Clearly, WooCommerce is doing something right to assert such dominance over other WordPress e-commerce plugins. It helps that WooCommerce is free, open-source software that’s flexible, customizable, and user-friendly for even the least tech-savvy individuals. But there’s much more to WooCommerce than that.

In this post, we’ll explain why you should add a WordPress WooCommerce theme to your storefront and tell you how to choose the best one for your business. We’ll also share our list of 21 of the best WooCommerce themes (free and premium) that are guaranteed to grab attention and generate sales.

Ready to build a successful e-commerce site? Great – we’re here to help! Keep reading.

Why Use WooCommerce-Compatible Themes?

WordPress themes alter the look of your site — think images, templates, and stylesheets —and can provide a more intuitive user experience. WordPress WooCommerce themes take that a step further and provide an ecommerce-first approach to designing and building out product pages, shopping carts, and payment services among other ecommerce functions. 

WordPress experts will love WooCommerce’s range of options and flexibility. Less tech-savvy users may find the complexity of WooCommerce overwhelming at first, but we at WPBuffs can always help edit, update, and maintain your new WooCommerce site.

Aside from making your site look aesthetically pleasing, building your WordPress site with a WooCommerce-compatible theme comes with many other benefits:

• Lower overhead for WordPress DIY’ers: WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin. Sure, you’ll still be on the hook for domain and hosting fees plus any premium plugins but you can keep costs low by opting for cheap or free WooCommerce themes.
• Simple to install: Fortunately, you don’t need to be fluent in coding to add WooCommerce themes. Maintenance will take a little more technical know-how; newbies can look at our guide to WooCommerce for Beginners and then reach out to our dedicated team of WP pros for additional guidance.

• Optimization: The best WooCommerce themes lay the foundation for optimizing your page for SEO and speed. Not only will this make it easier for customers to find your site, it will also make them less prone to bouncing from slow load times.
• Customizable: You can customize and scale your WooCommerce WP theme with add-ons that will enhance your product pages, shopping cart, and overall user experience. You can also include things like coupon banners, blogs, and social media plugins.

TL;DR: WooCommerce themes provide a balance of style and substance that will help your site stand out while lending you the tools to help your e-commerce store succeed. 

How to Choose WooCommerce-Compatible Themes

There are thousands of WooCommerce-compatible themes available. As compelling as it may be to pick the first thing that catches your eye and be done with it, it pays to be discerning when choosing the best WooCommerce theme for your WordPress site.

The right WooCommerce theme will bring customers, their friends, and their friends’ friends flocking to your page to make purchases. Alternatively, an ill-fitting WooCommerce theme will result in an unpleasant UX…and crickets, who have no buying power whatsoever.

To make the process of choosing a theme less overwhelming, here’s a handy checklist of essential WooCommerce theme features:

Compatibility: First and foremost, make sure it’s a WooCommerce-compatible theme — especially if you’re spending money on it. 

Layout: Think about what best suits your business in regards to layout, color schemes, cart and checkout functionality, in-site search, and more.  

Responsiveness: More than half of global web traffic comes from mobile phones. Look for a responsive theme that looks good on both desktop and mobile.

Performance: A loaded, clunky theme will result in long load times and impatient customers who’ll bounce. Keep it simple for the best user experience.

Customization: If it’s important to make your WooCommerce theme yours, find one that provides a wealth of customization options. Bear in mind that this may cost extra.

Support & Updates: In the event of things going FUBAR, it helps to pick a WooCommerce theme that provides attentive customer support. Meanwhile, a theme with regular updates means you’ll be less prone to security flaws and other bugs.

And if you’re needing help with mobile responsiveness, performance, customization, support and updates for your WooCommerce site, then we’ve got you covered!

Now that you’ve developed a sense of your ideal WooCommerce theme it’s time to dive into the sea of myriad options…

… or, you can save yourself a lot of time and hassle by browsing our 21 item list for the best WooCommerce themes we’ve vetted and curated, just for you!

The 21 Best WooCommerce Themes for 2021

In compiling our list, we took the key criteria from our handy checklist into consideration. Our choices include a mix of free and premium WooCommerce themes so anyone will be able to find what they’re looking for, regardless of budget or niche.

We’ve divided our list into three main categories:

• Best free WooCommerce themes
• Best premium WooCommerce themes
• Best Divi WooCommerce themes.

Best Free WooCommerce Themes

Don’t have the bandwidth to spring for a premium WooCommerce theme? Check out our favorite free WooCommerce themes. Saving money doesn’t mean sacrificing performance or functionality with any of these themes:

1. Astra

Astra excels in optimizing for performance. Think half-second load times, responsive font sizes, and Vanilla JavaScript — all at under 50KB of space. More than 150 ready-to-import websites are at your disposal and can be enhanced with Gutenberg, Elementor, and more.

For such an ultralight theme Astra is quite feature-rich, even before factoring in premium upgrades. Add social media widgets, choose from over 700 Google fonts, and customize multiple layouts including product pages, carts pages, container settings, and much more.

2. Neve Shop

Neve Shop by Themeisle* takes a mobile-first approach with its lightweight build, AMP-compatibility, and responsive adaptability. It boasts load times under a second and an install size as little as 28KB. For as small and light as this Neve Shop is, it offers quite a lot.

Integration with Gutenberg, Elementor, and other page builders makes customizing templates dead simple. Other outstanding features in Neve Shop include SEO-friendly markup, accessibility optimization, and 1-click rollback should you need to reverse an update.

3. OceanWP

OceanWP has over three million downloads and counting. One reason why? Building an e-commerce site with OceanWP is as easy as importing one of its many sleek demo templates with the click of a button. (Note that select templates are only available with a premium plan.)  

With full WooCommerce integration, responsive layouts, and a built-in SEO base, OceanWP satisfies the needs of both rookie and veteran site owners. Plus, it’s compatible with drag-and-drop page builders plus a range of premium plug-ins to truly make your site yours.

4. Botiga

Botiga is a simple yet sophisticated e-commerce theme that can help you showcase your products in a clean and effective manner. This free theme offers a ton of customization features, including a collection of header and listing styles, product galleries, and over six blog archive layouts.

The extensive collection of options makes it easy to personalize your site’s checkout and cart layouts. You can also enhance the UX for your shoppers by using features such as product search, recommendations, and filters. With all of that in mind, Botiga is a beginner-friendly option that’s both functional and straightforward.

5. Storefront

The Storefront theme is one of WooCommerce’s free flagship themes. Built and maintained by WooCommece developers, it features deep WooCommerce integration and regular version updates so compatibility with the platform will never be an issue.

Storefront has a basic, responsive interface that’s easy to personalize — great for anyone who wants to get a polished site up and running in no time. There are also premium child themes tailored to several industries that add customization options and plug-ins.

6. Woostify

With Woostify, you have the power to customize your e-commerce site with ease. Choose from multiple layouts for product page styles, multi-step checkouts, and shopping carts. Woostify also has multi-vendor compatibility, product wishlist plugins, and multilingual support.

Woositify comes in at under 30KB for fast load times and page speeds. As a completely WooCommerce-integrated theme, there’s no need to worry about anything breaking in Woostify upon major WooCommerce updates.

7. Idyllic Free

Idyllic Free from Theme Freesia is a minimalist theme that’s fully compatible with WooCommerce. It’s optimized for various browsers and devices so it looks good and loads quickly, no matter how or where you view it.

Setup is easy — especially if you choose one-click demo import. You can also add plugins to enhance your e-commerce site, including Polylang (polylingual support), Jetpack, Contact Form 7, and more.

Best Premium WooCommerce Themes

If you have the budget to build a more feature-rich e-commerce site, take a look at our choices for the best premium WooCommerce themes. The options below include more varied plugins, a broader range of templates, and priority customer support among other amenities:

8. Shoptimizer

Shoptimizer by Commerce Gurus includes an array of features without sacrificing performance. Faster than most other WooCommerce themes out there, Shoptimizer boasts speed grades over 90% from Google, GTMetrix, and Lighthouse.

Conversion is another core component of Shoptimizer. Add offer bars, countdown timers, CTA headers, and much more to motivate customers to buy. Other noteworthy features include auto-complete search bars, mega menu support, and optimization for screen readers.

9. Hestia Pro

Hestia Pro from Themeisle is billed as a modern, multipurpose theme. However, its enhanced WooCommerce compatibility makes it perfect for e-commerce sites. Plus, it integrates with Elementor, Gutenberg, and many other page builders so you can customize as you see fit.

Its SEO-ready structure will give your e-commerce store a prominent Google presence, making it easy for potential shoppers to find you. Additional plugins aid with minification and language translations for a quick, accessible user experience.

10. Zuka

Zuka is a clean-and-modern WooCommerce theme that would suit a variety of online retail industries, from fashion to electronics. It has a fully responsive layout and features 10 ready-made demo pages you can import with just one click.

Add Google Maps integration, social icons, testimonials, plus other plug-ins and widgets to tailor Zuka to your site’s needs. Should anything go awry, you’ll be backed by 24/7 professional customer support.

11. Overline

Overline is a premium WooCommerce theme from Fuel Themes designed for beauty brands and influencers. It’s powered by Gutenberg for easy customization of key elements. Its responsive layout suits all devices, but it’s especially made with mobile browsing  in mind.

AJAX’s presence can be detected in Overline’s add-to-cart buttons and product search. Meanwhile, Overline’s Retina-ready design will make your WordPress store look crisp on even the most advanced displays.  

