In a previous article, we have written a comprehensive overview of WordPress Themes.
If you haven’t yet discovered WP themes and what makes themes so revolutionary in terms of web design, then go here to read the post: A Beginner’s Guide To WP Themes
In this article, you will learn where to search for free and paid themes for your website. 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 how to avoid experiencing problems like lack of customer support and poor coding.
As explained in our previously-mentioned post, a WordPress theme is a unique kind of web design template that is used on WordPress-driven blogs and designed specifically for WordPress.
Many talented website designers and web design houses create themes for WordPress. Consequently, members of the WordPress community can access thousands of exciting WP themes covering a wide-range of uses and applications.
Finding Responsive Themes For WordPress: Let’s Keep It Simple!
Let’s say you were to fire up Google and search for the following:
- best WP themes
- best premium WordPress themes
- best responsive WordPress themes for writers (enter whatever your business, search topic or blog is about)
Chances are that you are going to get an overwhelming amount of disorganized information to sort through in the 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 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 cover these differences in a separate article. To keep things simple, please note that we will only be focusing on 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 your web design.
Free vs Paid WordPress Themes
Next, it’s important to know that you will easily find many Free and Paid themes being made available. Free WordPress themes are normally distributed as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they will be licensed for use as Premium (paid) themes.
Theme Marketplaces And Directories Commercial And Independent Theme Vendors
There are two places where themes can be found. The first is in WP theme marketplaces and WordPress theme directories. The second type of place are the commercial and independent theme stores.
WP theme marketplaces and WP theme directories are large aggregators of themes. theme developers (both commercial and independent) list their themes (both free and paid) in the marketplace or directory and customers shop for 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 WP plugins and templates for other web applications (e.g. Joomla, Drupal, etc.)
Commercial and independent WP theme stores typically will design both free and commercial WP themes, and can vary in size, from an individual designer or a small team of developer, to large theme development companies.
Most commercial 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 the best WordPress themes for your website.
Finding The Best Themes For Your WP Website Or Blog
WordPress.org
(WordPress.org – Theme Directory)
The official WordPress.org theme directory is the largest and best place to search for WP themes for free. In fact, it’s probably the only free WP 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 and 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 uses a theme review team comprised of dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers to review and ensure that each theme uploaded to the directory complies with specific quality and security standards.
To browse thousands of great-looking FREE WordPress themes from the official Themes Repository, go here:
http://www.wordpress.org/extend/themes
You Don’t Even Have To Leave Your WordPress Dashboard
Useful Tip: You can easily browse through every WordPress theme in the WordPress.org directory and not only find what you are looking for, but also easily install and activate it directly from within your WP dashboard with a couple of clicks.
Use The WP Theme Filtering
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 easy to find what you are looking for. For example, you could search for themes with predominantly dark colour design, with a 2-column layout and a full-width template, or themes that support custom menus, etc.
Note: in another post where we discuss the importance of using “responsive” themes, we explained how these allow your site to be viewed correctly across all devices (e.g. the laptops, smartphones and tablets used by visitors to browse your website) …
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 WordPress Themes
The obvious “pro” to using free WP 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 settings, giving you great flexibility and choice in how you configure all of its various layout elements.
The ”cons” to using free 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 personal support, especially if they are not getting paid. Most 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 you should think twice about using it, as WordPress changes quite often and these changes can create conflicts and errors with older code.
If you’re just getting started and your website 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 theme you downloaded for free 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.org theme directory and how to filter your search for themes that meet your specific criteria, it’s time to 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 ongoing support, you can search through the WordPress theme galleries of the “Premium” theme design agencies listed below:
WP Theme Marketplaces And Directories
ThemeForest
ThemeForest is one of the biggest and well known WP theme marketplaces online.
ThemeForest lets many professional WP theme developers showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are currently over 17,500 premium WP themes to choose from (some starting from as little as $3) …
(click on the images above to view more ThemeForest themes)
If you visit the ThemeForest theme marketplace, you will be able to browse for specific WP themes in a range of categories, such as:
- Blog/Magazine – themes for personal blogs and e-magazines, etc.
