Where To Find The Best WordPress Themes

In a separate article, we have written a comprehensive overview of WordPress Themes.

If you haven’t yet discovered themes and what makes WordPress themes so attractive to website owners, then go here to read the post: Understanding WordPress Themes – A Practical Guide For Newbies

In this blog post, we will show you where you can browse hundreds of free and paid themes for your WordPress 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 avoid experiencing 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 with WordPress in mind.

Many talented web designers and web design firms create themes for WordPress. Consequently, members of the WordPress community can access thousands of professional-quality themes designed to cover many website uses.

Finding Responsive Themes For WordPress: How To Avoid Information Overload

If you were to open up Google and search for something like the following:

• best WP themes
• WordPress themes free
• best paid WordPress themes for musicians (or whatever your business, search topic or website is about)

Chances are that you are going to get an overwhelming amount of disorganized information to sort through in your search listings.

So, to help you save time and make your life 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 start, you need to know that WordPress offers both a hosted and a self-hosted version. We’ll explain these differences in a different article. For now, let’s just cover the topic of 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 the design of your website.

Free vs Paid WP Themes

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

WP Theme Marketplaces & WordPress Theme Agencies

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

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

Some of the larger directories 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 agencies typically will design both free and paid WordPress themes, and can vary in size, from an individual developer or a small team of developer, to large web and theme design and development companies.

Most commercial or independent theme companies 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 Theme For Your Website Or Blog

WordPress.org

(WordPress.org – Theme Directory)

The official WordPress.org theme directory is the largest and best place to find free WordPress themes. In fact, it’s probably the only free directory you should use when looking for free WP themes. The reason for this, is because –as some 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 website or blog, but it also relies on a review team to review and ensure that each theme listed in the directory meets their standards of quality and security.

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

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

Find WordPress Themes Inside Your Dashboard

Useful Tip: You can easily browse through every WP theme in the WordPress theme directory and not only find a great theme for your website or blog, but also easily install and start using it directly from inside your WordPress dashboard with a couple of clicks.

Use The WordPress Theme Feature Filters

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 easy to find what you are looking for. For example, you could search for themes with predominantly blue colour design, with a four-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 without problems across all devices (e.g. the computers, smartphones and tablets used by visitors to view your web content) …

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

… and display only WordPress themes that use “responsive” design standards …

Pros & Cons Of Using Free WordPress Themes

The obvious “pro” to using free themes is that there is no cost to download and use the theme. Additionally, many free themes are professionally designed and provide a number of built-in 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 theme 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 over 1 year since any updates were made, then you should think carefully about downloading it, as the WordPress software is frequently updated and these changes can create conflicts or errors with older code.

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 paid themes. Who knows, the theme you downloaded for free could be exactly what works for your site and for your business.

Now that we’ve seen how to find free WP themes in the WordPress.org theme directory and ways to filter your search for themes that meet specific criteria, let’s turn our attention to finding paid themes.

Paid WordPress 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 allows many professional WP theme creators to showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are currently over 15,000 premium themes listed (you can find great themes from as little as $3) …

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

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 general blogs and news editorials, etc.
• Corporate – themes suitable for corporate sites and advertising purposes.
• Creative – themes suitable for photography, crafts, etc.
• Directory Listings – themes that suit sites about directory listings, dining out & restaurants, business directories, etc.
• eCommerce – themes for e-commerce, membership sites, etc.
• Education – themes that suit sites related to teaching, etc.
• Entertainment – themes for celebrity blogs, dining out, 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. rentals, etc.)
• Retail – themes for specialty stores, trades or professionals (plumbers, dentists, etc.)
• Technology – themes related to apps, affiliate marketing, seo, product reviews, direct sales, etc.
• Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and wedding advice 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 browse many great premium WP themes in the ThemeForest theme website:

• ThemeForest

Creative Market

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

Creative Market is another leading WordPress theme directory where you can browse 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 WordPress themes in its marketplace, but you can easily go through all of their themes for WordPress and narrow your search using theme categories using their dropdown “Themes” menu …

Browse through hundreds of quality premium WP themes crafted by independent WordPress theme designers in the Creative Market theme marketplace here:

• Creative Market

Mojo Themes

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

Mojo is a directory for premium-quality WP 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 (e.g. Magazine or eCommerce themes and theme frameworks, etc.) from the dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …

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

• Mojo Themes

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

Commercial WordPress Theme Agencies

SoloStream

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

(click on above images to view more SoloStream themes)

Woo Themes

Woo Themes designs eye-catching premium themes for WordPress and offers a membership option that gives you access to all themes in their growing WP theme collection.

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

StoreFront

StoreFront creates gorgeous e-commerce themes for WordPress. StoreFront themes also integrate well with some of the most powerful e-commerce platforms and plugins available.

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

StudioPress

StudioPress builds WordPress themes based on a framework (called the “Genesis” 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 designs with beautiful frames for the content and unprecedented control of the framework.

Many web developers prefer using this framework not only because it’s well-coded and well-supported (the development team at StudioPress keeps this framework regularly updated to reflect best practices for coding and to ensure that it is 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 themes built with the Genesis framework 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, 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 StudioPress themes 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 view more themes from StudioPress)

WordPress Theme-Checking Tools

Here are a couple of useful WP theme-related tools worth keeping in mind:

What WordPress Theme Is That? – WP Theme And Plugin Search Tool

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

This is a great resource if you ever 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 published a a great tutorial that helps you tell if a site is powered by WordPress: Is Your Website Powered By 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 has been built using the WP CMS platform, but it will also list the theme being used by the site and list any plugins detected.

• To use this tool visit the website here: What WordPress Theme Is That.com
• To learn more about this tool go here: How Can I Check If My Web Site Was Built Using WordPress?

Theme Authenticity Checker - WP Plugin

A word of warning: If you decide to use FREE themes for your WordPress site, we highly recommend sticking with the approved themes listed in the official WordPress theme repository.

A commonly-used tactic employed by many hackers and syndicates that engage in cyber-crime is to put up websites offering “Free” WP themes 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’s search results for phrases like “free WordPress themes“, “best free WordPress themes”” etc. It’s best, therefore, to stick with the official WordPress.org directory, or use established and reputable theme merchants.

If you are in doubt about whether a WordPress theme installed on your site could contain malware or unwanted code, use a free WordPress plugin like Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) to scan your WordPress theme files. This plugin scans the source files of every installed theme on your site for signs of injected code and then presents you with a report …

(Theme Authenticity Checker Report Page – Screenshot Source: Plugin)

We hope that you have found the information on how to find great WP free and premium responsive themes useful.

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