12. Matthew

Matthew from Themes Harbor is a Gutenberg-powered WooCommerce theme with a bloat-free, minimal design for peak performance and load times. It’s suitable for selling either physical goods or services.

Matthew  features a responsive layout, search engine-friendly code, and built-in localization tools. Customize Matthew with fonts and color schemes to match your brand’s aesthetic — no third-party page builder required.

13. Rey

Rey is a modular, feature-rich premium WooCommerce theme. Customize everything from product grids and page layouts to image galleries and product variations. AJAX search, filters, and navigation will help your customers find just what they want in no time.

If your e-commerce store uses Elementor, Rey plays nicely with that, too. Add entrance animations, tabs, and other touches to make your site stand out. Plus, integration with Google and Adobe fonts will eliminate any potential performance hiccups.

14. Shoppe

Shoppe from Themify boasts a variety of layout options, supported plugins, and theme skins. The Themify Builder makes customizing your e-commerce site a breeze. Simply drag and drop the features you want. Check the live preview to make sure everything is its rightful place.

This multi-purpose WooCommerce theme comes with a bevy of retail features like AJAX shopping cart and product share buttons. Add Themify plugins such as a store locator widget or an announcement bar to boost ongoing promotions (and help convert sales).

Best Divi WooCommerce Themes

Elegant Themes’ flagship Divi Builder began as a WordPress theme with a built-in page builder. It’s evolved into a premium WooCommerce-compatible plugin with its own selection of child themes. Check out the best Elegant Themes WooCommerce themes to use with Divi:

15. Divi Ecommerce

Divi Commerce is fully-integrated with WooCommerce and designed for a range of industries. It includes two ready-made storefront home pages with custom-designed sidebars plus ready-made WooCommerce cart and checkout pages so you can start selling in no time.

Other features of Divi Commerce include conversion components such as countdown clocks, integrated site search and navigation, and code-free customization so anyone can create the perfect layout for their WordPress store.

16. DiviShop

DiviShop may present a bit of a learning curve for beginners but it provides a full suite of features to get your e-commerce shop off the ground. Gain the trust of your shoppers thanks to DiviShop’s customizable checkout pages where you can add testimonials and trust seals.

Build up your site’s product pages with detailed descriptions, user reviews, and related items. DiviShop also allows you to generate email opt-in forms so customers can receive news about upcoming sales and other store events.

17. Divi Handmade

The Divi Handmade child theme invokes the feeling of popular DIY-centric storefronts, which makes it perfect for crafters and gift shops. Its straightforward product page template has room for a photo, title, description, customer reviews, and related items.

Divi Handmade also includes portfolio and blog layouts to keep your customers abreast of your latest creations. This Elegant Themes WooCommerce theme makes for a comprehensive experience that will get shoppers interested in what you’re selling.

18. Divi Fashion Theme

Divi Fashion Theme may be hailed as a WooCommerce theme for online clothing stores but it can really suit any aesthetically-forward business. This responsive theme comes with over 30 creative section designs, five home pages, and three product page layouts.

Setup is easy, too. Automatic plugin installation and one-click demo import means you can have the Divi Fashion Theme up and running on your site almost immediately.

19. Divi Circuit

The versatile Divi Circuit theme can be used for just about any product niche you can think of, from clothing and accessories to photography and luxury goods. It’s fully compatible with the latest versions of Divi (from v4.6), WordPress (from v5.5), and WooCommerce (from v4.5).

With Divi Circuit, you can customize everything from 404 pages to animated headers. It’s also fully responsive, optimized for search engines, equipped with advanced AJAX search, and free of any bloat for quick performance and load times.

20. Divi Cart

Divi Cart brings forth five stylish WooCommerce-ready landing pages and product page layouts. Other e-commerce features include multiple sale sections, site search with price range and category filters, and a secondary menu that hosts social media buttons and a cart icon.

If your business likes to provide relevant blog content, Divi Cart has you covered with 20 blog post and page layouts that you can tailor to match the vibe of your store.

21. Divi Photography eCommerce

Divi Photography eCommerce is a WooCommerce-compatible theme made especially for photographers who want to promote their business. Set up product pages, checkout pages, user accounts, and on-site booking information.

Customers can browse through photos via sliders and carousels. This theme also includes four portfolio layouts, custom blog styles, light & dark mode options, and more than 300 photography icons. With 100-plus custom designs and layouts, you’re bound to find something you like.

Frequently Asked Questions

Wrapping Up

Attracting customers to your online store goes beyond spreading the word on social media and telling your family and friends. If your e-commerce site is clunky, dull, and not SEO-friendly, getting traffic from Google will be very hard to come by – let alone customer conversions. Fortunately, WooCommerce WordPress themes give your site the tools you need to provide an enjoyable user experience and ultimately drive sales.

To recap:

• WooCommerce themes do more than make your e-commerce site look good — they also improve searchability and overall UX so customers are compelled to return.
• Picking the best WordPress theme for e-commerce goes beyond aesthetics. Think about the needs of your business. Pick a theme that best aligns with your product and mission.
• Regardless of budget or niche, there’s a suitable WooCommerce theme for your storefront. With so much variety, we found it useful to showcase the best ones.

Also, we at WP Buffs can help keep your WooCommerce optimized for speed and security – it’s what we do best! Check out our 24/7 WordPress Care Plans and Maintenance Packages for supporting and updating your WordPress e-commerce site. 

Need further convincing? Read this testimonial from one of our customers who is proud to report 0 security issues since WP Buffs began maintaining her WooCommerce store.

It might surprise you just how many individuals, businesses, and organizations across the globe use WordPress to power their sites. From big brands and government agencies to nonprofits and startups, there are plenty of WordPress example sites in every niche.

In this post, we’ll take a look at 25 of the best WordPress example websites that highlight the various ways the platform can be used, as well as some of our favorite famous WordPress sites. Let’s get started!

In This Article

• 25 Best WordPress Example Websites
• Our Favorite Famous WordPress Sites
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
• Wrapping Up

At WP Buffs, we help website owners, agency partners, and freelancer partners enhance and maintain their WordPress sites. Whether you’re creating a new business site or are looking for help managing your clients’, our powerful solutions have you covered!

25 Best WordPress Example Websites

There are thousands of WordPress example websites you could browse to explore the many uses of the most popular Content Management System (CMS) on the internet. However, to save you some time, we’ve rounded up 25 of the best for your inspiration.

1. TechCrunch
2. The Cool Club
3. Katy Perry
4. Amazonia Font
5. The Next Web
6. Angry Birds
7. Lollapalooza
8. Quartz
9. Creative Ad Awards
10. BBC America
11. Jacob McMillen
12. The Obama Foundation
13. Target Pulse Blog
14. The Walt Disney Company
15. Georgia State University
16. Dallas Mavericks
17. Cutest Paw
18. Rackspace Blog
19. Smart Chameleon
20. SONY Music
21. Flickr Blog
22. Usain Bolt
23. Evernote Blog
24. Reader’s Digest
25. Method

1. TechCrunch

TechCrunch is a popular website that reports breaking news in the business and technology industries. It covers everything from startups to innovative technology products and emerging trends.

This website features a simple interface with a grid-like format. Posts are displayed in order of publication with a video section at the bottom. As a WordPress example website, TechCrunch demonstrates how a content-heavy site can showcase product reviews, news stories, company profiles, and more with a clean format.

2. The Cool Club

Known for selling wall art and card games, The Cool Club website is built with a custom theme. It showcases a clean, modern style that includes animations and unique graphics. In addition to the best-selling products featured on its homepage, this website includes an accessible online shop powered by WooCommerce.

3. Katy Perry

Another WordPress example website is the official online hub of global pop star Katy Perry. It includes everything from tour dates and news to a merchandise shop and videos. The design is both colorful and edgy, which is reflective of the musician’s brand.

4. Amazonia Font

Amazonia Font uses a custom theme for its website, where users can buy and sell custom font libraries. This is one of the most unique WordPress example websites you’re likely to come across.  It immediately stands out for its dark and bold color scheme.

However, most notably, the Amazonia Font site features all its content on a single page. Visitors can browse the available fonts using the arrow keys, without any scrolling. Plus, the mobile version of the website is just as user-friendly.

5. The Next Web

If you consider yourself a tech-fanatic, you’re likely familiar with the online magazine known as The Next Web. This international website, founded in 2008, covers all things technology, science, and internet-related.

This WordPress site features a grid-style layout as well as a sticky primary navigation menu, modern visuals and fonts, and multiple expandable posts you can access as you scroll.

6. Angry Birds

Since its inception nearly a decade ago, Angry Birds has become a global phenomenon in the mobile gaming world. However, the brand has also expanded into entertainment and now offers books, a movie, a TV show, clothing, toys, and more.

Created with WordPress, the official Angry Birds website includes a simple design that incorporates engaging visual graphics on the backdrop of each page. It is also where you can go to download the game.

7. Lollapalooza

Lollapalooza is a popular, Chicago-based annual music festival that attracts people from all over the globe. Powered by WordPress, the Lollapalooza website is where users can go to purchase tickets, sign up for email updates, learn information about the performers and line-up, and more.

In addition to a vibrant color scheme and scroll animations, the Lollapalooza website features an FAQ section and online store for fans to purchase merchandise.

8. Quartz

If you’re unfamiliar, Quartz is a global business news and membership site owned by Atlantic Media. Using WordPress as its CMS, Quartz includes JSON APIs and a mobile-first design that WordPress states is a “great example of the innovation happening in the WordPress world.”

