In an earlier article, we provide new WordPress users with a comprehensive overview of WordPress Themes.
If you would like to know more about WordPress themes and what makes WP themes so special, then go here to read our post: A Useful Guide To Understanding WP Themes
In this article, we will show you where you can browse hundreds of free and paid themes for your WP website. 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 how to avoid experiencing problems like lack of support and poorly-coded themes.
As explained in our previous post, a theme is a special type of web design template that is used on WordPress-driven websites and blogs and designed specifically for the WP content management system.
Many individual web designers and website design firms create themes for WordPress. Consequently, WordPress users can access thousands of unique themes designed to cover a wide range of purposes and needs.
Finding WordPress Themes: So Many Choices … Where To Begin?
Let’s say you were to fire up Google and search for something like the following:
- best free themes for WordPress
- best free themes for WordPress
- best responsive WordPress themes for artists (or whatever your business, search topic or blog is about)
Chances are that you are going to get an overwhelming amount of disorganized 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 start, you should know that WordPress offers users both a hosted and a self-hosted version. We’ll cover these differences in a separate post. To keep things simple, let’s just be focusing on finding 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 web design.
Free vs Paid WordPress Themes
Next, it’s important to know that typically, you’ll find both Free and Paid themes made available. Free themes are generally distributed as Free Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they can be made available to users as Premium (paid) themes.
Theme Marketplaces And Directories vs Theme Shops
There are mostly two kinds of places where you can find themes. The first is in WP theme marketplaces and WordPress theme directories. The second are the commercial and independent theme vendors.
WP theme marketplaces and theme directories are big aggregators of themes. WordPress theme developers (both commercial and independent) list their themes (both free and paid) in the marketplace or directory and visitors search for 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 WP theme vendors typically will develop both free and paid themes, and can vary in size, from an individual theme developer or a small team of theme developer, to large theme development companies.
As you will see, most commercial theme design houses 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 search for the best WordPress themes for your website or blog.
Finding Responsive WordPress Themes For Your Website Or Blog
WordPress.org
(WordPress.org – Free WordPress Theme Directory)
The official WordPress.org theme directory is the largest and best place to search for 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 discovered– downloading free software, add-ons, apps, templates or themes from untrustworthy places can contain malicious code and put 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 WP site, but it also uses a team of theme reviewers to review and make sure that each theme uploaded to the directory complies with certain 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
Find WP Themes Inside Your WordPress Dashboard
Useful Tip: You can easily browse through every WordPress theme in the WordPress directory and not only find a great theme for your website or blog, but also easily install and activate it directly from inside your WordPress admin panel with just a couple of mouse clicks.
Use WordPress Theme Filtering
WordPress provides a filtering function inside the dashboard area that lets you narrow down your search for themes based on criteria like Colors, Layout and Features …
This makes it easier to find themes with specific features. For example, you could search for themes with predominantly pink color design, with a two-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 using “responsive” WordPress themes, we explained how responsive themes ensure that your theme will display correctly on all devices (e.g. the computers, smartphones and tablets used by visitors to browse your website) …
It’s a good idea to use responsive themes, and the WordPress theme filtering option lets you do just that …
… and find only WP themes that are “responsive” …
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. An added plus, is that many free themes are professionally designed and come with a number of built-in customizable settings, giving you great flexibility and choice in how you configure all of its various layout elements.
The downside to 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 theme developer to provide personal support, especially if they are not getting paid. Most freely distributed themes will ask you for a donation to help cover their costs of providing support and updates, bug fixes, etc..
When downloading free themes, therefore, check to see when the theme was last updated. If it’s been over a year since any changes were last made, then we advise you to think carefully about using it, as the theme may have been abandoned by its developer.
If you’re just getting started and your website is still relatively 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 money on a theme. Who knows, the free theme you’ve downloaded could be exactly what works for you and for converting your site visitors into customers.
Now that we’ve seen how to find free WP themes in the WordPress theme directory and how to narrow down your search for themes that meet specific requirements, let’s turn our attention to finding premium 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:
WordPress Theme Directories
ThemeForest
ThemeForest is one of the largest and best-known WordPress theme marketplaces online.
