Tag: WordPress Themes

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

If you haven’t yet discovered themes and what makes WordPress themes unique, then go here to read our post: Understanding WP Themes – A Handy Guide For Website Owners

In this blog post, you will learn where you can search 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 make sure that you get the right themes for your needs and avoid having to deal with problems like lack of product support and poor theme coding.

As explained in another article, a WordPress theme is a special type of web template that is used on WordPress-driven websites and blogs and designed specifically on the WP content management system.

Many website designers and web design houses create themes for WordPress. Consequently, members of the WP community can access thousands of excellent WP themes designed for a wide range of purposes and needs.

Finding Great WordPress Themes: Too Much Information … Where To Begin?

If you were to fire up Google and search for the following:

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

You are probably going to get an overwhelming amount of junk to sort through in your search listings.

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 both a hosted and a self-hosted version. We’ll explain these differences in a later post. To keep things simple, let’s just cover the topic of 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 the design of your website.

Free vs Paid Themes

Next, it’s useful to know that you can find thousands of Free and Paid WordPress themes being 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 (paid) themes.

WordPress Theme Marketplaces vs Commercial Theme Developers

There are 2 places where you can find themes. The first type of place is in theme marketplaces and theme directories. The second are the commercial and independent WordPress theme shops.

WP theme marketplaces and 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 search for 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 WordPress theme vendors typically will create both free and premium WordPress themes, and can vary in size, from an individual developer or a small team of theme developer, to large theme design companies.

Many commercial theme shops 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 WordPress theme directories .

Let’s now show you where to find the best WordPress themes for your blog.

Where To Find The Best Responsive Themes For Your Website Or Blog

WordPress.org

(WordPress.org – WordPress Themes Directory)

The official WordPress theme directory is the largest and best place to download free WordPress themes. In fact, it’s probably the only free WP theme directory you should use when looking for free WP themes. The reason why, is because –as many free software users have learned– 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 theme directory is not only a trustworthy and reputable place to download themes for your site, but it also uses a theme review team comprised of dedicated and hard working volunteers to review and make sure that each theme in the directory complies with high standards of quality and security.

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

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

You Don’t Even Have To Leave Your WP 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 start using it directly from within your WP admin panel with just a couple of clicks.

Use The WordPress Theme Feature Filter

WordPress provides a filtering function inside the admin area that lets you narrow down your search for themes based on criteria like Colours, Layout and Features …

This makes it easier to find what you are looking for. For example, you could search for themes with a gray color design, with a four-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” WP themes, we explained how responsive themes allow your site to be viewed without problems across all devices (e.g. computers, tablets and smartphones) …

You should use responsive themes, and the WordPress theme filtering function lets you do just that …

… and bring back only themes that use “responsive” design standards …

Pros & Cons Of Using Free Themes

The obvious “pro” to using free themes is that it costs nothing to download and use the theme. An added plus, is that many free themes are professionally designed and provide 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 developer to provide immediate support, especially if they are not getting paid. Most free 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 more than 1 year since any change was made, then think carefully about using it, as the WordPress software 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 quite 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 a paid theme. Who knows, the theme you downloaded for free could be exactly what works for you and for your business.

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 WP 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 great support, you can search through the WordPress theme galleries of the “Premium” theme design agencies listed below:

Theme Marketplaces And Directories

ThemeForest

ThemeForest is one of the largest and well known WP theme directories online.

ThemeForest lets many professional WP theme designers showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are well over 17,000 premium WordPress themes listed (some starting from as little as $3) …

(click on the images above to view all ThemeForest themes)

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

• Blog/Magazine – themes for personal blogs and political blogs, etc.
• Corporate – themes suitable for legal sites or advertising purposes.
• Creative – themes for creative work, writers, etc.
• Directory Listings – themes ideal for sites about travel, classifieds, social directories, etc.
• eCommerce – themes for ecommerce, event bookings and registrations, etc.
• Education – themes that suit sites related to training, etc.
• Entertainment – themes for fashion blogs, music venues, 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 boutiques, trades or professionals (electricians, dental practitioners, etc.)
• Technology – themes related to apps, newsletters, etc.
• Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and marriage celebrant blogs
• Miscellaneous – themes suitable for writing or discussing political 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)

Browse thousands of great WP themes in the ThemeForest theme marketplace here:

• ThemeForest

Creative Market

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

Creative Market is another leading WordPress theme marketplace where you can search through many 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 directory, but you can easily find themes for WordPress and search through their theme categories from the site’s dropdown “Themes” menu …

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

• Creative Market

Mojo Themes

(click on the above images to view more WordPress themes at Mojo.com)

Mojo is a marketplace for premium 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 find themes for WordPress and search through their theme categories by using the site’s dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …

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

• Mojo

Now that we have looked at WP theme directories, let’s look at commercial WordPress theme stores.

Commercial And Independent WP Theme Stores

SoloStream

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

(click on above images to view all SoloStream themes)

Woo Themes

Woo Themes designs functional premium themes for WordPress that are very popular and highly sought after by website users and offers a membership option that lets you access all themes in their growing WordPress theme collection.

(click on the above images to browse all WooThemes themes)

StoreFront

StoreFront specializes in 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 browse all themes from StoreFront)

StudioPress

StudioPress provides WordPress themes based on a framework that allows users to quickly and easily build a professional and search optimized WordPress website, and provides an auto-updating design architecture, turn-key site designs with beautiful frames for your content and unprecedented control of the framework.

Many website developers prefer using the Genesis framework not only because it’s well-coded and well-supported (the development team at StudioPress keeps the framework consistently up-to-date to reflect best practices for coding and to make sure that themes remain always compatible with the latest version of WordPress, but because you can update your themes 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 look and feel.

If this all 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 themes from StudioPress 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

Let’s finish this post with a couple of useful WordPress theme-related tools worth keeping in mind:

What WP Theme Is That – WP Theme Checker

What WordPress Theme Is That is a free online tool that allows you to easily detect what WordPress theme and plugins 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 theme is being used on the site.

Tip: If you can’t tell if a site was built using WordPress or not, we have posted a a great tutorial that helps you tell whether or not a site is powered by WordPress: Is My Website 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 whether or not the site is powered by WordPress software, but it will also list the WordPress theme being used by the site and list any WP plugins it detects.

• To use this tool visit the website here: What WordPress Theme Is That
• To learn more about this tool go here: Is My Website WordPress?

Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) – WordPress 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 approved WordPress themes listed in the official WordPress theme directory.

A strategy that is commonly used by many hackers and cyber criminals is to put up sites and directories offering “Free” themes for WordPress all over the web and distribute modified 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 theme directory, or use established and trusted theme merchants.

If you are concerned about whether a WordPress theme 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 WordPress theme files. This plugin scans the source files of every installed theme on your site for signs of suspicious code and then outputs a report as shown in the screenshot below …

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

I hope that you have found this information useful.

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