You are ready to establish your new WordPress website where you can add content, customize your site and upscale it as soon as possible. For this, you need to make every move prudently and patiently. Hence, you have to start your site by making the first decision of finding the best WordPress Theme.
In WordPress, there are thousands of themes from which you can pick the best of your interest. This might feel like a daunting task, but we can narrow it down to help you find the perfect theme for the website.
Prior to that, first, let’s understand what WordPress Themes are.
WordPress Themes
A WordPress theme is a group of files containing the graphics, style sheets, code, and layouts that help in designing a website. It also helps to make the necessary changes to your site. A Theme is more than just visuals- it adds extra functionality to the WordPress backend.
Therefore, you must find a theme that suits your goal and your performance. Find a theme that improves your site’s visual appearance by reflecting your purpose.
Firstly, there are things you have to remind yourself of while making the choice of WordPress Theme.
Points of Consideration
1. Content and traits
What are your contents and traits?
The content and traits of your website or blog also define what sort of WordPress Themes works best for you.
For example, if you want to establish a blog, you should prioritize readability. For a business page, the design should be impressive and the content should be concise. Similarly, to sell products on a website, you need a theme that can be fully integrated with e-commerce platforms like WooCommerce
2. Functionality
What is the functionality you are looking for?
Functionality is the quality of being able to serve a purpose. A theme should be capable of serving the purpose well by helping the users to meet their goals and needs.
Understanding the purpose of your website helps to narrow down your choices of themes that offer that functionality.
3. Budget
What is your budget?
Consideration of your budget is necessary. Given that WordPress has many free themes which only allow certain customizations, themes with advanced design features might have to be bought.
If you want to have a more professional setting you have to consider the premium upgrade.
Don’t have the money to buy or do you need to fully be ascertained before buying?
If so, you can use freemium themes. Freemium themes are free to install and provide all the basic functionalities. If you need to upgrade your site, you can upgrade to the pro version of the theme.
4. Time Investment
How much time are you willing to invest?
Before building the site, doing research is also necessary.
Themes are the frameworks for your website. Without the proper framework, the building cannot be strong.
Select a proper theme, either free or paid. If the free version satisfies all your needs, that’s great. If it does not, you can hire a WordPress developer to make the necessary customizations. Alternatively, you can buy a pro theme. Pro themes are usually made in a complete manner to provide all functionalities needed in the possible specific scenarios. That will save you a lot of time.
5. Maintenance
How will the maintenance take place?
The maintenance and upgrade of the site are mandatory if you are intending to go on a long run. You should be able to customize the theme easily that you’re currently using.
Therefore, you need to review both the design and the backend by making sure it is easy to add or change the content later. Check how often the theme is updated by the theme developer.
Hence, these are the questions you need to ask yourself when you start creating your website and choosing the theme.
Secondly, there are some core features that a theme must have.
Major Features Of a Good Theme
1. Responsive
The theme must have the feature to adapt to different platforms, devices, and browsers so that, every user’s experience is excellent. As a lot of traffic comes from mobile devices, you will be serving the majority of your audience if the theme is responsive and works splendidly on mobile devices. Hence, the good responsiveness of your website towards different types of platforms is important.
2. Flexibility
Flexibility is very essential for the WordPress theme to have. When you can choose the panel and layout that best suits your content, a visitor feels comfortable navigating your website. Here, the main benefit of flexibility is the function to evolve over time as visitors want.
3. Accessibility
The website you build must be reached and accessed by the audience. In order to make your site more accessible, themes also play a vital role. You have to look for a modern theme that is robust, bug-free, cross-browser compatible, and SEO-friendly to make sure your site is fully accessible.
4. Performance
The themes can affect your website performance in both positive and negative ways. Those themes that are bloated with unnecessary features and lines of code might badly impact the site’s performance leading it to slow down the page load. Therefore, make sure to choose those themes which are not bloated.
5. Good review
The review of the theme from the users should also be taken into account. Before making any decisions, you need to look at the reviews because it saves you from choosing something that won’t work out for you. Therefore, having a good review of the theme is necessary to build trust.
Themes can be classified into different types. They are:
Multipurpose and Niche Themes
Multipurpose themes include multiple types of pages, extensions, codes, tools, etc for customizing your site. For example, Sydney, Divi, Litho, TheGem, etc.
Niche themes include one specific topic or industry and are focused on exact requirements. For Example, Trendy News Theme for news, Foodica for food and recipe, Ashe for travel blog, OnePress for portfolio, etc.
Places to Find WordPress Themes
1. WordPress.org Theme Directory
You can find many well-known and popular themes here. Third-party theme developers can list their themes. All of the themes listed here are licensed under General Public License (GPL). GPL license entails that the themes can be reused, edited, and redistributed without restriction.
2. Third-Party Marketplaces
Third-Party marketplaces are the place where many WordPress developers sell their themes directly. Along with the theme, they also offer many support packages.
- These are some good options:
- WooCommerce Theme Store– It’s mainly used for digital storefronts. Every theme gives special store functionality and works perfectly with WooCommerce.
- ThemeForest – It’s a part of Envato Market where you can buy and sell HTML themes as well as templates.
- TemplateMonster – Collection of top-notch WordPress Themes.
- Creativemarket – Online marketplace for community-generated design assets.
- MOJO Marketplace – You can shop for WordPress Themes here.
Lastly,
List of some best WordPress Themes
1. Phlox
Phlox is one of the best WordPress design themes. It is easy to understand how to use them. It also offers different page layouts, post layouts, and Pro WooCommerce. They provide around 25 free starter templates. However, they don’t offer header and footer.
2. Deep
Deep themes have the most advanced header and footer. It can style specific elements with a lot of customization features. You can customize each of the page sizes for blogs and for mobile devices.
3. Astra
Astra theme is the number-one installed theme in WordPress. It gives 100 free starter templates. You have a lot of control on header and footer. Also, It comes with various pages.
4. OceanWP
OceanWP is the second most installed theme in WordPress. It has different styling options, and page layouts for each specific page. It has a lot of customization style options but lacks header and footer. It also gives some free starter templates.
5. Blocksy
Blocky provides most of the features for free. It comes with header and footer options. You can have a transparent menu and design each specific page with a lot of features for e-commerce.
6. BlazeThemes
BlazeThemes are popular in news niche WordPress to starting news websites. Their news themes are built with React JS library, which results in the smooth and fast page-loading performance of your website. In these themes, you can provide RTL and multiple languages by using the WPML plugin to your audience.
These were only some of the examples of the best themes in WordPress. There are many other gems out there.
Nevertheless, you need to focus on the backend and credibility of the theme developer first, then take a look at visuals. Look for a theme that supports your preferred website builder plugin.
If you want to build a quality website for your brand, pick the theme for the site carefully.