Tag: WordPress Themes

In an earlier 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 unique, then go here to read the article: About WP Themes – A Handy Guide

In this article, you will learn where to look for free and paid themes for your WP site. You will also learn about the different types of WP 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 customer support and poorly-coded themes.

As explained in our previously-mentioned post, a theme is a unique kind of web template that is used on WordPress-powered sites and designed specifically in WordPress.

Many professional web designers and website development firms create themes for WordPress. Consequently, WordPress users enjoy access to thousands of unique WordPress themes designed to cover many website uses.

Finding Great WordPress Themes: Let’s Simplify Things!

If you were to open up Google and search for a key phrase like this:

• best free WordPress themes
• best free themes for WordPress
• best responsive WordPress themes for artists (or whatever your business, area of interest or website is about)

You are probably going to get an overwhelming amount of junk to sort through in your search results.

So, to help you save time and make things 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 should know that WordPress offers users both a hosted and a self-hosted version. We’ll cover these differences in a separate post. In this post, please note that we will only cover 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 of your website.

Free vs Paid WordPress Themes

Next, it’s important to know that you will easily find many Free and Paid WP themes being made available. Free WordPress themes are normally distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they will be listed as Premium (paid) themes.

Theme Marketplaces Commercial And Independent Theme Design Companies

There are mostly two types of places where themes can be found. The first place is in WP theme marketplaces and WP theme directories. The second are the commercial and independent theme vendors.

Theme marketplaces and theme directories are big theme stores. WP theme developers (both commercial and independent) list their themes (both free and paid) in the marketplace or directory and buyers shop for these just like they would if they were shopping for apps on an app store or software directory.

Some of the bigger marketplaces 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 WordPress theme developers can design both free and paid 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.

As you will see, most commercial theme stores 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 great themes for your website.

Finding Themes For Your Website Or Blog

WordPress.org

(WordPress.org – Free WP Theme Directory)

The official WordPress theme directory is the biggest and best place to download WP themes for free. In fact, it’s probably the only free theme directory you should use when looking for free WordPress themes. The reason for this, 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 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 WP site, but it also uses a theme review team comprised of dedicated and hard working volunteers to review and make sure that each theme in the directory meets certain standards of quality and security.

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

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

Find Themes Inside Your WordPress 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 activate it directly from within your WordPress dashboard with just a couple of clicks.

Use WordPress Theme Feature Filters

WordPress has a built-in filtering function inside the admin area that lets you narrow down your search for themes based on criteria like Colors, Layout and Features …

This makes it easy to find what you are looking for. For example, you could search for themes with predominantly pink colour design, with a 4-column layout and a full-width template, or themes that support custom menus, etc.

Note: in another article where we present an overview of WordPress themes and discuss the importance of choosing “responsive” themes, we explained how responsive themes ensure that your theme will display correctly on all devices (e.g. your PC, smartphone and tablet) …

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 WordPress themes that are “responsive” …

Pros & Cons Of Using Free WP Themes

The obvious “pro” to using free themes is that it’s free to download and use the theme. Additionally, many free themes are professionally designed and offer 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 to 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 theme developer to provide dedicated support, especially if they are not getting paid. Many freely distributed 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 changes were made, then we advise you to think twice about using it, as WordPress is frequently updated and this can create conflicts and errors with older code.

If you’re just getting started and your website 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 a theme. Who knows, the free theme you’ve downloaded could be exactly what works for you and your business.

Now that we’ve seen how to find free WordPress themes in the WordPress.org theme directory and ways to narrow down your search for themes that meet specific criteria, it’s time to turn our attention to premium themes.

Premium 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, you can search through the WordPress theme galleries of the “Premium” theme design agencies listed below:

WP Theme Marketplaces

ThemeForest

ThemeForest is one of the biggest and best-known theme marketplaces online.

ThemeForest allows many professional WordPress theme creators to showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are currently over 15,000 premium WordPress themes listed (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 themes in various categories, such as:

• Blog/Magazine – themes for bloggers and parenting blogs, etc.
• Corporate – themes suitable for business sites and marketing purposes.
• Creative – themes for video galleries, crafts, etc.
• Directory Listings – themes that suit sites about employment opportunities, dining out & restaurants, , etc.
• eCommerce – themes for e-commerce, membership sites, etc.
• Education – themes that suit sites related to teaching, etc.
• Entertainment – themes for music and bands 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. rentals, etc.)
• Retail – themes for shops, trades or professionals (electricians, medical practitioners, etc.)
• Technology – themes related to apps, landing pages, etc.
• Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and romance tips and advice 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 sends you theme update notifications)

Browse thousands of quality premium themes in the ThemeForest marketplace here:

• ThemeForest

Creative Market

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

Creative Market is another leading WordPress theme marketplace where you can browse 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 marketplace, but you can easily find themes for WordPress and search through their theme categories using their dropdown “Themes” menu …

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

• Creative Market

Mojo Themes

(click on the images above to browse more themes at Mojo.com)

Mojo is a marketplace 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 WP themes, but you can easily go through all of their themes for WordPress and narrow your search with theme categories (e.g. Responsive or eCommerce themes and theme frameworks, etc.) by choosing the dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …

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

• Mojo

Now that we have looked at WordPress theme directories, let’s look at commercial theme design houses.

Commercial And Independent Theme Developers

SoloStream

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

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

Woo Themes

Woo Themes creates great premium themes for WordPress and offers a membership option that lets you access their entire theme collection.

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

StoreFront

StoreFront Themes specializes in creating 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 images above to see all themes from StoreFront)

StudioPress

StudioPress builds WordPress themes based on a framework that lets users quickly and easily build a professional and search optimized WordPress site, and provides a self-updating design architecture, turn-key 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 this framework regularly updated to reflect best practices for coding and to ensure 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 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 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 above images to browse more StudioPress themes)

Theme-Checking Tools

Here are some useful WP theme-related tools worth keeping in mind:

What WordPress Theme Is That.com

What WordPress Theme Is That.com is a free WP theme and plugin-checking tool that allows you to easily detect what WP theme 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 can’t tell whether a site was built using WordPress or not, we have posted a a great tutorial that helps you tell if a website is powered by WordPress: Is My Blog 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 whether or not the site was built on WordPress, but it will also list the WordPress theme being used by the site and list any plugins detected.

• To use this tool visit the website here: What WordPress Theme Is That
• To learn how to use this tool go here: Is My Website Built With WordPress? Tell-Tale Signs & WordPress-Checking Tools

Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC)

We said this before and it’s worth repeating it again: 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 sites and directories offering “Free” WP themes all over the web and distribute modified themes and plugins that contain malicious code. 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 only download free WP themes from the official WordPress theme directory, or use well-known and reputable sites.

If you are in doubt 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 perform a scan of your theme files. The TAC plugin scans 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 Source: Plugin)

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

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