In another article, we have written a comprehensive overview of WordPress Themes.
If you would like to know more about the benefits of using themes and what makes WordPress themes so revolutionary in terms of website design, then make sure to check out this post: An Introduction to WordPress Themes
In this article, you will learn where to browse hundreds of 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 ensure that you get the right themes for your needs and avoid dealing with problems like lack of support and poor coding.
As we’ve explained in our previous article, a WordPress theme is a unique kind of web template that is used on WordPress-driven blogs and designed to work specifically with WordPress in mind.
Many professional web designers and website design companies create themes for WordPress. Consequently, members of the WP community have access to thousands of professional-quality themes designed for many purposes.
Finding Great Themes: Let’s Keep It Simple!
Let’s say you were to go to Google and search for key phrases like the following:
- best themes for WordPress
- best responsive WordPress themes
- best free WordPress themes for musicians (type in whatever your business, area of interest or blog is about)
Chances are that you are going to get an overwhelming amount of disorganized information 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 start, you should know that WordPress offers users both a hosted and a self-hosted version. We’ll explain these differences in a separate post. For now, let’s just cover the topic of finding themes for the self-hosted version of WordPress (WordPress.org) in this article, which gives you more freedom, more options and more control over the design areas of your website.
Free vs Paid WP Themes
Next, it’s useful to know that there are both Free and Paid WordPress themes being made available. Free WP themes are generally distributed as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they can be sold as Premium (paid) themes.
Theme Directories & Theme Design Houses
There are two places where themes can be found. The first place is in theme marketplaces and theme directories. The second type of place are the commercial and independent theme developers.
WP theme marketplaces and WordPress theme directories are big theme stores. 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 marketplace.
Some of the larger marketplaces 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 design companies can also develop both free and premium themes, and can vary in size, from an individual theme designer or a small team of designer, to large web and theme design and development companies.
Most commercial or independent theme developers 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 the best WordPress themes for your website.
Where To Find Responsive Themes For Your Website Or Blog
WordPress.org
(WordPress.org – WordPress Theme Directory)
The official WordPress theme directory is the biggest and best place to download WordPress themes for free. In fact, it’s probably the only free theme directory you should use when looking for free WP themes. The reason why, is because –as some 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 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 team of theme reviewers comprised of dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers to review and make sure that each theme uploaded to the directory complies with certain standards of quality and security.
To browse thousands of excellent FREE WordPress themes from the official WordPress Themes Directory, go here:
http://www.wordpress.org/extend/themes
Find WP Themes Inside Your Dashboard
Useful Tip: You can easily browse through every WordPress 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 WP admin panel with a few clicks.
Use WordPress Theme Filtering
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 color design, with a three-column layout and a full-width template, or themes that support custom menus, etc.
Note: in the post where we discuss the importance of choosing “responsive” WordPress themes, we explained how responsive themes ensure that your theme will work on all devices (e.g. your visitors’ PCs, tablets and smartphones) …
It’s a good idea to use responsive themes, and the WordPress theme filter lets you do just that …
… and display only themes that use “responsive” design standards …
Pros & Cons Of Using Free WordPress 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 come with a number of customizable features, giving you great flexibility and choice in how you configure all of its various layout elements.
The ”cons” of 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 personal support, especially if they are not getting paid. Many free themes ask users for donations to help cover their support costs.
When downloading free themes, therefore, check to see when the theme was last updated. If it’s been over one year since any changes were 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 any money on paid themes. Who knows, the free theme you’ve downloaded could be exactly what works for you and helps to convert your site visitors into customers.
Now that we’ve seen how to find free themes in the WordPress theme directory and ways to filter your search for themes that meet specific requirements, let’s turn our attention to premium themes.
Premium 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 ongoing support, you can search through the WordPress theme galleries of the “Premium” theme design agencies listed below:
WP Theme Directories
ThemeForest
ThemeForest is one of the largest and most popular WordPress theme marketplaces online.
ThemeForest lets many professional WordPress theme developers showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are well over 15,000 premium WP 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 directory, you will be able to browse for specific WP themes in a range of categories, such as:
- Blog/Magazine – themes for bloggers and news editorials, etc.