ThemeForest lets many professional WordPress theme designers showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are over 15,000 premium themes to choose from (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 marketplace, you will be able to browse for specific themes in a range of categories, such as:
- Blog/Magazine – themes for general blogs and green living blogs, etc.
- Corporate – themes suitable for corporate sites and advertising purposes.
- Creative – themes suitable for photography, freelancers, etc.
- Directory Listings – themes suitable for sites about employment opportunities, dining out & restaurants, community resources, etc.
- eCommerce – themes for selling products online, event bookings and registrations, etc.
- Education – themes that suit sites related to tutoring, etc.
- Entertainment – themes for gossip blogs, music venues, etc.
- Mobile – e.g. responsive 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 retail stores, trades or professionals (electricians, legal practitioners, etc.)
- Technology – themes related to apps, newsletters, etc.
- Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and dating 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)
Go here to discover quality premium themes in the ThemeForest directory:
Creative Market
(click on the images above to see more themes on Creative Market)
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 WordPress themes in its directory, but you can easily browse hundreds of themes for WordPress and narrow your search using theme categories using the site’s dropdown “Themes” menu …
Browse through hundreds of quality premium WordPress themes crafted by independent WP theme designers in the Creative Market marketplace here:
Mojo Themes
(click on the above images to browse more Mojo themes)
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 go through all of their WP themes and search through their theme categories by using the site’s dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …
Visit the site to find great WordPress themes in the Mojo directory here:
Now that we have looked at WordPress theme aggregators, let’s look at commercial and independent WordPress theme stores.
Commercial And Independent Theme Shops
SoloStream
SoloStream provides WordPress users with a selection of professional quality premium themes and the option of accessing all themes through a WordPress theme membership.
(click on images above to see more SoloStream themes)
Woo Themes
Woo Themes designs functional premium themes and offer a membership option that lets you access all themes in their growing theme portfolio.
(click on the images above to view more themes from WooThemes)
StoreFront
StoreFront Themes creates amazing WP themes for e-commerce. StoreFront themes also integrate well with some of the most powerful e-commerce platforms and plugins available.
(click on the images above to browse all StoreFront themes)
StudioPress
StudioPress develops WordPress themes based on a framework (called the “Genesis” framework) that lets users 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 the content and unprecedented control of the framework.
Many website developers like this 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 framework and gives your site its unique look and feel.
If this 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 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 view all StudioPress themes)
WP Theme-Checking Tools
To round things up, here are a couple of useful WordPress theme-related tools worth knowing about:
What WP Theme Is That WordPress Theme Checker
What WordPress Theme Is That? is a free web 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 have come across a WordPress site that you like and would like to know what WP theme the website or blog uses.
Tip: If you can’t tell whether a site runs on WordPress or not, we have published a a great tutorial that shows you how to tell if a site uses WordPress: The Easy Way To Tell If Your Web Site Was Built Using The WP CMS Platform
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 the site is powered by the WP CMS platform, but it will also list the WordPress theme being used by the site and list any WP plugins detected.
- To use this online tool go here: What WordPress Theme Is That?
- To learn more about this tool go here: How Can I Check If A Website Was Built Using WordPress?
Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC)
A word of warning: When choosing FREE themes for your WordPress site, we highly recommend sticking with the themes listed in the official WordPress theme repository.
A commonly-used strategy employed by a number of hackers and cyber criminals is to put up sites and directories offering “Free” themes for WordPress all over the web and distribute themes and plugins containing malicious code. In fact, some of these sites even display on Google’s search results for search phrases like “free WordPress themes“, “best free WordPress themes”” etc. It’s best, therefore, to only download free WordPress themes from the official WordPress.org directory, or use established and trusted theme vendors.
If you are in doubt about whether a WordPress theme installed on your site may contain malware or unwanted code, you can use a free WordPress plugin like Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) to scan your WordPress theme files. The TAC 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 …
(Theme Authenticity Checker Report Page – Screenshot Source: Plugin)
We hope that you have found the information on how to find the best WordPress free and premium responsive themes useful.
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