Tag: WP Themes

In an earlier article, we provide new WordPress users with a comprehensive overview of WordPress Themes.

If you haven’t yet discovered WordPress themes and what makes themes so attractive to web site owners, then make sure to check out our post: An Introduction to WordPress Themes

In this blog post, you will learn where to explore loads of professional 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 ensure that you get the right themes for your needs and how to avoid having to deal with problems like lack of product support and poorly-coded themes.

As explained in another post, a WordPress theme is a unique kind of web template used on WordPress-driven sites and designed specifically on WordPress.

Many talented web designers and website development houses create themes for WordPress. Consequently, WordPress users can access thousands of professional-quality WP themes covering a wide-range of applications.

Finding Great Responsive Themes For WordPress: So Many Choices … Where To Begin?

Let’s say you were to browse over to Google and type a key phrase like the following:

• best responsive WordPress themes
• best responsive WordPress themes
• best free WordPress themes for churches (or whatever your business, search topic or website 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 things easier, let’s just cut through the clutter and make the process of finding great WordPress themes really simple.

WordPress.com vs WordPress.org Themes

Before we get started, you need to know that WordPress offers users both a hosted and a self-hosted version. We’ll explain 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, which gives you more freedom, more options and more control over your site’s web design.

Free vs Paid WordPress Themes

Next, it’s useful to know that you can find thousands of Free and Paid WP themes made available. Free WP themes are generally distributed as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they are sold as Premium (paid) themes.

WordPress Theme Directories & Theme Development Firms

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

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

Some of the larger 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 theme stores typically will create both free and commercial themes, and can vary in size, from an individual theme designer or a small team of theme developer, to large web and theme design and development companies.

Most commercial or independent theme stores 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 directories .

Let’s now show you where to search for great WP themes for your website.

Choosing Great Themes For Your Website Or Blog

WordPress.org

(WordPress.org – Theme Directory)

The official WordPress theme directory is the largest and best place to download WordPress themes for free. In fact, it’s probably the only free theme directory you should use when looking for free WordPress 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 contain malicious code and place your computer, digital presence and 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 team of theme reviewers to review and make sure that each theme in the directory complies with specific quality and security standards.

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

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

Find Themes Inside Your Dashboard

Useful Tip: You can easily browse through every WordPress 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 inside your WP admin panel with just a couple of mouse clicks.

Use WP Theme Filters

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 easy to find what you are looking for. For example, you could search for themes with predominantly light colour design, with a 3-column layout and a full-width template, or themes that support custom menus, etc.

Note: in the article where we discuss the importance of choosing “responsive” themes, we explained how responsive themes ensure that your theme will work on all devices (e.g. the PCs, smartphones and tablets used by visitors to view your information) …

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

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

Pros & Cons Of Using Free Themes

The obvious “pro” to using free WP themes is that there is no cost to download and use the theme. Additionally, many free themes are professionally designed and come with a number of customizable options, giving you great flexibility and choice in how you configure all of its various layout elements.

The downside of 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 developer to provide immediate support, especially if they are not getting paid. Many free themes will ask you for a donation 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 downloading it, as the theme may have been abandoned by its developer.

If you’re just getting started and your website or blog 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 paid theme. Who knows, the free theme you’ve downloaded may just be the thing that works for you and for converting your site visitors into customers.

Now that we’ve seen how to find free themes in the WordPress theme directory and how to narrow down your search for themes that meet your specific requirements, it’s time to turn our attention to finding premium themes.

Paid 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, then search through the WordPress theme galleries of the “Premium” theme design agencies listed below:

Theme Marketplaces

ThemeForest

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

ThemeForest allows many professional WordPress theme creators to showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are currently over 17,000 premium themes to choose from (some starting from as little as $3) …

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

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 general blogs and blog magazines, etc.
• Corporate – themes suitable for government sites or marketing purposes.
• Creative – themes for photography, crafts, etc.
• Directory Listings – themes ideal for sites related to employment opportunities, holiday rentals, social directories, etc.
• eCommerce – themes for online shopping, membership sites, etc.
• Education – themes that suit sites related to teaching, etc.
• Entertainment – themes for film & tv blogs, dining out, etc.
• Mobile – e.g. retina-ready themes.
• NonProfit – themes for nonprofit organizations, churches, etc.
• Real Estate – themes for real estate and real estate listings (e.g. home sales, etc.)
• Retail – themes for specialty stores, trades or professionals (electricians, engineering, etc.)
• Technology – themes related to technology, newsletters, etc.
• Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and dating advice blogs
• Miscellaneous – themes suitable for writing or discussing political 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 emails you theme update notifications)

Browse thousands of quality premium WP themes in the ThemeForest marketplace here:

• ThemeForest

Creative Market

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

Creative Market is another leading WordPress theme marketplace 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 WP themes in its directory, but you can easily go through all of their 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 directory here:

• Creative Market

Mojo Themes

(click on the above images to view all themes at Mojo)

Mojo is a directory 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 WP themes, but you can easily go through all of their themes for WordPress and narrow your search with theme categories (e.g. Portfolio or Business themes and theme frameworks, etc.) from the dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …

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

• Mojo

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

Commercial WordPress Theme Design Companies

SoloStream

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

(click on images above to view all themes from SoloStream)

Woo Themes

Woo Themes creates great WP themes and offers a membership option that gives you access to all themes in their WordPress theme collection.

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

StoreFront

StoreFront Themes 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 StoreFront themes)

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 web developers like the Genesis framework not only because it’s well-coded and well-supported (the development team at StudioPress keeps this framework consistently updated to reflect best coding practices 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 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 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 very easy to work with, just like all other WordPress themes. The great thing about choosing themes from StudioPress is that one low price allows 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 above images to see more themes from StudioPress)

WP Theme-Checking Tools

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

What WP Theme Is That – WP Theme And Plugin Checker

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

This is a great resource if you have come across a WordPress site that you like and would like to know what theme the website or blog 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 Your Website Built With 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 whether or not a site has been built using WordPress, but it will also list the theme being used and list any plugins it detects.

• To use this tool go here: What WordPress Theme Is That?
• To learn how to use this tool go here: Is Your 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 recommend sticking with the approved WordPress themes listed in the official WordPress theme repository.

A method that is commonly used by many hacking groups and cyber criminals is to put up sites and directories offering “Free” themes for WordPress all over the web and then distribute themes and plugins that contain malicious code. In fact, some of these sites even display on Google’s search results for phrases like “free WordPress themes“, “best free WordPress themes”” etc. It’s safer, therefore, to stick with the official WordPress.org repository, or use well-known and trusted sites.

If you are concerned about whether a WordPress theme installed on your site may contain malicious or unwanted code, use a free WordPress plugin like Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) to perform a scan of your theme files. This plugin scans the source files of every them you have installed on your site for signs of suspicious code and outputs a report as shown in the screenshot below …

(TAC Report Page – Screenshot: Plugin)

We hope that you have found the information on how to find great WP useful.

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