- Corporate – themes suitable for corporate sites or advertising purposes.
- Creative – themes for design, writing professionals, etc.
- Directory Listings – themes suitable for sites related to travel, holiday rentals, business directories, etc.
- eCommerce – themes for ecommerce, event bookings and registrations, etc.
- Education – themes that suit sites related to teaching, etc.
- Entertainment – themes for entertainment 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. commercial property, etc.)
- Retail – themes for shopping, trades or professionals (repairers, dental practitioners, etc.)
- Technology – themes related to technology, affiliate marketing, seo, product reviews, direct sales, etc.
- Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and marriage consellor blogs
- Miscellaneous – themes suitable for writing or discussing political issues, green living 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 lots of great themes in the ThemeForest themes marketplace here:
Creative Market
(click on the images above to see all Creative Market themes)
Creative Market is another leading WP theme marketplace where you can search through 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 directory, but you can easily browse hundreds of themes for WordPress and narrow your search using theme categories (e.g. Landing Page or Commerce themes, etc.) using their dropdown “Themes” menu …
Browse through hundreds of quality premium themes crafted by independent WordPress theme developers in the Creative Market themes marketplace here:
Mojo Themes
(click on the images above to browse all Mojo themes)
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 find themes for WordPress and search through their theme categories by choosing the dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …
Visit the site to find great premium themes in the Mojo marketplace here:
Now that we have looked at WordPress theme directories, let’s turn our attention to commercial and independent theme design houses.
Commercial Theme Developers
SoloStream
SoloStream provides WordPress users with a selection of professional quality premium WP themes and the option of accessing all themes through a WordPress theme membership.
(click on above images to view all themes from SoloStream)
Woo Themes
Woo Themes designs eye-catching themes for WordPress that are very popular and highly sought after by website users and offers a membership option that allows members access to all themes in their WordPress theme collection.
(click on the images above to browse more themes from WooThemes)
StoreFront
StoreFront Themes specializes in WordPress themes for e-commerce. 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 provides WordPress themes based on a framework that allows you to quickly and easily build a professional and search optimized WordPress website, and provides an auto-updating design architecture, turn-key designs with beautiful frames for the 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 this framework consistently up-to-date to reflect best coding practices and to make sure 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 have made to your theme.
This is because themes built using 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 all sounds way too technical, don’t worry 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 above images to see more StudioPress themes)
WordPress Theme-Checking Tools
Let’s finish this post with a couple of useful WP theme-related tools worth knowing about:
What WP Theme Is That? WordPress Theme Checker
What WordPress Theme Is That? is a free WP theme search tool that lets you easily detect what WordPress theme a website or blog uses (including parent and child themes).
This is a great resource if you have come across a WordPress site that you like and would like to know what WordPress theme the website or blog uses.
Tip: If you can’t tell whether a site was built using WordPress or not, go here for a great tutorial that shows you how to tell if a web site was built using WordPress: Does My Web Site Run On 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 built using the WP CMS platform, but it will also list the theme being used and list any WP plugins detected.
- To use this tool visit the website here: What WordPress Theme Is That.com
- To learn more about this tool go here: Is Your Site Built With WordPress?
Theme Authenticity Checker - WordPress Plugin
A word of warning: When choosing FREE themes for your WordPress site, we strongly recommend sticking with the themes listed in the official WordPress theme repository.
A well-known method used by a number of hacking groups and cyber criminals is to put up websites and directories offering “Free” WordPress themes all over the web and distribute themes and plugins with malicious code embedded in their files. In fact, some of these sites even come up on Google for search phrases like “free WordPress themes“, “best free themes for WordPress”” etc. It’s safer, therefore, to stick with the official WordPress.org repository, or use established and reputable theme merchants.
If you are in doubt about whether a WordPress theme that you have installed on your site may contain malware or unwanted code, you can use a free WordPress plugin like Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) to run a scan of your WordPress theme files. The TAC plugin scans the source files of every them you have installed on your site for signs of injected code and then outputs a report as shown in the screenshot below …
(TAC Report Page – Screenshot: WordPress.org Plugin)
I hope that you have found this information useful.
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