Translating seamlessly on mobile devices and tablets, this website offers a reliable platform for on-the-go readers to access credible information. Its minimalist design eliminates unnecessary distractions for an enhanced reading experience. In addition to using infinite scroll, the individual posts include minimal images and clean typography.

9. Creative Ad Awards

Creative Ad Awards is an archive that houses some of the best advertisements from all across the globe. It’s one of many WordPress example websites in this list that highlights how highly customizable WordPress can be.

The modern design includes a large, fullscreen background image, as well as a grid-style format for recent posts, filterable categories, and a search box. The interface delivers high-resolution images, infinite scrolling, and a directory of featured advertising brands.

10. BBC America

BBC America is the digital cable network behind popular shows such as Doctor Who and Orphan Black. Its website content is largely based around its TV shows and scheduling, which span various genres including natural history documentaries and sci-fi drama series.

This site’s design features a boxed layout and dark color scheme. Users can stream movies, consume teasers and trailers, browse the blog, or purchase merchandise from the online store.

11. Jacob McMillen

As we mentioned, WordPress example websites can be found for individuals and organizations of all sizes, including personal websites. Jacob McMillen is a well-known copywriting and content marketing expert.

He uses his WordPress website to sell his services, showcase client case studies and testimonials, and house his blog. Using the Divi theme, the Jacob McMillen website boasts an attractive, minimalist design that is effectively structured for various Calls to Action (CTAs).

12. The Obama Foundation

Established in 2014, The Obama Foundation is a Chicago-based nonprofit that oversees the development of the Barack Obama Presidential Center.

Its website’s clean, modern custom theme features a collapsible navigation menu that slides in from the left when you hover over it with your mouse. It also includes large, easy-to-read fonts such as Gotham SSM for headings and Maintree for body text and paragraphs.

13. Target Pulse Blog

Target is one of the biggest retail giants on the planet. So, when it came to creating a blog to keep its customers and partners informed, it turned to WordPress. Run by its own team members, the Target Pulse blog showcases the immediately recognizable red-and-white branding of the retailer.

14. The Walt Disney Company

As a household name, The Walt Disney Company surely needs a reliable, robust platform for its official website. Powered by WordPress, this example website includes a large hero image on the homepage and a sticky navigation menu.

Embracing its mission of delivering a fun, entertaining experience, the website is made up of colorful pages and even animated fonts and buttons.

15. Georgia State University

There are many WordPress example websites you could find in the education sector, specifically colleges and universities. Among them is Georgia State University. This large university uses gsu.edu to host more than 150 sites, including subdomains for its colleges and schools as well as visitor center information.

16. The Dallas Mavericks

Sports fans can likely appreciate the value of having an official website dedicated to their favorite team. To keep followers updated on information about the players, coaches, and more, the Dallas Mavericks NBA team uses WordPress.

In addition to information about the organization, the website also includes an online shop, ticket purchasing functionality, and scheduling information.

17. Cutest Paw

Many of the WordPress example websites we’ve discussed involve a lot of text-heavy content and articles. However, CutestPaw.com is one of the WordPress example websites that shows how the CMS can also be used for sites focused primarily on photos.

With the simple purpose of collecting and sharing cute animal photos for visitors to browse and enjoy, the Cutest Paw uses a custom theme that includes infinite scrolling and a grid-based layout. The minimalist yet dynamic design makes it easy for users to focus on what the site was built for: browsing photos.

18. The Rackspace Blog

Rackspace is a hosting company and raw computing infrastructure provider. It uses the flexible, scalable WordPress CMS for its blog, which delivers product news as well as industry insights and updates. The blog incorporates colorful boxes in a grid layout, with posts organized into a clean, magazine-style format.

19. Smart Chameleon

Smart Chameleon is a creative digital solutions agency. Of the many WordPress example websites to draw inspiration from, this one does a particularly strong job of showing how a site can harness the powerful features of the CMS to portray their brand.

This interactive website was built using the Astra theme and includes various animations such as interactive fonts and project flip cards.

20. SONY Music

Global record label company Sony Music Entertainment owns many popular music labels and represents a wide range of artists including Harry Styles, Miranda Lambert, and Yo-Yo Ma. The SONY Music website runs on WordPress and features a sleek and simple design.

It showcases artists in a grid-style format, linking to their official sites. The other pages, such as the homepage, news, and FAQs are organized into lists.

21. Flickr Blog

Another WordPress example website is the companion blog of Flickr, one of the most popular sites for photo sharing. The Flickr blog contains a lot of images and resource-heavy content, which is organized into a clean, two-column layout. It features a full-screen header image and allows you to sort content by category or via the search box.

22. Usain Bolt

The official website of Usain Bolt, the fastest man in the world, runs on WordPress as well. This site features a parallax full-width slider, an animated grid with news and galleries, as well as an online shop that includes product carousels.

23. Evernote Blog

Delivering content to its more than 225 million users in over 25 different languages, the Evernote team uses WordPress for its blog. Displayed in a classic blog-list style, its posts include large, colorful featured images and clean typography.

24. Reader’s Digest

Reader’s Digest is an extremely popular magazine that uses RD.com for its digital version. This WordPress example website receives millions of visitors per month. The elegant, magazine-style layout features a user-friendly interface, displaying articles in both slideshow and list styles and with clean, easy-to-read typography.

25. Method

Method Products, branded as ‘method’, is a California-based company that produces natural cleaning products. As with its products’ packaging, its WordPress-run website boasts modern designs and beautiful graphics. In addition to user-friendly navigation, this site includes an e-commerce store, colorful animations, and a drop-down mega menu.

Our Favorite Famous WordPress Sites

Many of the WordPress example websites we listed above are ones you probably recognize or even use yourself. However, there are a few especially famous WordPress example websites we haven’t mentioned yet that we want to highlight here.

Facebook Newsroom

Facebook itself needs no introduction. However, some people may not realize that Facebook Newsroom, which is used to keep its billions of global users updated on the latest Facebook news, is built on WordPress. It’s a wonderful example of a simple WordPress site with a worldwide readership.

In addition to the latest platform updates, Facebook Newsroom is used to handle the social media giant’s blogging needs. It’s also home to the company’s information, including a timeline of its history, a directory, media galleries, and more. The site’s minimal design includes a slider system for large images and videos, as well as simple, plain text news without thumbnails.

Vogue

Vogue is perhaps best known for being one of the most popular fashion and lifestyle magazines in the world. In addition to its print magazines, this household name offers issues online through its WordPress-powered website.

Did you know Vogue's online platform is powered by WordPress? Even famous sites use our favorite CMS! #WordPress
Click To Tweet

In addition to a clean, modern design with a full-width header, the Vogue WordPress website features expandable posts and infinite scrolling with repeating elements such as video boxes. WordPress includes Vogue in its showcase of WordPress example websites explaining that it’s “a great example of using a modern web app built with React and the WordPress Rest API.”

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

At this point, hopefully, you have a better understanding of just how popular WordPress is and the many types of sites it can be used to create. However, there are still two FAQS we want to address regarding WordPress example sites.

What Websites Run on WordPress that I Wouldn’t Have Thought Do?

There are many websites that people are often surprised to learn run on WordPress. You may have encountered a few already in this post. However, among the top is the official site of The White House:

According to WordPress, the White House began using the platform in 2017. Featuring a clean, minimalist layout that is easy to navigate,  whitehouse.gov is used to keep everyone informed of the latest news regarding the economy, healthcare, and more.

What Are the Biggest Websites that Have Switched Over to WordPress from Another CMS?

Although many big brands and websites use WordPress today, it’s not always clear how long they’ve used the CMS. However, when it comes to famous websites that have switched over to WordPress, we’d be remiss not to mention Rolling Stone.

In 2018, the popular online magazine was highlighted in a case study by the WordPress marketing team:

As they explained, the publication was dealing with a lack of modern editorial features for its digital writers, as well as development efficiencies to grow and scale the platform. After turning to WordPress, it was able to move decades’ worth of digital content to WordPress and re-launch without any issues.

Wrapping Up

WordPress is a powerful platform that can be used to create virtually any type of website. However, when it comes to building your own site, having real-life WordPress example websites to draw inspiration from can be helpful.

As we discussed in this post, there are a plethora of WordPress example websites that showcase the many ways the CMS can be used. From technology blogs and design studios to media corporations and government agencies, WordPress sites span the globe and are used in nearly every niche.

Once you narrow down the type of WordPress site you want to create, it’s important to make sure it’s supported with proper maintenance. At WP Buffs, we can help with that. Our Care Plans not only make managing sites easier, but can help expand their features and functionality as well!

Want to give your feedback or join the conversation? Add your comments on Twitter!

Image credit: Unsplash.

You’ve got questions. We’ve got answers.

WordPress speed optimization service questions

Read all FAQs

It’s a tall order, especially when there are seemingly thousands of different WordPress themes for business to choose between.

To save you time and your sanity, you’ll find a collection of the best business WordPress themes on the market today.

Below you’ll find over 50 different premium and free business WordPress themes to choose from. So you can create a beautiful, fast, and high-converting business website, no matter your budget.

Our team at WP Buffs is dedicated to helping website owners, agency partners, and freelancer partners setup WordPress themes for businesses 24/7. Whether you need us to manage 1 website or support 1000 client sites, we’ve got your back.

The Best Premium WordPress Themes for Business

Premium themes give you access to advanced features, greater functionality, bundled premium plugins, all-star support, and more.