- Corporate – themes suitable for business sites and advertising purposes.
- Creative – themes suitable for design, arts, etc.
- Directory Listings – themes suitable for sites related to directory listings, classifieds, tourism directories, etc.
- eCommerce – themes for ecommerce, membership sites, etc.
- Education – themes that suit sites related to teaching, etc.
- Entertainment – themes for fashion blogs, music venues, etc.
- Mobile – e.g. responsive themes.
- NonProfit – themes for nonprofit organizations, churches, etc.
- Real Estate – themes for real estate and real estate listings (e.g. rentals, etc.)
- Retail – themes for catalogs, trades or professionals (plumbers, chiropractors, etc.)
- Technology – themes related to technology, affiliate marketing, seo, product reviews, direct sales, etc.
- Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and marriage counselling blogs
- Miscellaneous – themes suitable for topics related to activism, 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)
Go here to discover quality premium themes in the ThemeForest website:
Creative Market
(click on the above images to view all themes on Creative Market)
Creative Market is another leading WordPress theme directory where you can search through thousands of 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 narrow your search using theme categories using their dropdown “Themes” menu …
Browse through hundreds of quality premium themes crafted by independent WordPress theme developers in the Creative Market directory here:
Mojo Themes
(click on the images above to view 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 WordPress themes, but you can easily browse hundreds of WordPress themes and narrow your search with theme categories (e.g. Portfolio or Business themes and theme frameworks, etc.) by choosing the dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …
Visit the site to find great premium themes in the Mojo theme directory here:
Now that we have looked at WP theme marketplaces, let’s turn our attention to commercial WP theme shops.
Commercial WP Theme Development Firms
SoloStream
SoloStream provides WordPress users with a selection of professional quality WP themes and the option of accessing all themes through a WordPress theme membership.
(click on images above to browse all themes from SoloStream)
Woo Themes
Woo Themes creates functional WP themes that are very popular and highly sought after by website users and offer a membership option that gives you access to all themes in their WordPress theme collection.
(click on the above images to browse all themes from WooThemes)
StoreFront
StoreFront Themes creates amazing 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 images above to see all StoreFront themes)
StudioPress
StudioPress designs WordPress themes based on a framework that enables users 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 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 this framework regularly up-to-date 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 framework and gives your site its unique design.
If this sounds 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 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 images above to browse more themes from StudioPress)
Theme-Checking Tools
Here are a few more useful WP theme-related tools worth keeping in mind:
What WP Theme Is That? – WP Theme Checker
What WordPress Theme Is That is a free WP theme and plugin search tool that allows you to easily detect what WP 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 WP theme is being used on the site.
Tip: If you don’t know whether a site runs on WordPress or not, go here for a great tutorial that shows you how to tell if a site is powered by WordPress: How To Check If Your Site Was 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 not only confirm if the site is powered by WordPress, but it will also list the theme being used on the site and list any WP plugins it detects.
- To use the tool visit the website here: What WordPress Theme Is That?
- To learn how to use this tool go here: The Easy Way To Tell If Your Blog Runs On The WP CMS Platform
Theme Authenticity Checker - Plugin
We said this earlier and it’s worth repeating it again: When choosing FREE themes for your WordPress site, we strongly recommend sticking with the reviewed and approved WP themes listed in the official WordPress theme directory.
A well-known tactic used by a number of hacking groups and cyber criminals is to put up websites offering “Free” WordPress themes all over the web and then distribute themes containing malicious code. In fact, some of these sites even display on search engine results for phrases like “free WordPress themes“, “best free WordPress themes”” etc. It’s safer, therefore, to only download free WordPress themes from the official WordPress.org theme repository, or use well-known and trusted theme merchants.
If you are in doubt about whether a WordPress theme installed on your blog could contain potentially malicious or unwanted code, you can use a free WordPress plugin like Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) to perform a scan of your WordPress theme files. This plugin searches the source files of every them you have installed on your site for signs of injected code and outputs a report …
(Theme Authenticity Checker Report Page – Screenshot: Plugin)
I hope that you have found this information useful.
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