In a previous article, we have written a comprehensive overview of WordPress Themes.
If you haven’t yet discovered themes and what makes themes so special, then make sure to check out this post: An Overview of WordPress Themes
In this blog post, we show you where you can look for 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 avoid dealing with problems like lack of support and poorly-coded themes.
As explained in another post, a WordPress theme is a unique kind of web template used on WordPress-powered websites and blogs and designed to work specifically with WordPress in mind.
Many professional website designers and web development firms create themes for WordPress. Consequently, WordPress users enjoy access to thousands of great WordPress themes designed to cover a wide range of purposes.
Where To Find Responsive WordPress Themes: How To Avoid Information Overload
Let’s say you were to fire up Google and type key phrases like the following:
- best themes for WordPress
- best premium WordPress themes
- best responsive WordPress themes for blogs (enter whatever your business, area of interest or blog is about)
You are probably going to get an overwhelming amount of information to sort through in your 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 separate post. To keep things simple, please note that we will only cover themes for the self-hosted version of WordPress (WordPress.org) in this article, which gives you more freedom, more options and more control over the design areas of your blog.
Free vs Paid WP Themes
Next, it’s useful to know that there are thousands of Free and Paid themes being made available. Free themes 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.
Theme Directories Commercial And Independent Theme Stores
There are 2 kinds of places where you can find themes. The first is in WP theme marketplaces and theme directories. The second place are the commercial and independent theme development firms.
Theme marketplaces and theme directories are large aggregators of themes. WP theme developers (both commercial and independent) list their themes (both free and paid) in the marketplace or directory and customers shop for these just like they would if they were shopping for apps on an app store or software directory.
Some of the larger theme stores 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 WP theme design houses typically will develop both free and paid themes, and can vary in size, from an individual designer or a small team of theme designer, to large web and theme development companies.
Many commercial theme shops 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 WordPress theme directories .
Let’s now show you where to search for the best themes for your blog.
Finding A WordPress Theme For Your Website Or Blog
WordPress.org
(WordPress.org – Themes 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 place your computer, digital presence … even your entire business at risk.
The WordPress.org directory is not only a trustworthy and reputable place to download themes for your website, but it also uses a team of theme reviewers to review and ensure that each theme listed in the directory complies with their quality and security standards.
To browse thousands of great-looking FREE WordPress themes from the official Themes Directory, go here:
http://www.wordpress.org/extend/themes
Find WP Themes Inside Your WordPress Dashboard
Useful Tip: You can easily browse through every theme in the WordPress theme directory and not only find what you are looking for, but also easily install and activate it directly from within your WordPress dashboard with just a couple of mouse clicks.
Use The WP Theme Filters
WordPress provides a 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 easier to find what you are looking for. For example, you could search for themes with a blue colour design, with a 2-column layout and a full-width template, or themes that support custom menus, etc.
Note: in the article where we discuss the importance of using “responsive” WordPress themes, we explained how responsive themes allow your site to be viewed correctly on all devices (e.g. your visitors’ computers, smartphones and tablets) …
It’s a good idea to use responsive themes, and the WordPress theme filter lets you do just that …
… and bring back only themes that are “responsive” …
Pros & Cons Of Using Free WP Themes
The obvious “pro” to using free themes is that it’s free to download and use the theme on your site. Additionally, many free themes are professionally designed and come with 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” to using free 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 dedicated 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 and updates, bug fixes, etc..
When downloading free themes, therefore, check to see when the theme was last updated. If it’s been more than a year since any changes were made, then it’s best to think twice about using it, as the theme may have been abandoned by its developer.
If you’re just getting started and your site 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 theme you downloaded for free could be exactly what works for you and your business.
Now that we’ve seen how to find free WP themes in the WordPress.org theme directory and how to filter your search for themes that meet specific criteria, let’s turn our attention to premium themes.
Premium 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 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 biggest and most popular theme marketplaces online.
ThemeForest lets many professional WP theme creators showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are currently over 17,000 premium WP themes listed (some starting from as little as $3) …
(click on the above images to see more ThemeForest themes)
If you visit the ThemeForest theme directory, you will be able to browse for specific WordPress themes in various 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 creative work, galleries, etc.