Not every business will require a premium WordPress theme. But often the investment is minimal compared to all the benefits it’s bringing your business site.

Explore some of the best premium business themes below, to see if it’s worth investing money into the design of your new site.

1. Astra

Astra* is a versatile and flexible theme with over 300,000 active installs. It’s incredibly lightweight, taking up less than 50KB of space (that’s smaller than some images).

You’ll find a library of starter sites you can pick and choose from to speed up the site creation process. Plus, with page builder integration, you can easily drag and drop your way towards building the perfect business site.

This theme is brought to you by a WordPress development team with nearly a decade of experience.

Beyond the best-selling theme above, they’ve also developed numerous other WordPress plugins, including the favorite WP Portfolio.

2. Avada

Avada is another business theme built for beginners. It’s been a best-seller in the Themeforest marketplace for over five years, racking up over 21,900 positive reviews and 500,000+ theme installs.

The sheer number of design options allow you to create whatever kind of business site you desire. Spend some time browsing through the sample design templates, and you’ll be amazed at just how flexible this theme is.’

Avada was created by the ThemeFusion team. Plus, if you run into any issues building out your site you’ll find a useful and in-depth documentation library, on top of the bundled support.

3. Interior Pro

Interior Pro* is an elegant StudioPress theme that’s built for interior design firms. However, the flexibility of this theme means that you can use this theme for a variety of different business types as well.

It places a focus on clean and engaging typography while offering you the unique placement of images. There are seven different widgetized areas that you can customize with different content types. Plus, it’s a mobile responsive WordPress theme.

Interior Pro was created by StudioPress*, the team behind the ever-popular Genesis framework, and was recently acquired by the popular WordPress host WP Engine. As you can see from the Twitter screenshot below, they’re working hard to bring both worlds together.

4. Noor

Noor is an incredible multi-purpose WordPress theme With 40+ demos fully customizable via neat front-end drag and drop visual composer the theme provides tons of features such as control container width, floating section, section heights, sidebar positions, and other layout properties. Much more the performance options including seamless integration with WPML, AMP support, lazy load, and RTL languages support. With Noor, you can build almost every type of site and despite its tons of features and everything, loads up pretty fast.

The AMP feature plays a huge role in driving more traffic to your site and Noor Theme built-in support for this great feature with the ability to customize the style of AMP pages include changing the logo and theme color.

The theme is fully compatible with WPML the famous multilingual site and It contains a configuration file containing the custom fields, posts, and taxonomies that is ready to be translated.

Another great feature of the theme is, it supports (RTL) right to left written languages. Like Arabic, Urdu, or Hebrew. So, if you want to add RTL language option, better go with Noor.

The theme comes with extensive documentation and YouTube channel includes videos cover every element of the theme to help you get started.

5. Okab

Okab is a highly flexible multipurpose WordPress theme suitable for any type of website. And it can be used for an eCommerce store, consulting, Business, Finance Corporate, Personal, Agency, Portfolio, Blog, Shop, Photography, Events, Restaurant, Hotel, Magazine, Construction, Small startups and almost any kind of website and It’s all possible with the multi-concept design of Okab.

The theme has a responsive layout with more than 30 demos and different layouts. The theme comes with a visual page builder and nearly 300 web elements fully customizable allowing you to build a unique website with no coding skills required.

Okab is also fully RTL compatible which means it can be used seamlessly for the right to left written languages and all of the demo sites of the theme can support RTL languages as well, so don’t worry about being able to use a different style.

Okab built with clean code very useful features that will speed up sites page load speed such as lazy load, Async JavaScript Method, CSS Compiling method and it can be used with just switch of a button.

Okab comes with extensive documentation starts from the basic settings on how to set up your theme and install demos and how to use different elements and fully customize it.

6. SmallBiz

SmallBiz is a clean and straightforward small business theme. The design is simple but has all the features and built-in website layouts to showcase your business’s services.

Beyond having a great desktop display, you’ll also enjoy the unique mobile design. This responsive theme will look good across every screen size while placing a focus on your most important website elements.

If you want your business website online as fast as possible, all you have to do is swap out the dummy content and you’ll have a website that’s ready to show to the world.

SmallBiz was created by Templatic, who have over 8 years of WordPress development experience, and also maintains a library of over 100+ additional themes.

You’ll also find an active Twitter profile, where they regularly share content to help you get the most out of your WordPress site.

7. Enterprise Pro

Enterprise Pro is built upon the Genesis framework, which provides your site with a solid foundation. The design is more oriented towards corporate settings, consultants, and small businesses, but like most themes, it can serve a wide array of audiences.

Once you install and activate the theme, you’ll be able to quickly build out your site with useful pre-built sections, such as team profiles, featured content, and company services.

Enterprise Pro is yet another theme built by StudioPress*. Although Brian Gardner is no longer at the reigns, theme development continues to fire on all cylinders.

Just take a look at what WP Engine CEO Jason Cohen has to say:

8. Landing

Landing is a simple landing page theme from Themify. It’s very flexible and dead simple to customize. This theme is designed to help you build a site quickly and easily.

You’ll find over 25 different pre-built templates you can start customizing or even build your own from scratch. Not every template will apply to your business. But with company pages, ebook pages, marketer pages, agency pages, and more, you’ll be able to find the perfect one-page template for your business.

You can even use this theme to create simple product pages, sales letters, opt-ins and more.

The Landing theme was built by the development team Themify. It was founded by Nick La, who also runs a variety of other web-based companies.

9. Float

Float is a unique and stylish theme that’s also from the Themify team. This theme shines in its commitment to getting unique design elements right.

For example, there are parallax scrolling effects, overlapping design, and other ultra-modern design elements you’ll associate with top technology sites of today. It’s also equipped with a drag-and-drop builder for easy site creation.

Float is another theme built by the team at Themify, who also maintains a library of dozens of additional themes.

Plus, users seeking a little guidance on building their sites will find their YouTube channel extremely helpful.

10. KnowAll

KnowAll is a WordPress theme made specifically for building knowledge base websites. It features a simple and clean design yet comes loaded with many different features required for building effective knowledge base sites.

Every knowledge base website needs to be able to allow users to leave feedback for knowledge base articles as well as download related file attachments such as documents and guides. KnowAll fulfills these features with its built-in user feedback and downloadable attachments system.

The theme also includes a powerful analytics system that allows you to keep track of visitors and see which posts they are reading the most and which posts are performing poorly to continuously improve your knowledge base to provide better support.

KnowAll is built by HeroThemes, which consists of a team of professional developers who’s been in the business of making WordPress themes since 2011. In addition to KnowAll, they also have several other unique business themes in their library as well.

You can also find HeroThemes on Twitter @HeroThemes to get the latest updates on themes and all things WordPress.

11. Advent

Advent is a modern theme built for apps and app creators who want to create an online presence outside of the app store.

It’s equipped with an easy to customize homepage that’ll allow you to showcase all the best features of your app, including benefits, pricing, testimonials, team bios, and a lot more. Overall, it’s a very stylish theme and will help you secure more downloads or purchases.

Advent was built by Tesla Themes, who were recently acquired by Imagely, the popular WordPress gallery plugin. They currently boast an expansive team to support their plugins and themes.

12. Creativo

Creativo is a colorful and modern theme for cutting-edge businesses. It’s an ultra responsive theme, so it’ll look good no matter the screen size it’s being viewed on.

It’s equipped with a substantial template library, three different design layouts, and seven different theme skins. Plus, you can choose from a variety of header types, and an unlimited color palette. If you’re running a creative business, you can take advantage of the elegant portfolio page, plus WooCommerce integration for selling your products.

Creativo was built by RockyThemes, who also maintains one additional WordPress theme. Users will find a very helpful theme documentation, video tutorials, along with an active forum.

13. Potenza

Potenza is an impactful single page WordPress theme that’s great for business owners, lawyers, investment firms, and more.

It’s equipped with a built-in page builder to customize your site quickly, and a homepage slider, so you can showcase your services and what makes your business unique.

You can customize your theme however you see fit. You’ll have access to 30 different color customization controls, nine different widget sections, and more.

Potenza was built by the CSSIgniter team. Which was founded in 2012 by Gerasimos Tsiamalos and Anastis Sourgoutsidis. They remain active in the WordPress community, regularly hosting events across Greece.

14. Highend

Highend is a professional business theme that’s equipped with an easy to use drag and drop builder.

It currently has over 30,000 users and nearly a perfect 5-star rating! If you don’t want to start from scratch, then you can take advantage of the 16+ different ready-to-use templates.

As a premium theme, it’s also bundled with a handful of premium plugins like Slider Revolution, Visual Composer, Essential Grid, LayerSlider 5, and more.

Highend was crafted by the HB-Themes team. Although there’s not much activity on social media you will find extensive theme documentation available for added support.

15. Koehn

Koehn is an elegant WordPress theme that’s built for design firms, architects, and other business owners who desire a sleek and crisp website.

The homepage can be customized using the drag and drop builder and built-in widgetized sections. You can also use the stunning full-page image slider on your homepage.

This theme puts the focus on your work by doing away with the unimportant. Koehn is perfect for business owners who emphasize photography and minimalist design.

Koehn is another theme that’s built by the team at CSSIgniter. They keep their team lean with two co-founders and two web developers. You can keep up to date on the latest happenings via their company Facebook page.

16. Narcos

Narcos is a beautifully unique business theme that offers you trendy typography and a spacious layout. Perfect for digital agencies, creatives, or even eCommerce shops. The font choice alone is enough to help you differentiate yourself from your competition.

