Tag: WordPress Themes

In another post, we have written a comprehensive overview of WordPress Themes.

If you would like to learn more about the benefits of using WordPress themes and what makes themes so revolutionary in terms of website design, then make sure to check out our post: An Overview of WordPress Themes

In this article, we will show you where to look for free and paid themes for your site. You will also learn about the different types of WP theme resources and get tips on how to ensure that you get the right themes for your needs and avoid having to deal with problems like lack of support and poorly-coded themes.

As we’ve explained in our previous post, a WordPress theme is a special kind of web template that is used on WordPress-driven sites and designed to work specifically for the WordPress platform.

Many professional web designers and web design companies create themes for WordPress. Consequently, members of the WordPress community can access thousands of great WordPress themes designed to cover many purposes and needs.

Finding Great Themes: Let’s Keep It Simple!

If you were to go to Google and search for a key phrase like the following:

• best free WordPress themes
• WordPress themes free
• best free WordPress themes for artists (type in whatever your business, search topic or blog is about)

Chances are that you are going to get an overwhelming amount of junk to sort through in your search results.

So, to help you save time and make your life easier, let’s 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 cover these differences in a later post. To keep things simple, we’ll only cover themes for the self-hosted version of WordPress (WordPress.org) in this post, which gives you more freedom, more options and more control over your site’s web design.

Free vs Paid WordPress Themes

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

WP Theme Marketplaces & Theme Shops

There are 2 kinds of places where themes can be found. The first is in theme marketplaces and theme directories. The second are the commercial and independent WordPress theme stores.

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

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 WordPress theme design houses typically design both free and paid themes, and can vary in size, from an individual developer or a small team of theme developer, to large web and theme design and development companies.

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 WordPress themes for your website.

Choosing The Best Responsive Themes For Your WordPress Website

WordPress.org

(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)

The official WordPress.org theme directory is the largest and best place to search for free WordPress themes. In fact, it’s probably the only free WP theme directory you should use when looking for free WordPress themes. The reason why, is because –as some free software users have learned– downloading free software, add-ons, apps, templates or themes from untrustworthy places can place your computer, digital presence and even your entire business at risk.

The WP theme directory is not only a trustworthy and reputable place to download themes for your website or blog, but it also uses a review team to review and ensure that each theme uploaded to the directory complies with specific standards of quality and security.

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

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

Find WordPress Themes Inside Your WP 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 inside your WP dashboard with a few clicks.

Use The 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 Colours, Layout and Features …

This makes it easier to find themes with specific features. For example, you could search for themes with a blue color 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 responsive themes ensure that your theme will display without problems across all devices (e.g. your PC, smartphone and tablet) …

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 bring back only themes that are “responsive” …

Pros & Cons Of Using Free WordPress Themes

The obvious “pro” to using free themes is that there is no cost to download and use the theme on your site. 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 downside of 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 developer to provide immediate support, especially if they are not getting paid. Many freely distributed themes ask for donations to help cover costs of providing support.

When downloading free themes, therefore, check to see when the theme was last updated. If it’s been over a year since any updates were made, then we advise you to think twice about downloading it, as WordPress changes quite frequently and this can create conflicts or errors with older code.

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 premium themes. Who knows, the theme you downloaded for free may just be the thing that 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.org theme directory and ways to filter your search for themes that meet your specific criteria, let’s turn our attention to finding paid 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 Directories

ThemeForest

ThemeForest is one of the largest and most popular theme marketplaces online.

ThemeForest lets many professional WordPress theme designers showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are over 17,500 premium themes listed (you can find great themes from as little as $3) …

(click on the above images to browse more themes on ThemeForest)

If you visit the ThemeForest theme directory, you will be able to browse for specific themes in various categories, such as:

• Blog/Magazine – themes for personal blogs and green living blogs, etc.
• Corporate – themes suitable for government sites or marketing purposes.
• Creative – themes suitable for creative work, freelancers, etc.
• Directory Listings – themes suitable for sites related to directory listings, classifieds, business directories, etc.
• eCommerce – themes for e-commerce, event bookings and registrations, etc.
• Education – themes that suit sites related to teaching, etc.
• Entertainment – themes for photo gallery blogs, restaurants, etc.
• Mobile – e.g. mobile-switching 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 stores, trades or professionals (electricians, medical centers, etc.)
• Technology – themes related to software, landing pages, etc.
• Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and dating advice 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 emails you theme update notifications)

Go here to find quality premium WordPress themes in the ThemeForest marketplace:

• ThemeForest

Creative Market

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

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 find WP themes and narrow your search using theme categories from their dropdown “Themes” menu …

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

• Creative Market

Mojo Themes

(click on the above images to view more Mojo themes)

Mojo is a directory 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 WP themes, but you can easily go through all of their themes for WordPress and search through their theme categories using the site’s dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …

Visit the site to find great premium themes in the Mojo directory here:

• Mojo

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

Commercial WP Theme Design Companies

SoloStream

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

(click on above images to see more SoloStream themes)

Woo Themes

Woo Themes creates great themes for WordPress that are very popular and highly sought after by website users and also offers a membership option that allows members to access all themes in their theme portfolio.

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

StoreFront

StoreFront 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 browse all StoreFront themes)

StudioPress

StudioPress provides WordPress themes based on a framework that lets users 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 website developers like the Genesis framework not only because it’s well-coded and well-supported (the development team at StudioPress keeps this framework frequently updated to reflect best practices for coding and to ensure that it is always compatible with the latest version of WordPress, 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 theme 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 above images to browse more themes from StudioPress)

WordPress Theme-Checking Tools

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

What WordPress Theme Is That?

What WordPress Theme Is That? is a free WordPress theme-checking tool that lets you easily detect what WordPress theme a site uses.

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 uses.

Tip: If you can’t tell if a site was built using WordPress or not, we have posted a a great tutorial that shows you how to tell if a web site was built using 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 then not only confirm if a site is powered by the WP CMS platform, but it will also list the theme being used and list any plugins it detects.

• To use this online tool go here: What WordPress Theme Is That.com
• To learn how to use this tool go here: Is Your Web Site Powered By WordPress?

Theme Authenticity Checker - Plugin

We suggested this before and it’s worth repeating it again: When choosing FREE themes for your WordPress site, we strongly recommend sticking with the approved themes listed in the official WordPress theme directory.

A commonly-used method employed by a number of hackers and syndicates that engage in cyber-crime is to put up websites offering “Free” themes for WordPress all over the web and then distribute themes containing malicious code. In fact, some of these sites even come up on Google for key phrases like “free WordPress themes“, “best free WordPress themes”” etc. It’s best, therefore, to stick with the official WordPress theme directory, or use well-known and reputable sites.

If you are concerned about whether a WordPress theme installed on your site may be infected with potentially malicious or unwanted code, you can 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 them you have installed on your site for signs of injected code and then presents you with a report with the results …

(Theme Authenticity Checker Report Page – Source: Plugin, WordPress.org)

We hope that you have found this information useful.

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