In a separate post, we have written a comprehensive overview of WordPress Themes.
If you haven’t yet discovered themes and what makes WP themes unique, then go here to read the post: About WordPress Themes – A Guide For Beginners
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 dealing with problems like lack of support and poorly-coded themes.
As explained in another article, a theme is a unique kind of web template used on WordPress-driven blogs and designed specifically for WordPress.
Many talented web designers and website design agencies create themes for WordPress. Consequently, members of the WP community have access to thousands of quality themes designed to cover a wide range of purposes and needs.
Finding Themes: Your Time-Saving Guide
Let’s say you were to open up Google and type something like the following:
- best paid themes for WordPress
- best paid WordPress themes
- best responsive WordPress themes for business (enter whatever your business, area of interest or website is about)
Chances are that you are going to get an overwhelming amount of information to sort through in your search listings.
So, to help you save time and make things easier, let’s just cut through the clutter and make the process of finding great WordPress themes really 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 cover these differences in another post. To keep things simple, let’s just focus on finding themes for the self-hosted version of WordPress (WordPress.org) in this post, as these give 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 can find thousands of Free and Paid themes made available. Free themes for WordPress are normally distributed as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they can be sold as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
WordPress Theme Marketplaces And Directories & Theme Developers
There are 2 kinds of places where themes can be found. The first is in theme marketplaces and WordPress theme directories. The second place are the commercial and independent WP theme development firms.
WordPress theme marketplaces and WordPress theme directories are big aggregators of themes. 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 directory.
Some of the larger directories 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 developers can also develop both free and paid WP themes, and can vary in size, from an individual designer or a small team of theme developer, to large theme development companies.
As you will see, many 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 WP theme directories .
Let’s now show you where to search for the best themes for your blog.
Choosing Themes For Your Website Or Blog
WordPress.org
(WordPress.org – WordPress Themes Directory)
The official WordPress.org theme directory is the biggest and best place to search for WP themes for free. In fact, it’s probably the only free 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 put your computer, digital presence and even your entire business at risk.
The WordPress theme directory is not only a trustworthy and reputable place to download themes for your website or blog, but it also relies on a theme review team comprised of dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers to review and ensure that each theme uploaded to the directory meets certain quality and security standards.
To browse thousands of excellent FREE WordPress themes from the official WordPress Themes Directory, go here:
http://www.wordpress.org/extend/themes
Search For Free WP Themes Without Leaving Your Own WordPress Dashboard
Useful Tip: You can easily browse through every WP theme in the WordPress.org 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 just a few mouse clicks.
Use 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 a dark color design, with a three-column layout and a full-width template, or themes that support custom menus, etc.
Note: in an earlier 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 without problems across all devices (e.g. the computers, tablets and smartphones used by visitors to view your website) …
It’s a good idea to use responsive themes, and the WordPress theme filtering function lets you search across its entire database of free themes …
… and display only themes that use “responsive” design standards …
Pros & Cons Of Using Free WP Themes
The obvious “pro” to using free WP themes is that it costs you nothing to download and use the theme on your site. 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 ”cons” to using free themes are that your themes may not get updated as often with new features and bug fixes, and you shouldn’t expect the developer to provide dedicated support, especially if they are not getting paid. Many freely distributed themes will ask you for a donation 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 well over 1 year since any changes were last made, then think carefully about downloading it, as the theme may have been abandoned by its developer.
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 premium themes. Who knows, the theme you downloaded for free 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 WP themes in the WordPress.org theme directory and ways to filter your search for themes that meet your specific requirements, let’s turn our attention to finding paid WordPress themes.
Premium WP 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:
Theme Marketplaces
ThemeForest
ThemeForest is one of the largest and well known WordPress theme marketplaces online.
ThemeForest lets many professional WP theme designers showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are well over 17,000 premium themes listed (some starting from as little as $3) …
(click on the images above to browse all themes on ThemeForest)
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 bloggers and e-magazines, etc.
- Corporate – themes suitable for business sites and advertising purposes.
- Creative – themes for design, arts, etc.
- Directory Listings – themes that suit sites related to employment opportunities, classifieds, , etc.
- eCommerce – themes for selling products online, membership sites, etc.
- Education – themes that suit sites related to teaching, etc.
- Entertainment – themes for music and bands blogs, dining out, 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. commercial property, etc.)
- Retail – themes for stores, trades or professionals (electricians, medical centers, etc.)
- Technology – themes related to apps, newsletters, etc.
- Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and wedding 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)
Go here to discover great WordPress themes in the ThemeForest theme directory:
Creative Market
(click on the images above to see more Creative Market themes)
Creative Market is another leading WP theme marketplace where you can browse thousands of 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 marketplace, but you can easily go through all of their WP themes and search through their theme categories from the site’s dropdown “Themes” menu …
Browse through hundreds of great WP themes crafted by independent WordPress theme designers in the Creative Market marketplace here:
Mojo Themes
(click on the images above to view all themes at Mojo)
Mojo is a marketplace for premium-quality 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 find WordPress themes and search through their theme categories by choosing the site’s dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …
Visit the site to find great WP themes in the Mojo marketplace here:
Now that we have looked at WP theme aggregators, let’s look at commercial and independent theme agencies.
Commercial WordPress Theme Design Companies
SoloStream
SoloStream provides WordPress users with a selection of high quality premium WordPress 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 creates great premium themes that are very popular and highly sought after by website users and also offer a membership option that gives you access to all themes in their WordPress theme portfolio.
(click on the above images to browse all WooThemes themes)
StoreFront
StoreFront specializes in 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 above images to browse more 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 site, and provides an auto-updating design architecture, turn-key site designs with beautiful frames for the content and unprecedented control of the framework.
Many website developers prefer using this 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 ensure that it always remains compatible with the latest WordPress version, but because you can update your themes 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 a paint job that sits on top of the framework and gives your site its unique design.
If this all sounds 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 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 all themes from StudioPress)
WordPress Theme-Checking Tools
Let’s finish this article with some useful WP theme-related tools worth knowing about:
What WordPress Theme Is That.com
What WordPress Theme Is That? is a free WP theme and plugin search tool that lets you easily detect what WP theme and plugins a website uses (including parent and child WordPress themes).
This is a great resource if you ever come across a WordPress site that you like and would like to know what WP theme the website is using.
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 whether or not a web site is WP-driven: 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 whether or not a site is powered by WordPress software, but it will also list the theme being used and list any plugins detected.
- To use this tool go here: What WordPress Theme Is That.com
- To learn more about using this tool go here: Is My Website Built Using WordPress? Tell-Tale Signs & WP-Checking Tools
Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC)
We suggested this earlier and it’s worth repeating again: When choosing FREE themes for your WordPress site, we strongly recommend sticking with the approved themes listed in the official WordPress theme repository.
A commonly-used tactic employed by a number of hackers and syndicates that engage in cyber criminal activities is to put up websites and directories offering “Free” WordPress themes all over the web and distribute modified themes and plugins containing malicious code. In fact, some of these sites even come up on Google’s search results for key phrases like “free WordPress themes“, “best free themes for WordPress”” etc. It’s safer, therefore, to stick with the official WordPress.org directory, or use established and reputable theme vendors.
If you have any concerns about whether a WordPress theme that you have installed on your site could contain potentially malicious or unwanted code, use a free WordPress plugin like Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) to run a scan of your theme files. The TAC plugin scans the source files of every installed theme on your site for signs of suspicious code and outputs a report as shown in the screenshot below …
(TAC Report Page – Source: Plugin, WordPress.org)
We hope that you have found this information useful.
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