The design elements might be sparse, but every aspect is so intentional, you’ll notice that this theme truly stands out. This responsive theme can be used to build a single page website or even a multi-page site.

Narcos was built by Tesla Themes (who we covered above). With the recent Imagely acquisition you’ve got their team maintaining and advancing the entire theme collection. Plus, you get access to extensive theme documentation for a speedy site setup.

17. Digital Pro

Digital Pro is the perfect theme for businesses selling digital products. It’s minimal, yet professional, and built by the StudioPress team.

The clean typography and minimal design elements get out of the way, so your copy and image selection can truly shine. This theme makes it easy to integrate email marketing into your website as well.

Like most Genesis themes you get access to the theme customizer, multiple widget areas, and of course the theme is mobile responsive.

Digital Pro is another StudioPress* theme, which means you get the dual power of the StudioPress and WP Engine teams behind you. Plus, if you’re really a WordPress buff, you can follow the StudioPress Twitter page for up-to-date WordPress news.

18. Struct

Struct is a WordPress business theme that’s built for SaaS and technology companies. Making your homepage is easy with the drag-and-drop interface.

It comes with pre-built sections and page templates, like service and product pages, FAQ sections, a testimonial and client project showcase, and a lot more.

Those selling digital products or services will find a lot to love with this theme.

CSSIgniter is back again with this theme. A feature-packed theme with a stand out design is par for the course. And if you want to keep your WordPress knowledge up to date, then check out their company Twitter feed where they regularly share articles related to WordPress.

19. Executive Pro

Executive Pro* is a corporate-oriented business theme built with the Genesis framework. It has a clean and modern layout that commands authority.

The homepage is fully widgetized and offers you the ability to give your site a custom look. Plus, it has a customizable header, multiple color schemes, and is mobile responsive to look good across any screen size.

Again, this is a StudioPress* theme, so you’ll be running your site on the most widely used framework. But, it’s also easy to use as every theme comes equipped with detailed setup instructions and documentation.

20. FinVertex

FinVertex is a high-quality theme that’s built for consultants and financial-related businesses. It’s a very clean and minimal theme, but it’s packed with features hard to find all inside a single theme.

For example, you have multilingual support, retina ready templates, and a bundled MotoPress editor for creating website pages and customizing your sliders. You’ll also find booking forms, contact forms, and integration with Google Maps and Google Fonts.

FinVertex is one of many themes developed by the Ukrainian company ZEMEZ. For over 15 years they’ve been developing themes across a variety of platforms, including WordPress.

Those who want a little more hand-holding will find their extensive YouTube tutorial series helpful for building out their websites.

21. Amaryllis

Amaryllis is a stylish WordPress theme built for retail businesses. It’s made to work with WooCommerce right out of the box.

The full-screen homepage image with text overlay is attention-grabbing and will help you create a unique brand aesthetic. Plus, there are no coding skills required to build out your site as the theme relies upon a drag-and-drop builder. This theme would pair well with a trendy Instagram eCommerce shop.

The unique and niche-specific Amaryllis theme is also built by CSSIgniter. If you’d like some help setting up your theme, then there’s helpful documentation you can follow step by step.

22. Shoptimizer

Shoptimizer is a unique theme on this list. It’s designed from the ground up to help support WooCommerce store owners.

It’s built with speed and conversions in mind and seeks to bring the best eCommerce practices to life in a single website.

If your goal is to give your business the biggest leg up in terms of success, then this theme is worth checking out. Beyond built-in speed and conversions, you’ll get access to cool features like distraction-free checkout pages, built-in call back features, trust badges, scarcity counters, and a lot more.

Shoptimizer was developed by CommerceGurus, a WordPress theme shop built to give your business results. They’re relatively newer to the WordPress theme space but have built up an impressive reputation.

Plus, they maintain a company Twitter account where you can get to know their team, and catch up on the latest WordPress/WooCommerce news.

23. X

X is a popular theme that’s been around for quite some time. With over 200,000 sales of this unique theme, it’s not showing any signs of slowing down. There’s a unique technology that underlies this theme, which makes it so no two installations of this theme will ever be ultimately the same.

If you’ve been worried about having a site that looks too similar to a competitor, then this could be the theme you’ve been looking for.

The developers of this theme have included unique design stacks, which allow for a multitude of different designs from a single installation. Couple that with the unique Cornerstone page builder tool and the only limits you’ll run into are your imagination and creativity.

The X theme was created by Themeco, and founded in December 2013 by Kyle Wakefield and Scott Marlow. They also have the Pro WordPress theme, which is very similar to X theme with the added Cornerstone builder and header design option.

24. Total

Total is a minimalist and user-friendly business theme with a beautiful home page slider. It offers an impressive amount of customization features, from 80 plus builder modules, over 40 pre-made demos, and more than 500 different styling options.

No matter the type of business site you want to build, you’ll be able to do it with Total. You can even start completely from scratch for a 100% unique design.

Spend some time browsing the demo collection and you’ll see how this theme is the equivalent of having over a hundred themes in your back pocket. This is perfect for website owners who love to tweak and play with different site elements.

Total was brought to life by WPExplorer, and founded by AJ Clarke back in 2010. The site is almost entirely run by AJ and his wife Kyla.

The Best Free WordPress Themes for Business

If you prefer to take the free theme approach, then this section is for you.

Just because a theme is free doesn’t mean it’s low quality. Instead, they’re usually equipped with fewer features and don’t have a premium level support team to lend a hand when you need it. In fact, some of the free themes below pack features that are usually only reserved for premium themes.

Here are 30 of the best free responsive WordPress themes for business available today:

25. Vantage

Vantage is a top-notch free WordPress theme. It’s clean and simple and perfect for businesses who want to showcase a clean and modern design.

It’s updated consistently and currently has over 90,000 active installations. It’s also equipped with the SiteOrigin drag-and-drop website builder right out of the box, support for Smart Slider 3, and even WooCommerce integration (if you want to start selling products online).

Vantage is brought to you by SiteOrigin. Founded by Greg Priday in 2011. He’s still an active member of the WordPress community and regularly releases free themes.

26. Screenr

Screenr is a bold free business theme. The first thing you’ll notice is the sizeable full-screen header image and the widgetized homepage section. This theme can be used as a one-page theme for a landing page, or be used to build out your entire website.

This theme was built using the Bootstrap 4 framework, so it contains clean and efficient code for fast loading and excellent site performance.

Screenr was developed by the FameThemes team. They currently maintain nearly 20 different free WordPress themes as well. Plus, for every theme in their catalog, you’ll find detailed documentation to help you set up your site the right way.

27. Talon

Talon is a free WordPress theme that manages to pack in some premium level features. With this theme, you get access to extensive header customization options, slider choices, and more.

You can customize your fonts and colors as you wish. Plus, you have access to a large icon library.

For further customization, you can use the bundled plugin, Page Builder by SiteOrigin.

This theme was created by aThemes. Founded by Charlie Livingston in 2013. They currently maintain a staff of 7 people that are mostly made up of customer support agents.

28. Astrid

Astrid is a modern and minimalist theme that’s all about speed. If you want a high performing site that’s very easy to set up (think under five minutes), then this might be worth a spin.

Customizations are made from the built-in theme customizer. Here you’ll accomplish things like changing the logo, adding fonts, adjusting the color scheme, and setting the number of widget areas.

You’ll find a variety of business page templates, including pages and sections for employees, services, testimonials, and more.

Astrid is another theme created by aThemes, one of nearly 20 different themes that they offer. Beyond just offering quality free themes you’ll find an active support forum where you can get your site-related questions answered.

29. Business Point

Business Point is a great free theme oriented towards agencies and other technology companies who need to showcase their services.

The widgetized homepage gives you plenty of freedom for deciding how to showcase your services to your visitors. You also have the option to add a custom background image or even a slider. Those with a social media presence, or physical business location, can take advantage of the integrated social media buttons and phone number.

This theme was developed by a WordPress theme and web design company called ProDesigns. They currently maintain a staff of over 30 employees dedicated to different agency roles.

30. Pinnacle

Pinnacle is a breath of fresh air. The font choice and full-width header image go a long way towards invoking a feeling of comfort in your visitors.

It’s modern and flat design, and responsive layout creates a solid viewing experience no matter what screen it’s viewed upon.

It’s a flexible theme and can be an excellent fit for a variety of business and types of websites. Plus, WooCommerce compatibility gives you the option to sell products.

Pinnacle was created by Brett Kitner of Kadence Themes. You can stay up to date on the latest theme changes, as well as their outdoor adventures on their Facebook page.

31. Moesia

Moesia is a fun animation based theme for online business owners and creative types. This theme is easy to set up and offers you 11 different content blocks you can use to create a custom homepage.

Each of the content blocks has its individual settings, which allow you to do things like add animation, parallax effects, and more.

This theme is fully responsive and offers your business a way to showcase its unique flair and style.

It’s yet another aThemes theme that made the list, so you know they’re putting out quality work. They also maintain a regular posting schedule on Facebook, sharing content that’ll help you master your site.

32. Airi

Airi is a new free theme in the aThemes lineup. As a free theme, it allows you to do a lot. Right out of the box, it’s equipped with two different demo themes.

These templates allow you to hit the ground running with a template that matches your business. Just swap out the content with your copy and images, and you’re good to go. If you want access to even more templates and features, then you can upgrade to the Pro version of this theme.

Over 5 years in the theme development business and aThemes continues to release themes that make people’s lives easier, like Airi. You’ll even find an active Twitter feed filled with articles to help you take control of your new site.

