Where To Find Themes:
Searching through the thousands of themes available can be daunting so I’ve compiled these tips to help guide you.
- There are many free and paid themes directly on WordPress.org, but there are many other sites as well.
- Theme Forest has thousands of paid themes starting as low as $1.
- Elegant Themes is a trusted developer that offers many quality themes when you sign up for a subscription to their catalog of themes.
- WooThemes is another trusted developer that offers many themes. They also work well with their WooCommerce shopping cart system. WooCommerce can be used in conjunction with other “non-WooThemes” themes.
Tips:
- Searching
On Theme Forest search specifically for WordPress themes—because they also have HTML, email and other types of templates. Search by Category, like creative, business, blog. Or simply click on Most Popular. If a theme has 1000 sales or more and costs $35 or more, it is probably good. Click the drop down that reads Date and change that to Sales and it will pull up themes with thousands of sales. - Pay-to-Play
You get what you pay for most of the time. Premium themes cost a little money. Under the price on ThemeForest.net it shows how many sales there have been and there are star ratings which give an indication of popular reliable themes. Some newer themes may not have numbers or ratings yet, but it’s good to look at sales and ratings to indicate which ones are solid. - Support
Paid themes generally have much better support options like a blog, twitter feed, support documents, forums and direct contact with the developer (usually email only). The more options available the better, and totally worth paying for the theme. - Keep Their Attention
Black type on a light background. There are many themes that look great, but have dark backgrounds and light text. It is a known fact that reversed text, especially small text, is difficult to read. You will lose your audience within a few lines. - Color
Look for themes that have nice color palette options by default. At least find one that you can assign a color or image to the background and color to the headline and subhead text. Color options can be changed manually, but it’s better to have them built in. - Layout
Are there many options for changing the layout, i.e. multiple columns, sidebars, widget-ready areas? These options are good to have. You can change to a different theme without affecting your content, but there can be issues when changing themes, so it’s best to stick with a good theme with many options.
Let me know if you want help choosing a theme.
Also refer to my post 10 Reasons To Build Your Website with WordPress
