In a previous post, 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 themes unique, then make sure to check out this post: An Introduction to WP Themes
In this article, we show you where you can search for free and paid themes for your site. You will also learn about the different types of WordPress theme resources and get tips on how to make sure that you get the right themes for your needs and how to avoid having to deal with problems like lack of customer support and poor theme coding.
As explained in our previous article, a WordPress theme is a unique type of web design template used on WordPress-powered blogs and designed specifically with the WordPress platform in mind.
Many talented web designers and website design houses create themes for WordPress. Consequently, members of the WordPress community have access to thousands of professional-quality themes covering a wide-range of uses.
Finding Great Themes: How To Avoid Information Overload
Let’s say you were to open up Google and type key phrases like this:
- best free themes for WordPress
- WordPress themes free
- best free WordPress themes for musicians (or whatever your business, area of interest or blog is about)
Chances are that you are going to get an overwhelming amount of information to sort through in the search listings.
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 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 explain these differences in a later article. In this post, please note that we will only focus on 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 your web design.
Free vs Paid WP Themes
Next, it’s useful to know that there are thousands of Free and Paid WP 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 will be sold as Premium (paid) themes.
WP Theme Directories vs Theme Stores
There are mostly 2 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 stores.
Theme marketplaces and WP theme directories are large theme aggregators. WP 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 bigger theme stores 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 design companies can create both free and paid themes, and can vary in size, from an individual developer or a small team of theme designer, to large theme design companies.
Many commercial theme shops 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 WP theme directories .
Let’s now show you where to find the best themes for your website or blog.
Choosing The Best Responsive Themes For Your WP Website Or Blog
WordPress.org
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
The official WordPress.org theme directory is the biggest and best place to find 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 many 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 directory is not only a trustworthy and reputable place to download themes for your WP site, but it also uses a theme review team to review and ensure that each theme in the directory complies with high quality and security standards.
To browse thousands of professionally-designed 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 theme in the WordPress.org 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 a few clicks.
Use The Theme Filters
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 colour design, with a 3-column layout and a full-width template, or themes that support custom menus, etc.
Note: in another article where we discuss the importance of choosing “responsive” themes, we explained how these ensure that your theme will display correctly on all devices (e.g. your computer, tablet and smartphone) …
It’s a good idea to use responsive themes, and the WordPress theme filter lets you do just that …
… and display only themes that are “responsive” …
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 on your site. Additionally, many free themes are professionally designed and provide 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 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 immediate support, especially if they are not getting paid. Many freely distributed themes ask 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 over one year since any change was last made, then think carefully about using it, as WordPress changes quite frequently and these changes can create conflicts or 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 premium 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 WordPress themes in the WordPress.org theme directory and how to narrow down your search for themes that meet specific requirements, let’s turn our attention to paid themes.
Paid WP 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:
WordPress Theme Directories
ThemeForest
ThemeForest is one of the largest and well known theme marketplaces online.
ThemeForest lets many professional WordPress theme designers showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are well over 17,500 premium WP themes listed (you can find great themes from as little as $3) …
(click on the images above to view all themes on ThemeForest)
If you visit the ThemeForest theme marketplace, you will be able to browse for specific WordPress themes in various categories, such as:
- Blog/Magazine – themes for general blogs and e-magazines, etc.
- Corporate – themes suitable for corporate sites and marketing purposes.
- Creative – themes for design, writing professionals, etc.
- Directory Listings – themes suitable for sites about travel, buy & sell, tourism directories, etc.
- eCommerce – themes for selling products online, event bookings and registrations, etc.
- Education – themes that suit sites related to tutoring, etc.
- Entertainment – themes for fashion blogs, nightlife, 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. home sales, etc.)
- Retail – themes for beauty products, trades or professionals (plumbers, medical practitioners, etc.)
- Technology – themes related to technology, affiliate marketing, seo, product reviews, direct sales, etc.
- Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and wedding advice blogs
- Miscellaneous – themes suitable for writing or discussing environmental 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 premium themes in the ThemeForest marketplace here:
Creative Market
(click on the above images to see more Creative Market themes)
Creative Market is another leading WP 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 directory, but you can easily find WordPress themes and narrow your search using theme categories (e.g. Blog or Commerce themes, etc.) using the site’s dropdown “Themes” menu …
Browse through hundreds of quality premium WordPress themes crafted by independent WordPress theme designers in the Creative Market directory here:
Mojo Themes
(click on the images above to browse more WordPress themes at Mojo)
Mojo is a marketplace for premium 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 using the site’s dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …
Visit the site to find great premium WP themes in the Mojo theme directory here:
Now that we have looked at WordPress theme directories, let’s turn our attention to commercial theme agencies.
Commercial Theme Stores
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 images above to view all SoloStream themes)
Woo Themes
Woo Themes designs stunning premium themes for WordPress and offer a membership option that gives you access to their entire theme collection.
(click on the above images to see all 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 designs WordPress themes based on a framework that allows you to quickly and easily build a professional and search optimized WordPress site, and provides a self-updating design architecture, turn-key site designs with beautiful frames for your content and unprecedented control of the framework.
Many web developers prefer using 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 themes remain 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 StudioPress themes use something called “child themes,” which are like a paint job that sits on top of the theme framework and gives your site its unique look and feel.
If this all 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 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 images above to see more StudioPress themes)
Theme-Checking Tools
Let’s finish this post with some useful WordPress theme-related tools worth keeping in mind:
What WordPress Theme Is That WP Theme Checker
What WordPress Theme Is That.com is a free web tool that allows you to easily detect what WordPress theme and plugins a site is using (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 theme the site uses.
Tip: If you can’t tell whether a site was built using WordPress or not, we have posted a a great tutorial that shows you how to tell if a site uses 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 if a site was built using WordPress software, but it will also list the theme being used on the site and list any WordPress plugins detected.
- To use this tool go here: What WordPress Theme Is That.com
- To learn how to use this tool go here: Is Your Web Site Built With WordPress?
Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) – WP Plugin
A word of warning: If you decide to use FREE themes for your WordPress site, we strongly recommend sticking with the reviewed and approved WordPress themes listed in the official WordPress theme directory.
A well-known method used by a number of hacking groups and cyber criminals is to put up sites 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 display on search engine results for 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 download sites.
If you are concerned about whether a WordPress theme that you have installed on your blog 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 plugin searches the source files of every them you have installed on your site for signs of suspicious code and then outputs a report with the results …
(Theme Authenticity Checker Report Page – Screenshot: 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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