In a separate article, we provide a comprehensive overview of WordPress Themes.
If you would like to know more about WP themes and what makes WordPress themes so special, then go here to read our article: Understanding WP Themes – A Handy Guide For Website Owners
In this blog post, you will learn where you can browse hundreds of free and paid themes for your 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 dealing with problems like lack of support and poorly-coded themes.
As explained in another article, a WordPress theme is a unique type of web template that is used on WordPress-powered websites and designed to work specifically with WordPress in mind.
Many website designers and website design agencies create themes for WordPress. Consequently, WordPress users can access thousands of quality WP themes covering an extensive range of uses.
Where To Find Great Themes: Let’s Keep Things Simple!
If you were to browse over to Google and search for key phrases like the following:
- best free themes for WordPress
- best premium themes for WordPress
- best paid WordPress themes for musicians (enter whatever your business, area of interest or blog 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, 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 start, you need to know that WordPress offers both a hosted and a self-hosted version. We’ll cover these differences in another post. In this post, let’s just 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 areas of your blog.
Free vs Paid WordPress Themes
Next, it’s useful to know that you will easily find many Free and Paid themes 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 (paid) themes.
WordPress Theme Marketplaces And Directories & WordPress Theme Shops
There are 2 kinds of places where WordPress themes can be found. The first place is in theme marketplaces and theme directories. The second place are the commercial and independent theme shops.
WP theme marketplaces and theme directories are large theme stores. theme developers (both commercial and independent) list their themes (both free and paid) in the marketplace or directory and visitors find these just like they would if they were shopping for apps on an app store or software marketplace.
Some of the larger marketplaces 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 design houses can also develop both free and paid themes, and can vary in size, from an individual theme designer or a small team of theme developer, to large theme design and development companies.
Most commercial 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 the best WP themes for your website.
Finding A Great Theme Themes For Your Website Or Blog
WordPress.org
(WordPress.org – Themes Directory)
The official WordPress theme directory is the largest and best place to find WP themes for free. 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 many 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 or blog, but it also relies on a team of theme reviewers to review and make sure that each theme in the directory meets their standards of quality and security.
To browse thousands of excellent FREE WordPress themes from the official Themes Directory, go here:
http://www.wordpress.org/extend/themes
Search For Free WordPress Themes Without Leaving Your Own WP Dashboard
Useful Tip: You can easily browse through every theme in the WordPress.org directory and not only find what you are looking for, but also easily install and activate it directly from within your WP admin panel with a couple of clicks.
Use The Theme Filtering
WordPress provides a filtering function inside the admin area that lets you narrow down your search for themes based on criteria like Colours, Layout and Features …
This makes it easier to find themes with specific features. For example, you could search for themes with a 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” WP themes, we explained how these allow your site to be viewed correctly across all devices (e.g. the computers, tablets and smartphones used by visitors to view your web content) …
It’s a good idea to use responsive themes, and the WordPress theme filtering option 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 costs nothing to download and use the theme. An added plus, is that many free themes are professionally designed and provide a number of built-in customizable settings, 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. Most freely distributed 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 a year since any change was made, then it’s best 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 is still relatively 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 paid themes. Who knows, the theme you downloaded for free may just be the thing that works for your site and for converting your site visitors into customers.
Now that we’ve seen how to find free themes in the WordPress.org theme directory and how to filter 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 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 well known WordPress theme marketplaces online.
ThemeForest lets many professional WP theme creators showcase their designs through their online marketplace. There are well over 15,000 premium themes listed (you can find great themes from as little as $3) …
(click on the above images to browse all ThemeForest themes)
If you visit the ThemeForest theme directory, you will be able to browse for specific WP themes in a range of categories, such as:
- Blog/Magazine – themes for general blogs and activism blogs, etc.
- Corporate – themes suitable for corporate sites or marketing purposes.
- Creative – themes suitable for visual galleries, writers, etc.
- Directory Listings – themes suitable for sites related to directory listings, classifieds, tourism directories, etc.
- eCommerce – themes for ecommerce, event bookings and registrations, etc.
- Education – themes that suit sites related to teaching, etc.
- Entertainment – themes for film & tv blogs, dining out, 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. rentals, etc.)
- Retail – themes for travel, trades or professionals (repairers, medical practitioners, etc.)
- Technology – themes related to software, affiliate marketing, seo, product reviews, direct sales, 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)
Go here to find quality premium themes in the ThemeForest directory:
Creative Market
(click on the above images to view all Creative Market themes)
Creative Market is another leading WordPress theme directory where you can browse many 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 WP themes and narrow your search using theme categories (e.g. Magazine or Wedding themes, etc.) 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 directory here:
Mojo Themes
(click on the images above to see all 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 go through all of their WP themes and search through their theme categories (e.g. Landing Page or eCommerce themes and theme frameworks, etc.) by selecting the site’s dropdown “WordPress Themes” menu …
Visit the site to find quality premium WP themes in the Mojo directory here:
Now that we have looked at WP theme aggregators, let’s look at commercial theme stores.
Commercial WP Theme Development Firms
SoloStream
SoloStream provides WordPress users with a great selection of professional quality premium WP themes and the option of accessing all themes through a WordPress theme membership.
(click on images above to view all SoloStream themes)
Woo Themes
Woo Themes creates stunning premium themes and offer a membership option that lets you access their entire WP theme collection.
(click on the images above to view all WooThemes themes)
StoreFront
StoreFront creates amazing WP themes for e-commerce. Their themes also integrate well with some of the most powerful e-commerce platforms and plugins available.
(click on the above images to view all themes from StoreFront)
StudioPress
StudioPress develops WordPress themes based on a 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 prefer using 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 coding practices 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 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 design.
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 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)
Theme-Checking Tools
To round things up, here are some useful WordPress theme-related tools worth knowing about:
What WordPress Theme Is That
What WordPress Theme Is That? is a free online tool that lets you easily detect what WP theme a website or blog uses (including parent and child WP themes).
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 uses.
Tip: If you can’t tell whether a site runs on WordPress or not, go here for a great tutorial that helps you tell if a website is powered by WordPress: How To Check If A Web Site Was 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 not only confirm whether or not a site is built on the WordPress CMS platform, but it will also list the theme being used on the site and list any plugins detected.
- To use this online tool visit the website here: What WordPress Theme Is That.com
- To learn more about using this tool go here: The Easy Way To Tell If Your Web Site Was Built Using WordPress Software
Theme Authenticity Checker (TAC) – WP Plugin
A word of warning: When choosing FREE themes for your WordPress site, we recommend sticking with the WordPress themes listed in the official WordPress theme repository.
A commonly-used strategy employed by a number of hacking groups and syndicates that engage in cyber criminal activities is to put up websites offering “Free” themes for WordPress all over the web and distribute themes and plugins that contain malicious code. In fact, some of these sites even come up on Google 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 theme repository, or use well-known and trusted theme merchants.
If you are concerned about whether a WordPress theme that you have 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 theme files. This plugin searches the source files of every installed theme on your site for signs of injected code and then presents you with a report with the results …
(TAC Report Page – Source: Plugin Site, WordPress.org)
We hope that you have found the information on how to find great WP free and premium responsive themes useful.
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