33. Sydney

Sydney is a great free theme for business owners who are looking to build a relatively simple website.

It’s equipped with a full-width slider image, Google fonts integration, and access to an extensive selection of color palettes. The homepage can act as a great opt-in to get visitors to join your email list or learn more about your services.

This isn’t a feature-packed free theme, but it’ll give you what you need to get your business off the ground in style.

Plus, beyond all the other features than an aThemes theme will provide, it’s also equipped with extensive documentation and tutorials.

34. Hestia

Hestia* is a stylish and modern one-page theme that can be customized to fit most types of businesses.

It’s effortless to customize and is compatible with numerous page builder plugins for easy site building. You’ll also find starter sites that you can use as a foundation, instead of building your website from scratch.

If you want to sell products through your new business site, then you can take advantage of the bundled WooCommerce functionality.

Founded in 2012 by a group of four close friends, ThemeIsle* has now grown into a company of over 20 employees dedicated to providing quality WordPress themes and plugins.

35. Zakra

Zakra is a lightweight theme perfect for online startups. This theme is fast and has all the necessary features to help you quickly build a site for your new business.

You can either use the included demo content to build out your site or take advantage of support for page builders like Elementor.

There’s also support for advanced typography, multiple color schemes, and over seven different widget areas for even more customization.

Zakra was created by the two-man development team ThemeGrill. Founded in 2014, they continue to produce quality themes from the mountains of Nepal.

36. SinglePage

SinglePage is a super simple WordPress theme that’s built using the Bootstrap CSS framework.

Think of it as a theme that allows you to create landing pages, but can still work for simple websites. There are four different homepage sections that you can edit to your liking, even adding scrolling parallax background images.

Whether you want a super simple business site, or you’re launching a new product or service, this theme is worth trying out.

This theme was built by HooThemes. Even though it’s a simple theme you still might find some value in the step-by-step manual they’ve included on their website.

37. Hueman

Hueman is a highly flexible business theme. It currently powers over 60,000 websites across the globe.

You’ll notice that it’s more of a blog and content-driven theme, which may be perfect for some business owners. There are multiple different layout options to choose from and is equipped with an options panel where you’ll handle most of the site customizations.

Business owners who want to showcase their content will find a lot to love about this one.

The Hueman theme was developed by Nicolas Guillaume of Press Customizr. With all of the free themes offered you’ll find helpful documentation to guide you through building your site.

38. Neve

Neve* is a free WordPress theme built with a mobile first approach. It’s compatible with Google AMP and most popular-page builders. So, it makes building a business site accessible to everyone. Plus, the mobile-first approach has helped this theme achieve blazing fast speeds.

The design is simple yet modern and can be customized to suit a wide range of businesses. You can use the dummy content to speed up the site building process or start from scratch.

Themeisle* continues its list of contributions to the WordPress community with Neve. Users who prefer more interaction with the team can head over to the regularly updated Facebook page.

39. Spacious

Spacious is a free responsive WordPress theme that’s built with care. It offers a very clean design that can be adapted to a wide variety of niches.

There are two different color schemes to choose from, light or dark, which can easily be adjusted to be in better alignment with your brand.

This multipurpose theme has more than 12 different widget areas, along with 5 custom widgets for added customization options.

ThemeGrill makes another appearance on the list with Spacious. Those seeking out additional WordPress knowledge will find some value in their company Twitter feed.

40. Agency Lite

Agency Lite is an excellent choice for agency owners looking for a minimalist design that places a focus on your services.

The free version is pretty limited but is equipped with enough features to get a basic site up and running. There’s also pre-built page sections that allow you to highlight things like your team, FAQs, services, featured text, and more.

If you want access to an improved feature set, you can upgrade to a premium version of the theme. This will get you features like multi-lingual compatibility, more home customization settings, access to more fonts, site colors, and more.

AccessPress Themes brings us Agency Lite. This company operates out of Nepal and offers a solid selection of free and premium themes and plugins to choose from.

41. Corlate

Corlate is a free WordPress business theme that offers you a premium level design. This theme would be great for a digital agency or corporate-level business.

This theme was built using the WP Page Builder plugin, and also relies on the WP Mega Menu plugin. This means that site customization will be easy, and you can quickly create and organize sites with a multitude of pages.

Themeum maintains an entire library of free and premium themes, including Corlate. Their staff is dedicated to producing some of the most elegant and useful themes and plugins on the market today.

42. Suffice

Suffice is another multipurpose business theme that focuses on white space and clean typography. The free version of the theme comes with the agency demo, but the pro version gives you even more demo versions to work with.

This theme is well suited for agencies, digital marketing companies, and other creatives who want to integrate testimonials and case studies into their sites.

ThemeGrill brings yet another quality theme to the list with Suffice. Like other themes, their team creates you’ll get access to detailed and helpful theme documentation.

43. The100

The100 is a great theme developed for insurance companies. However, don’t let the insurance branding fool you, this flexible theme can just as well be used by real estate agents and other business owners.

It comes equipped with a homepage slider and multiple widgetized sections. Including, animations for team members and other informational elements.

Even though the theme is free it looks and operates like a premium theme.

The100 is brought to you by 8Degree Themes, another WordPress theme and plugin company based out of Nepal. Every theme has a dedicated support forum to help you work through any website issues.

44. Flash

Flash is a very clean and feature rich business theme. This continues the trend of WordPress themes that are great for digital agencies on a budget.

Flash has a slider, support for a handful of Google fonts, along with six different widgetized areas. If you want help building out your site, then you can turn to the SiteOrigin Page Builder plugin for drag and drop functionality.

There’s also a premium version of the theme available. This gives you more advanced color options, custom widgets, advanced typography options, progress bar options, Google Map integration, and more.

Once again, this theme was developed by the ThemeGrill team of Sanjip Shah and Rabin Shrestha. Sanjip regularly posts content related to ThemeGrill along with other online tips and tricks on his Twitter account.

45. Himalayas

Himalayas is a one-page parallax-style WordPress theme. The design of this theme utilizes plenty of white space to provide a relaxed environment for your visitors.

The free version of this theme is relatively basic. But it still allows you to add a slider to your site, change the color scheme, add different typography, and even sell products via WooCommerce.

There’s also a paid version of this theme if you like the theme and want access to even more features. For those building simple sites, the free version should be more than enough.

ThemeGrill is behind this theme as well. Finally, they maintain a Facebook page where they share articles related to WordPress theme selection.

46. Mesmerize

Mesmerize is a unique and creative theme for businesses. The pre-designed home page makes it easy to create a site in record time.

With Mesmerize you’ll find five different header designs you can choose from, along with 30 different content sections to give your site a unique design. You’ll also find advanced customization options like video backgrounds, sliders, overlays, and more.

The pre-designed sections make it easy to create a truly unique site, all through choosing different content blocks.

If you want to access more features of this plugin, then you might want to explore the premium version.

This theme is brought to you by Extend Themes–a company dedicated to providing you with easy to use, but highly customizable themes. Plus, if you ever get stuck with the customizer there’s a useful knowledgebase right at your fingertips.

47. Poseidon

Poseidon is a simple blog-oriented theme with a full-width header. Businesses who want to place a focus on content will find this theme valuable.

It’s probably not the best for corporate websites or those that need to put forth a high degree of professionalism. But, small content-driven businesses, bloggers, and those selling products online might love the simplicity of this theme.

The homepage is fully widgetized, which allows you to customize your homepage and choose how you want to display your content.

Poseidon was developed by Thomas Weichselbaumer the founder of ThemeZee. Even with the success of the themes it still remains a one-man operation.

48. Onetone

Onetone is a multipurpose business theme that offers a minimalist color scheme. You can build a very clean one-page website using this theme.

You can customize your theme using the bundled Customizer, or install a page builder plugin like Elementor to add drag and drop functionality to your site. The customizable video slider alone is enough to give this theme a test drive.

The unique Onetone theme was created by MageeWP–one of over 10 different themes offered by the company. All free themes also have access to the dedicated support forums, which are updated frequently.

49. Customizr

Customizr is a very easy to customize theme, hence the name. It’s a very popular theme with over 90,000 current active downloads, and over 850 five-star reviews. Customizr was developed with design best practices in mind, so you know your site will be professional.

It’s fully responsive and mobile friendly. Equipped with a homepage slider, multiple page templates for quick page creation, and multiple color options. For easy site creation, you can install the Nimble builder plugin.

There’s also a pro version of the theme available for even more advanced features.

Customizr is another theme created by Press Customizr. The theme’s development is handled by Nicolas Guillaume, who’s a very active member of the WordPress community.

50. Engrave

Engrave is a highly-customizable free theme. The stock theme is pretty basic in terms of design and layout, but you can fully customize most sections via the ten widgetized areas. The layout is also fully responsive and SEO optimized.

If you want access to more theme options, shortcodes, demo content, more color choices, and a lot more, then consider upgrading to the premium version of this theme.

This theme was built by Think Up Themes. Founded in 2011, this theme company knows how to put out a high quantity of themes. They’ll also share updates on their Facebook page from time to time about issues related to WordPress.

51. Education LMS

Education LMS is a perfect theme for educators, those running online schools, or people who are selling a catalog of online courses. This theme is built for physical schools, but it can be easily adapted to businesses in the online education space.

This theme has powerful customization options like custom headers, logos, featured slider, along with an integrated course rating and selling system. If your business is built on the back of education, then this theme is worth trying out.

