Where To Find The Best WordPress Themes

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

If you would like to learn more about the benefits of using WP themes and what makes WordPress themes so special, then make sure to check out the article here: An Overview of WordPress Themes

In this article, we will show you where to 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 how to avoid experiencing problems like lack of customer support and poorly-coded themes.

As we’ve explained in another article, a theme is a unique type of web design template used on WordPress-powered sites and designed specifically for the WordPress CMS platform.

Many individual web designers and website development houses create themes for WordPress. Consequently, members of the WP community can access thousands of great WordPress themes covering a wide-range of applications.

Finding WP Themes: Too Much Information … Where To Begin?

If you were to launch Google and type key phrases like this:

• best free themes for WordPress
• best premium WordPress themes
• best responsive WordPress themes for churches (enter whatever your business, search topic or website is about)

You are probably 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 both a hosted and a self-hosted version. We’ll explain these differences in a later post. In this article, we’ll only 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 the design of your blog.

Free vs Paid Themes

Next, it’s useful to know that there are both Free and Paid themes made available. Free themes for WordPress are normally distributed as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License, or they will be sold as Premium (i.e. paid) themes.

WP Theme Marketplaces & WordPress Theme Developers

There are two kinds of places where themes can be found. The first type of place is in WP theme marketplaces and theme directories. The second type of place are the commercial and independent theme houses.

Theme marketplaces and theme directories are big theme stores. WordPress 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 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 theme development firms typically develop both free and paid WP themes, and can vary in size, from an individual theme developer or a small team of designer, to large theme design companies.

Most commercial theme companies 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 search for great WP themes for your website or blog.

Finding Responsive Themes For Your Website Or Blog

WordPress.org

(WordPress.org – Free Theme Directory)

The official WordPress 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 some free software users have learned– downloading free software, add-ons, apps, templates or themes from untrustworthy places can place 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 WordPress site, but it also relies on a team of theme reviewers to review and ensure that each theme in the directory meets specific standards of quality and security.

To browse thousands of professionally-designed FREE WordPress themes from the official WordPress Themes Directory, 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 WP theme in the WordPress.org 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 dashboard with only a couple of mouse clicks.

Use The 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 Colors, Layout and Features …

This makes it easier to find themes with specific features. For example, you could search for themes with predominantly blue color design, with a 2-column layout and a full-width template, or themes that support custom menus, etc.

Note: in another post where we present an overview of WordPress themes and discuss the importance of using “responsive” WP themes, we explained how responsive themes allow your site to be viewed without problems on all devices (e.g. your laptop, tablet and smartphone) …

It’s a good idea to use responsive themes, and the WordPress theme filter lets you search across its entire database of free themes …

… and bring back only themes that are “responsive” …

Pros & Cons Of Using Free Themes

The obvious “pro” to using free themes is that it’s free to download and use the theme. Additionally, many free themes are professionally designed and provide a number of customizable options, giving you great flexibility and choice in how you configure all of its various layout elements.

The ”cons” of 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 developer to provide urgent support, especially if they are not getting paid. Many freely distributed themes will ask you for a donation 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 a year since any change was last made, then it’s best to think twice about using it, as the WordPress software changes quite frequently and this can create conflicts and errors with older code.

If you’re just getting started and your site 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 any money on premium themes. Who knows, the free theme you’ve downloaded may just be the thing that works for your site and your business.

Now that we’ve seen how to find free themes in the WordPress.org theme directory and ways to narrow down your search for themes that meet specific criteria, it’s time to turn our attention to finding premium WordPress 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 responsive support, you can search through the WordPress theme galleries of the “Premium” theme design agencies listed below:

Theme Directories

ThemeForest

ThemeForest is one of the largest and most popular theme directories online.

ThemeForest lets many professional WordPress theme developers showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are well over 15,000 premium themes to choose from (you can find great themes from as little as $3) …

(click on the images above to see more themes on ThemeForest)

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

• Blog/Magazine – themes for personal blogs and political blogs, etc.
• Corporate – themes suitable for medical sites and advertising purposes.
• Creative – themes suitable for visual galleries, kindle book authors, etc.
• Directory Listings – themes ideal for sites related to directory listings, holiday rentals, community resources, etc.
• eCommerce – themes for selling products online, event bookings and registrations, etc.
• Education – themes that suit sites related to training, etc.
• Entertainment – themes for entertainment blogs, cafes, etc.
• Mobile – e.g. retina-ready themes.
• NonProfit – themes for nonprofit organizations, charities, etc.
• Real Estate – themes for real estate and real estate listings (e.g. rentals, etc.)
• Retail – themes for shops, trades or professionals (plumbers, medical centers, etc.)
• Technology – themes related to hosting, affiliate marketing, seo, product reviews, direct sales, etc.
• Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and marriage counselling 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 emails you theme update notifications)

Go here to discover quality premium WordPress themes in the ThemeForest site:

• ThemeForest

Creative Market

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

Creative Market is another leading WordPress theme marketplace where you can browse thousands of quality premium 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 WordPress themes and narrow your search using theme categories from 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:

• Creative Market

Mojo Themes

(click on the images above to see more Mojo themes)

Mojo is a directory 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 WordPress themes and narrow your search with theme categories by choosing the site’s dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …

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

• Mojo

Now that we have looked at WordPress theme aggregators, let’s take a look at commercial and independent WordPress theme development firms.

Commercial Theme Stores

SoloStream

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

(click on above images to browse all SoloStream themes)

Woo Themes

Woo Themes designs eye-catching premium themes for WordPress that are very popular and highly sought after by website users and also offers a membership option that gives you access to their entire theme collection.

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

StoreFront

StoreFront 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 more StoreFront themes)

StudioPress

StudioPress provides WordPress themes based on a framework that enables users to quickly and easily build a professional and search optimized WordPress website, and provides a self-updating design architecture, turn-key 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 the framework consistently updated to reflect best practices for coding and to make sure that it always remains compatible with the latest version of WordPress, but because you can update themes built using the Genesis framework without losing any customizations you may have made to your theme.

This is because themes built with the Genesis framework 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 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 see more themes from StudioPress)

Theme-Checking Tools

Let’s finish this post with a couple of useful WordPress theme-related tools worth knowing about:

What WP Theme Is That? WP Theme Checker

What WordPress Theme Is That? is a free WP theme and plugin-checking tool that allows you to easily detect what WP theme and plugins a website is using (including parent and child WordPress themes).

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 website.

Tip: If you can’t tell whether a site was built using WordPress or not, go here for a great tutorial that helps you tell whether or not a site is WP-driven: Was My Website Built With WordPress? How To Tell

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 WP theme being used and list any WP plugins detected.

• To use this online tool visit the website here: What WordPress Theme Is That.com
• To learn how to use this tool go here: Is My Site WordPress?

Theme Authenticity Checker - 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 themes listed in the official WordPress theme directory.

A well-known strategy used by many hacking groups and cyber criminals is to put up websites offering “Free” WP themes 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 phrases like “free WordPress themes“, “best free WordPress themes”” etc. It’s safer, therefore, to stick with the official WordPress repository, or use established and reputable theme vendors.

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

(TAC Report Page – Screenshot Source: Plugin)

We hope that you have found this information useful.

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