In a separate article, we have written a comprehensive overview of WordPress Themes.
If you would like to know more about the benefits of using WordPress themes and what makes WordPress themes so attractive to web site owners, then make sure to check out our post: An Overview of WP Themes
In this blog post, you will learn where to browse hundreds of free and paid themes for your website or blog. 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 poorly-coded themes.
As we’ve explained in another post, a WordPress theme is a unique type of web design template that is used on WordPress-powered websites and designed specifically on the WP platform.
Many professional web designers and web development houses create themes for WordPress. Consequently, members of the WP community have access to thousands of unique themes covering a wide-range of uses.
Finding Responsive Themes For WordPress: How To Avoid Getting Overwhelmed
If you were to browse over to Google and type the following:
- best premium themes for WordPress
- WordPress themes free
- best responsive WordPress themes for authors (enter whatever your business, area of interest or website is about)
You are probably going to get an overwhelming amount of 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 both a hosted and a self-hosted version. We’ll cover these differences in a later post. For now, let’s just be covering 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 Themes
Next, it’s useful to know that there are both Free and Paid WP themes made available. Free themes are normally distributed as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they are sold as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.
Theme Marketplaces & Theme Design Companies
There are 2 kinds of places where you can find themes. The first type of place is in WordPress theme marketplaces and WordPress theme directories. The second are the commercial and independent theme companies.
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 buyers find these just like they would if they were shopping for apps on an app store or software directory.
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 theme design companies can also develop both free and premium themes, and can vary in size, from an individual designer or a small team of theme designer, to large theme development companies.
Most commercial or independent 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 search for great themes for your website or blog.
Where To Find A Responsive Theme Themes For Your WordPress Website
WordPress.org
(WordPress.org – WP Theme Directory)
The official WordPress.org theme directory is the biggest and best place to download free WP themes. 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 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 WP directory is not only a trustworthy and reputable place to download themes for your website, but it also relies on a review team comprised of dedicated and enthusiastic volunteers to review and make sure that each theme listed in the directory complies with specific standards of quality and security.
To browse thousands of excellent FREE WordPress themes from the official WordPress 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 directory and not only find what you are looking for, but also easily install and activate it directly from inside your WordPress admin panel with a few clicks.
Use WP Theme Feature Filter
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 themes with specific features. For example, you could search for themes with a pink colour design, with a 3-column layout and a full-width template, or themes that support custom menus, etc.
Note: in the post mentioned earlier where we present an overview of WordPress themes and discuss the importance of using “responsive” WordPress themes, we explained how these ensure that your theme will display without problems across all devices (e.g. your visitors’ laptops, tablets and smartphones) …
You should use responsive themes, and the WordPress theme filtering option lets you search across its entire database of free themes …
… and bring up only themes that are “responsive” …
Pros & Cons Of Using Free WordPress 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 customizable features, giving you great flexibility and choice in how you configure all of its various layout elements.
The downside to 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 personal support, especially if they are not getting paid. Many freely distributed themes ask users 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 more than 1 year since any changes were made, then we advise you to think carefully about using it, as WordPress is frequently updated and new features can create conflicts and errors with older code.
If you’re just getting started and your site 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 a theme. Who knows, the free theme you’ve downloaded could be exactly what works for your site 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 narrow down your search for themes that meet your specific criteria, let’s turn our attention to finding paid themes.
Premium WordPress 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, then search through the WordPress theme galleries of the “Premium” theme design agencies listed below:
Theme Marketplaces And Directories
ThemeForest
ThemeForest is one of the biggest and well known WordPress theme directories online.
ThemeForest lets many professional WP theme developers showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are over 17,000 premium themes listed (you can find great themes from as little as $3) …
(click on the above images to see more themes on ThemeForest)
If you visit the ThemeForest theme marketplace, you will be able to browse for specific themes in various categories, such as:
- Blog/Magazine – themes for general blogs and e-magazines, etc.
- Corporate – themes suitable for corporate sites or marketing purposes.
- Creative – themes suitable for visual galleries, crafts, etc.
- Directory Listings – themes that suit sites about travel, classifieds, business directories, etc.
- eCommerce – themes for online shopping, event bookings and registrations, etc.
- Education – themes that suit sites related to teaching, etc.
- Entertainment – themes for gossip 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 catalogs, trades or professionals (repairers, dental practitioners, etc.)
- Technology – themes related to technology, landing pages, etc.
- Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and wedding 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 browse many great themes in the ThemeForest theme directory:
Creative Market
(click on the images above to browse more themes on Creative Market)
Creative Market is another leading WP theme directory where you can browse 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 marketplace, but you can easily browse hundreds of WP themes and narrow your search using theme categories (e.g. Magazine or Photography themes, etc.) from the site’s dropdown “Themes” menu …
Browse through hundreds of great premium WP themes crafted by independent WordPress theme designers in the Creative Market theme marketplace here:
Mojo Themes
(click on the above images to browse all WordPress themes at Mojo)
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 WP themes and narrow your search with theme categories using the site’s dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …
Visit the site to find quality premium themes in the Mojo themes directory here:
Now that we have looked at WordPress theme aggregators, let’s look at commercial WP theme design houses.
Commercial WordPress Theme Design Houses
SoloStream
SoloStream provides WordPress users with a selection of high quality WordPress themes and the option of accessing all themes through a WordPress theme membership.
(click on above images to see all themes from SoloStream)
Woo Themes
Woo Themes creates great WordPress themes and offers a membership option that gives you access to their entire theme portfolio.
(click on the above images to browse more WooThemes themes)
StoreFront
StoreFront Themes creates gorgeous WP themes for e-commerce. Their themes also integrate well with some of the most powerful e-commerce platforms and plugins available.
(click on the above images to browse more themes from StoreFront)
StudioPress
StudioPress develops 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 site 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 the framework consistently up-to-date to reflect best coding practices and to make sure that themes remain always compatible with the latest WordPress version, but because you can update your themes without losing any customizations you may 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, 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 view more themes from StudioPress)
WP Theme-Checking Tools
To round things up, here are a couple of useful WordPress theme-related tools worth knowing about:
What WordPress Theme Is That WordPress Theme Checker
What WordPress Theme Is That.com is a free WP theme and plugin-checking tool that allows you to easily detect what WordPress theme a website or blog uses (including parent and child WP 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 site is using.
Tip: If you don’t know if a site runs on WordPress or not, we have published a a great tutorial that shows you how to tell whether or not a site was built using WordPress: How To Check If A Site Was Built Using 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 built on WordPress software, but it will also list the WordPress theme being used and list any WP plugins detected.
- To use the tool visit the website here: What WordPress Theme Is That.com
- To learn how to use this tool go here: How Can I Tell If My Site Was Built With WordPress?
Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) – Plugin
A word of warning: If you decide to use FREE themes for your WordPress site, we highly recommend sticking with the reviewed and approved 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 websites offering “Free” WordPress themes all over the web and then distribute themes and plugins with malicious code embedded in their files. In fact, some of these sites even come up on Google for key phrases like “free WordPress themes“, “best free themes for WordPress”” etc. It’s safer, therefore, to only download free themes from the official WordPress directory, or use well-known and reputable sites.
If you have any doubts about whether a WordPress theme that you have installed on your blog could contain 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 scans the source files of every them you have installed on your site for signs of malicious code and presents you with a report as shown in the screenshot below …
(TAC Report Page – Screenshot Source: Plugin, WordPress.org)
We hope that you have found the information on how to find great WP free and commercial responsive themes useful.
***
"Your training is the best in the world! It is simple, yet detailed, direct, understandable, memorable, and complete." Andrea Adams, FinancialJourney.org
***