- Directory Listings – themes suitable for sites about directory listings, dining out & restaurants, business directories, etc.
- eCommerce – themes for ecommerce, event bookings and registrations, etc.
- Education – themes that suit sites related to teaching, etc.
- Entertainment – themes for photo gallery blogs, nightlife, etc.
- Mobile – e.g. mobile-switching themes.
- NonProfit – themes for nonprofit organizations, charities, etc.
- Real Estate – themes for real estate and real estate listings (e.g. home sales, etc.)
- Retail – themes for catalogs, trades or professionals (electricians, medical centers, etc.)
- Technology – themes related to software, landing pages, etc.
- Wedding – e.g. themes for wedding sites and wedding advice blogs
- Miscellaneous – themes suitable for topics related to activism, 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 sends you theme update notifications)
Go here to find great premium themes in the ThemeForest directory:
Creative Market
(click on the images above to view more Creative Market themes)
Creative Market is another leading WordPress theme marketplace where you can search through 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 directory, but you can easily browse hundreds of themes for WordPress and search through their theme categories using their dropdown “Themes” menu …
Browse through hundreds of quality premium themes crafted by independent WP theme developers in the Creative Market theme marketplace here:
Mojo Themes
(click on the images above to view all Mojo themes)
Mojo is a directory for premium 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 WP themes, but you can easily browse hundreds of themes for WordPress and narrow your search with theme categories using the site’s dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …
Visit the site to find great premium WordPress themes in the Mojo themes marketplace here:
Now that we have looked at WP theme marketplaces, let’s look at commercial WordPress theme design companies.
Commercial And Independent WordPress Theme Shops
SoloStream
SoloStream provides WordPress users with a selection of high quality premium WP themes and the option of accessing all themes through a WordPress theme membership.
(click on above images to see more themes from SoloStream)
Woo Themes
Woo Themes designs great themes that are very popular and highly sought after by web users and offer a membership option that allows members to access all themes in their growing theme portfolio.
(click on the above images to see all WooThemes themes)
StoreFront
StoreFront Themes creates beautiful 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 above images to see all StoreFront themes)
StudioPress
StudioPress provides WordPress themes based on a framework (called the “Genesis” framework) that lets users 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 website developers like this 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 themes remain always compatible with the latest WordPress version, 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 “skins” that sit on top of the theme framework and gives your site its unique look and feel.
If this sounds way too technical, don’t worry 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 images above to view all StudioPress themes)
Theme-Checking Tools
Here are a couple of useful WP 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 lets you easily detect what WordPress theme and plugins a website uses.
This is a great resource if you ever come across a WordPress site that you like and would like to know what theme is being used on the site.
Tip: If you can’t tell if a site runs on WordPress or not, we have published a a great tutorial that helps you tell whether or not a website was built using WordPress: Is It A WordPress Web Site?
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 a site was built using the WordPress CMS platform, but it will also list the theme being used on the site and list any WordPress plugins it detects.
- To use the online tool go here: What WordPress Theme Is That?
- To learn more about using this tool go here: Is It A WordPress Web Site?
Theme Authenticity Checker - WordPress Plugin
A word of warning: If you decide to use FREE themes for your WordPress site, we recommend sticking with the reviewed and approved themes listed in the official WordPress theme repository.
A well-known tactic used by a number of hacking groups and networks that engage in cyber-crime is to put up websites offering “Free” WP themes all over the web and distribute modified themes with malicious code embedded in their files. In fact, some of these sites even display on Google for search phrases like “free WordPress themes“, “best free WordPress themes”” etc. It’s best, therefore, to stick with the official WordPress repository, or use well-known and trusted sites.
If you are concerned about whether a WordPress theme that you have installed on your site could contain malicious or unwanted code, use a free WordPress plugin like Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) to scan your theme files. The plugin searches the source files of every them you have installed on your site for signs of suspicious code and presents you with a report …
(TAC Report Page – Screenshot Source: WordPress.org Plugin Page)
We hope that you have found this information useful.
***
"This is an awesome training series. I have a pretty good understanding of WordPress already, but this is helping me to move somewhere from intermediate to advanced user!" - Kim Lednum
***