled website designers and web design companies create themes for WordPress. Consequently, members of the WordPress community enjoy access to thousands of uniquely-designed themes covering an extensive range of applications.

Where To Find WordPress Themes: Let’s Simplify Things!

If you were to browse over to Google and type something like the following:

• best premium WP themes
• best responsive themes for WordPress
• best paid WordPress themes for artists (enter 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 listings.

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 get started, 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. For now, let’s just 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 your site’s web design.

Free vs Paid Themes

Next, it’s useful to know that you will find thousands of Free and Paid WP themes made available. Free WP themes are normally distributed as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they will be listed as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.

WP Theme Marketplaces And Directories Commercial And Independent Theme Agencies

There are mostly two places where you can find WP themes. The first place is in theme marketplaces and WordPress theme directories. The second are the commercial and independent WordPress theme vendors.

WordPress theme marketplaces and WP theme directories are big theme aggregators. WP theme developers (both commercial and independent) list their themes (both free and paid) in the marketplace or directory and customers find 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 WordPress plugins and templates for other web applications (e.g. Joomla, Drupal, etc.)

Commercial and independent WP theme stores can also design both free and commercial themes, and can vary in size, from an individual theme developer or a small team of theme designer, to large web and theme design and development companies.

As you will see, many commercial or independent theme developers 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 directories .

Let’s now show you where to find the best themes for your website or blog.

Where To Find The Best Responsive Themes For Your WP Website Or Blog

WordPress.org

(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)

The official WordPress theme directory is the biggest and best place to download free WordPress themes. In fact, it’s probably the only free WordPress theme directory you should use when looking for free WordPress themes. The reason for this, is because –as many free software users have discovered– 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 WP theme directory is not only a trustworthy and reputable place to download themes for your WP site, but it also uses a theme review team to review and ensure that each theme in the directory complies with their quality and security standards.

To browse thousands of excellent FREE WordPress themes from the official Themes Repository, go here:

http://www.wordpress.org/extend/themes

Find WP Themes Inside Your WordPress Dashboard

Useful Tip: You can easily browse through every WP 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 within your WP admin panel with only a couple of mouse clicks.

Use Theme Filters

WordPress provides a 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 themes with specific features. For example, you could search for themes with a light colour design, with a 2-column layout and a full-width template, or themes that support custom menus, etc.

Note: in the post mentioned earlier where we present an overview of WordPress themes and discuss the importance of using “responsive” themes, we explained how responsive themes allow your site to be viewed correctly on all devices (e.g. the laptops, tablets and smartphones used by visitors to view your website) …

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

… and find only themes that have been built using “responsive” design standards …

Pros & Cons Of Using Free WP Themes

The obvious “pro” to using free WordPress themes is that it costs you nothing 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 options, 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 it’s unrealistic to expect the theme developer to provide dedicated support, especially if they are not getting paid. Many 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 updates were last made, then you should think carefully about using it, as WordPress is frequently updated and this can result in conflicts and errors with older code.

If you’re just getting started and your website or blog is still quite 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 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 your specific requirements, let’s turn our attention to paid WordPress 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, 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 best-known WP theme marketplaces online.

ThemeForest lets many professional WordPress theme creators showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are over 17,000 premium themes to choose from (some starting 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 WordPress themes in various categories, such as:

• Blog/Magazine – themes for personal blogs and e-magazines, etc.
• Corporate – themes suitable for medical sites and marketing purposes.
• Creative – themes suitable for photography, writers, etc.
• Directory Listings – themes that suit sites related to directory listings, holiday rentals, community resources, etc.
• eCommerce – themes for ecommerce, membership sites, etc.
• Education – themes that suit sites related to training, etc.
• Entertainment – themes for music and bands blogs, restaurants, 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. home sales, etc.)
• Retail – themes for specialty stores, trades or professionals (plumbers, dental practitioners, etc.)
• Technology – themes related to technology, landing pages, etc.
• Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and dating advice 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 themes in the ThemeForest themes directory here:

• ThemeForest

Creative Market

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

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 WordPress themes in its directory, but you can easily find WP themes and search through their theme categories using their dropdown “Themes” menu …

Browse through hundreds of great premium themes crafted by independent WordPress theme designers in the Creative Market directory here:

• Creative Market

Mojo Themes

(click on the above images to browse 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 go through all of their WordPress themes and narrow your search with theme categories by choosing the site’s dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …

Visit the site to find quality premium themes in the Mojo theme marketplace here:

• Mojo Themes

Now that we have looked at WP theme directories, let’s turn our attention to commercial theme design companies.

Commercial Theme Design Houses

SoloStream

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

(click on above images to browse more SoloStream themes)

Woo Themes

Woo Themes designs eye-catching WordPress themes and offers a membership option that lets you access all themes in their theme portfolio.

(click on the above images to view more themes from WooThemes)

StoreFront

StoreFront specializes in e-commerce themes for WordPress. Their themes also integrate well with some of the most powerful e-commerce platforms and plugins available.

(click on the above images to see more themes from StoreFront)

StudioPress

StudioPress provides WordPress themes based on a framework that enables users to quickly and easily build a professional and search optimized WordPress website, and provides a self-updating design architecture, turn-key designs with beautiful frames for your content and unprecedented control of the framework.

Many web 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 make sure that themes are always compatible with the latest WordPress version, but because you can update themes built using the Genesis framework without losing any customizations you 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 theme framework and gives your site its unique design.

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 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 all themes from StudioPress)

WordPress Theme-Checking Tools

Here are a few more useful WP theme-related tools worth knowing about:

What WP Theme Is That WP Theme Checker

What WordPress Theme Is That is a free web tool that allows you to easily detect what WP theme a site is using (including parent and child themes).

This is a great resource if you ever come across a WordPress site that you like and would like to know what WordPress theme is being used on the website.

Tip: If you can’t tell if a site uses WordPress or not, go here for a great tutorial that shows you how to tell if a website uses the WordPress CMS platform: 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 was built on WordPress software, but it will also list the theme being used by the site and list any plugins detected.

• To use this tool go here: What WordPress Theme Is That
• To learn how to use this tool go here: Is It A WP Site?

Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC)

A word of warning: When choosing FREE themes for your WordPress site, we strongly recommend sticking with the approved WP themes listed in the official WordPress theme directory.

A well-known strategy used by a number of hacking groups and cyber criminals is to put up sites and directories offering “Free” themes for WordPress all over the web and then distribute modified themes containing malicious code. In fact, some of these sites even display on Google’s search results for phrases like “free WordPress themes“, “best free themes for WordPress”” etc. It’s best, therefore, to only download free themes from the official WordPress repository, or use well-known and trusted sites.

If you are concerned about whether a WordPress theme installed on your site could be infected with potentially malicious or unwanted code, you can use a free WordPress plugin like Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) to scan your WordPress theme files. The TAC plugin searches the source files of every installed theme on your site for signs of injected code and then outputs a report …

(TAC Report Page – Screenshot: WordPress.org Plugin Page)

We hope that you have found this information useful.

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