The Education LMS theme is created by Fila Themes–they currently have three additional themes available. You’ll also find extensive documentation that’ll walk you through setting up and building your site.

52. Illdy

Illdy is a super slick WordPress theme built on the Bootstrap framework. This makes the theme fully responsive and will work perfectly on mobile devices. This mobile first approach helps to ensure that important site elements won’t be lost or hidden on smaller screen sizes.

The full-width homepage slider will easily draw your visitor’s attention into your site, and the one-page nature of the design will make your users want to scroll down endlessly.

The theme is retina ready, so expect super sharp text and vibrant images. There’s even support for unlimited color options, so you can find the perfect match for your business.

Illdy is the brainchild of the Colorlib team. Founded in 2013 by Aigars Silkalns, it has since grown into one of the largest WordPress sites on the web, including a sizeable Facebook audience of over 30,000.

53. Fagri

Fagri is a sleek and modern one-page theme that’s perfect for agencies and small business. This design of this theme breaks the homepage up into sections, so you can showcase your services, testimonials, and more.

This theme is flexible enough to cater to a myriad of business types, from online startups to digital agencies, creative portfolios, or even corporate sites, as long as you’re going for a bold touch. Plus, if you’re looking to sell digital products, it has WooCommerce integration right out of the gate.

Fagri is best for agency owners on a budget, but also perfect for businesses who want to add a bit of modern edge.

Themeisle* built this simple theme with beginners in mind. To continue that approach they also offer an educational and informative YouTube channel that’ll really help new users get up to speed.

54. Minamaze

Minamaze holds some deep similarities to the Engrave theme highlighted above. Overall, the design is pretty similar, however, Minamaze offers you more whitespace and a different color scheme right out of the gate.

It’s very easy to customize and comes equipped with ten different widget areas, social media icons, and a retina ready design. It is a simple theme, but with the right customizations, you can create a unique site for your business.

The UK-based Think Up Themes is behind the Minimaze theme–just one of the dozens of free themes they offer. They’re very active in the WordPress community, whether through uploading another theme or spending time in the forums.

55. Tusant

Tusant is a WordPress business theme that is built specifically for audio & podcasting purposes. The theme makes it easy for podcasters to create a complete website for their podcast without much work.

It comes with pre-built Elementor sections and page templates, and supports all major WordPress plugins for podcasting.

The theme includes several unique features that podcasters would quickly fall in love with and are huge time-savers for podcasting.

SecondLineThemes are in fact solely creating themes for podcasting, so they know what it takes to have a fully functional podcast website.

56. Specular WordPress Theme

Specular Premium WordPress Theme was trusted by 7000+ customers and is developed by Codeless.co What makes Specular better than other themes is the customizability and the compatibility with the top 200 WordPress plugins.The theme has 30+ pre-built website templates ready to install within a click.  You can use Elementor, WPBakery, and Gutenberg to edit this theme. You also don’t need any coding skills to work with Specular because anything can be edited through the theme options or drag-and-drop page builders.

Specular comes with CoWidget plugin for Elementor, Slider Revolution Template Library, Slider Revolution, WPBakery Page Builder, Ultimate Addons for WPBakery Page Builder, LayerSlider, Master Slider, Yellow Pencil, and ACF.You can customize the theme of your choice online before buying with the Online Template Builder panel. Specular comes with an exclusive header builder and footer builder so there is no limit to tailoring it to your needs!

Best Responsive WordPress Themes for Business

Before you jump into choosing your dream business theme, there’s one quick point that needs to be covered.

…Responsive design.

When your website isn’t responsive there’s no way to know how it’ll look on different screen sizes. Your site needs to look good and function properly no matter what screen size is thrown at it.

See, today’s internet users are using their mobile browsers over their desktop counterparts.

Plus, Google’s mobile-first indexing means sites that are mobile-friendly may get a rankings boost.

Basically, without a responsive website, you’re going to create a poor user experience and you’ll be sabotaging your search engine rankings.

Luckily, this can be avoided by choosing a responsive WordPress theme, like Avada, or Total.

Also, any StudioPress* theme you choose will be responsive. For example, the Digital Pro theme demo gives you the ability to test the site on different screen sizes.

Here’s the site when viewed on a traditional desktop:

The following image is mid-sized, like a tablet:

And finally, we have the mobile browser window:

Notice how the site still offers the user the same experience, even while on a much smaller screen size? Good responsive design will deliver your visitors the best browsing experience possible, no matter what size the screen is.

Wrapping Up

Hopefully, you’ve got a little more clarity about the themes you should be considering for your WordPress business site. Whether you’re going with a premium or free theme, remember that you aren’t stuck with your theme forever.

The beauty of WordPress is that you’re never stuck with your original theme choice. The list above should give you plenty to play around with.

Even if you don’t find the perfect WordPress business theme the first time around don’t be afraid to keep experimenting. Having a website you’re proud of and actually want to drive traffic to will go a long way towards helping you achieve success.

Once you’ve found a theme you want to try, then it’s time to start customizing. If you have any questions related to optimizing your site for speed or improving its security, then don’t hesitate to get in touch. And we Buffs are always eager to help people manage their websites.

Want to give your feedback or join the conversation? Add your comments  on Twitter.

One of the benefits of working with the WordPress content management system is that you can turn any vision you have into an engaging website.

That said, does “engaging” mean building a website that’s overloaded with images, content, animations, and more?

Of course not!

In the following post, we’re going to take a look at some of the best simple WordPress themes. Don’t worry. I’ve made sure they check off all the other criteria you look for in a quality WordPress theme. These, however, prioritize simplicity and ease of use above all things.

Why Simple Is Best in WordPress Web Design

Your job in building a WordPress website is to create an engaging and memorable experience for visitors. But, sometimes, the simplest experience is all you really need to get the job done.

Why risk potentially overwhelming visitors with anything other than that?

That said, simple WordPress themes aren’t just “simple” because they’re basic in design. There are a number of ways to evaluate the simplicity of a WordPress theme, so keep these points in mind as you set about choosing one for your website:

Minimalism

When someone describes a WordPress theme as simple, it’s typically because of the minimalism of the design and functionality of it. In other words, it includes only the essentials but does not fail to deliver results.

Why choose to work with a WordPress theme that’s so basic in nature though?

Well, for one, you can always add more if you need to later on. (It’s much easier to add new elements than to take them away and reconfigure the site around the void.)

A simply designed #WordPress theme allows for clearer pathways to #conversion. Without distractions, there’s no question about where to go or what to do. Simplify, simplify, simplify!
Click To Tweet

In addition, the absence of excess makes it much easier to ensure the mobile website is a truly responsive experience.

This quote is everything from Code in WP

Using a responsive WordPress theme won’t be the magic solution to make your site successful all on its own, but at the same time, not using a responsive theme is like shooting yourself in the foot and then trying to run a marathon.

As a reminder, all websites need to be responsive in 2021 and beyond. A simple WordPress theme will help ensure you have this since complex structures and oddly-sized content or typography won’t likely be present within it.

Management

Consider your workflow as it pertains to designing a website. If you’re a web developer, it would be nice to offload most of your design work to a WordPress theme. But that’s not always a given when you work with more complex WordPress themes.

In this case, complexity refers more to the options available within a WordPress theme. I’m sure you’ve seen them before. The multipurpose theme touts 30+ page templates, 10 different homepage layouts, and a slew of navigational design options.

Tuts+ sums this up well:

Having a lot of options is great but it can also be overwhelming, especially for beginners who just want to get their site up and running as quickly as possible.

You might also run into the theme developer that’s simplified the design to one or maybe a few choices. The excess, in this case, would come from the dozen or so WordPress plugins included in the theme package. So, not only do you now have to manage the WordPress theme, but you have to decide which of the plugins to use and then manually update them since they don’t come directly from the source.

Think of your WordPress theme much the same as you would a freelancer. You’re paying them to take some work off of your hands, right? Then why would you spend countless hours making decisions and implementing customizations to the configuration anyway?

If you use a simple WordPress theme, most of the work is going to be done for you.

Usability

There’s also the end user usability aspect to think about. In other words, do you want to adopt a seemingly simple WordPress theme, only to find out post-launch and handoff that the client is unable or unwilling to use it? Granted, you’ll take care of most of this if you handle ongoing maintenance for them, but what about in all other circumstances?

Should a complex WordPress theme be left in your client’s hands? And what about the ones that come with page builders that are too difficult for the layman to use?

You don’t want clients to be 100% dependent on you, especially for things like publishing a blog post or tweaking their bio’s headshot. If you make the WordPress website such an unfriendly place to work in, you have no one to blame but yourself when the client refuses to create new content for it or keep information updated.

Performance

Of course, don’t forget to consider how your choice of WordPress theme can affect the overall performance of the site.

All of these things can have an adverse effect on a WordPress website’s speed:

• Themes with unused templates and files.
• Themes with plugin bundles for extraneous functionality or features.
• Bloated page builder plugins.

Poorly-made WordPress themes themselves will cause performance levels to drop, too. But you know that already. Just be mindful of what that “stuff” that comes in your theme will do to your site as well.

Simpler is always better in this case.

Best Simple WordPress Themes for 2021

Choosing a WordPress theme is one of the first steps you take after onboarding a client and kicking off a new website project. The only problem with this step, though, is that there are thousands of them out there.

Kristen Baker of HubSpot writes:

Whether you need a theme to display your photography, manage your online store, complete a variety of different tasks, showcase your writing, or share your creative work, there is a simple WordPress theme option that could work for you.

So, they are out there, we just need to minimize the amount of work you have to do to find the right one.

Below, I’ve categorized the best simple WordPress themes into buckets that will make the decision-making process even easier for you.

Best Simple WordPress Themes with High Conversion Traits

To build a WordPress website without the hope of visitors converting in some way, shape, or form seems crazy, doesn’t it? Blogs need subscribers. Social communities need members. Businesses need customers. If your brand is online, then you’re trying to amass a following for some reason.

But just because you have a simple and nicely-designed WordPress theme to work with doesn’t mean it’ll necessarily help increase conversion rates.

So, what we need to look for here are themes that have high conversion traits. In other words, these are designs that will most seamlessly push your visitors through the conversion funnel.

1. Hestia Pro

Hestia Pro* is a material design theme for startups, businesses, portfolios, eCommerce, arts and much more. This beautiful theme is only a one-page parallax layout but it will easily make your content stand out.

Hestia Pro may be a minimalist theme, but it’s also one of the simplest themes around that incorporates WooCommerce*. You can even set up your entire WooCommerce store in just a few minutes. Hestia Pro’s neat and clean presentation means a clearer message, more sales and a highly accessible site.

With Hestia Pro’s live customizer*, fine-tuning your website is as easy as pie. You can make just about any change you’d like and see those changes happen in real-time. You can change colors, design details and much more.

It also just so happens that Hestia Pro is fully compatible with the most popular page builders out there.

And there are way more pros than what we’ve mentioned here*. It’s hard to imagine anybody going wrong by choosing Hestia Pro as their simple WordPress theme.

And did we mention the support you get with the theme? All support tickets are handled within 8 hours* which is something you don’t see often. Solid support means you have help when you need it!

And then there are the terrific reviews Hestia Pro has earned*. People seem to love how simple this theme is for both developers and end users!

2. Getwid Base

3. Launchkit

This is Launchkit. Unlike other simple WordPress themes on this list, this one was built specifically to help developers create landing pages. These are pages you use for the express purpose of conversion.

This is a good choice if:

• You have a singular product or service you are trying to sell.
• You don’t want to have to think much about developing a conversion pathway.
• You also don’t want to have to spend too much time thinking through what sort of navigation or pages are needed for a site of this type.

4. Typology

Typology is minimalism at its finest. If you’re looking for a simple blog theme that’s sure to offer the best reading experience while still wowing readers, this is it.

This is a good choice if:

• You want to use colors and typography to populate your website. This means having a strong color palette and brand messaging on your side.
• You’re well-versed in formatting content so that it’s scannable and readable.
• You have no need for images on this blog and would rather focus on producing high-quality content.

Best Simple WordPress Themes for Online Publications and Blogs

Aigars recently said this on the ColorLib blog:

The main focus for minimalist themes is on your own content instead of design elements…

He’s right. By using a WordPress theme that is decluttered right from the start, you provide visitors with a clean interface to ingest content from. And when your goal is to turn those visitors into readers — and maybe even subscribers — you don’t want an over-the-top design or multitude of widgets to get in the way.

That’s why, when you’re in the business of building online publications like magazines or blogs, you should use one of the following simple WordPress themes:

5. Brixton

Like many premium WordPress themes, Brixton allows you to choose the base template you want to work from. Regardless of which themed blog template you choose, it’s sure to be minimal in design.

This is a good choice if:

• You build websites for bloggers, magazines, newspapers, or other websites with a major editorial component.
• You don’t necessarily want to skimp on supporting blog content and widgets, but you still want the design to be lighter and easy to navigate.
• You prefer a bolder typography style that’s still clean and easy to read.

The newest 4.0 update of Brixton also has a ton of new features. It now integrates seamlessly with Revolution Slider, is way faster and much more.

And Brixton users have given it some terrific reviews!

6. BrookBrook brands itself as a “unique” WordPress theme. I think that’s because it exudes a lot of style while still having a traditional blog presentation.

This is a good choice if:

• You want to infuse your blog with extra elegance and style. This is especially nice if it’s for a fashion or food blog.
• There is a heavy social media component to the person or brand behind the blog, but you don’t want it to overwhelm the content.
• You want to make the most of the space you have without over utilizing the screen.

7. Michel

Michel is a beautifully designed WordPress theme for bloggers. Barely-there dividers and brilliant-looking images add a distinct touch to the design.

This is a good choice if:

• You want lots of wide open white space on the blog.
• You want some variety in layout choices.
• You want pre-made post templates, so you don’t have to do much work to create custom post types.

And it’s received some great testimonials about how beautiful the theme are as well as the great support they provide!

8. Read WP

Read WP is a super minimalist WordPress theme for bloggers. Although you can add complexity to the design with a sidebar and masonry grid, this might be best left as it was intended.

This is a good choice if:

• You’re publishing content of a highly technical or philosophical nature. In other words, distractions are not encouraged.
• You want to give your clients some leeway on how the page is laid out but would prefer to keep it very basic.
• You want something simple and easy to use for your own site. It comes with a portfolio template that would lend itself well to designers and other creatives.

Best Simple WordPress Themes for Creatives

One of the things about WordPress themes built for creatives is that they are going to include a multitude of media files. It’s the nature of the work they do and the whole purpose of building an agency or portfolio website.

Since images can cause problems for loading times when not properly optimized, you have to be very careful in selecting a WordPress theme for creatives. Not only should it be simple in design (so it’s easier to focus on your awe-inspiring samples), but it should be lightweight so as not to disrupt loading speeds any more than it has to.

Here are some safe and simple options to choose from:

9. Adios Portfolio

Adios is a premium WordPress theme you can use to build professional portfolios. With 10+ different minimalist homepage layout options and lightning fast loading times, it’s no wonder this simple theme is so popular.

This is a good choice if:

• You build portfolio websites for clients and want a variety of portfolio types (i.e. image, video, product, etc.) to work with.
• You have striking images that can populate the portfolio and communicate your message with few words.
• You like some flexibility in how you lay out your content, but not too much.

Adios has some killer features that come built into this minimalist theme. Many of them really are required if you want to take a website to the next level.Plus it’s gotten a ton of great reviews. It seems like the people who use this theme really enjoy it!

10. Air.

As you might imagine, a theme called “Air.” is going to evoke a certain feeling straight out the gate. This lightweight portfolio and shop theme works well for freelancers and agencies alike.

This is a good choice if:

• You’re not afraid to play with lots of open space.
• You plan on selling your work through the website and want a simply designed shop built into the theme.
• You’re confident in letting your images do the talking on your behalf.

Air also has a variety of menu options to choose from. They’re all extremely well-designed and easy to navigate for any website visitor. Simplicity at its best!

And then there are the robust features that come with Air. There’s so much you have control over in such a simple theme.

Finally there are the brilliant reviews! People love the clean, modern feel and quick support.

11. PILE

PILE is a self-ascribed “unconventional” WordPress portfolio theme. That’s because it isn’t afraid to go bold with what little content appears in it.

This is a good choice if:

• You want your portfolio to have a cool edge that makes it stand out from the crowd.
• You’re okay with adopting animated transitions so long as everything else is kept simple and lightweight.
• You don’t want your portfolio or blog to follow the typical layout patterns.

The PILE theme is more expensive than the rest of the themes here but perhaps it’s for good reason. Here are their 3 cornerstones that explain why this theme can take you far.

They’re also fully WooCommerce-integrated. So if you want to incorporate an online shop, you’re in luck!

Did we mention their support is top-notch? They stand behind their theme fully and want to make sure people who purchase it have a great experience with it.

And the reviews! This one really speaks volumes to the design, functionality and value.

12. ROUA

Like its hipster namesake, ROUA is a premium theme that’s trying very hard to be different while still adopting accepted trends. No matter how you feel about the word “hipster”, you’re sure to appreciate the understated simplicity of this design.

This is a good choice if:

• You want to limit your decision-making. This theme only comes with three “templates”.
• You or your client aren’t much of a writer and would prefer to use images and illustrations to convey your message.
• You have digital or physical creative work to sell.

ROUA also has a minimal look on mobile devices! It’s not just responsive, but designed with the very highest functionality in mind. While this theme has been built to be minimal, ROUA manages to retain a specific “unique feel” that is simply different from other simple themes you’ll find online.

And RUOA has some great customer testimonials! People seem to love the feature set, overall design and customer support.

Best Simple WordPress Themes for Any Business

It’s difficult to do a write-up like this and not get into all of the different kinds of business niches you might build websites for.

I thought about including a list of multipurpose WordPress themes that had “simple” templates to cover a wide range of business types. However, those kinds of themes go against the whole point of this article. Most of them have dozens of templates to choose from and almost always come with a set of plugins that require installation. And we don’t want that.

So, I’ve chosen a small handful of basic WordPress themes that I think would be suitable for businesses in general.

13. Angle

Angle is a sharp-looking and yet very simple WordPress theme for businesses. Take note of the various sections and pages included in the demo so you can get a sense for the versatility in this singular theme.

This is a good choice if:

• You hadn’t planned on using images and just wanted bold colors, typography, and illustrations to do the work.
• You need flexibility in building business websites for clients and want the versatile page and section examples included in this theme.
• You’re in need of a theme that utilizes the very trend flat and asymmetrical design trends.

Angle has a feature-rich visual composer so you can create detailed pages quickly and easily.

It even comes with extensive video documentation so you can easily install, maintain and make changes to your Angle theme.

Angle theme is also fully responsive. No matter what device or browser people use to visit your website, they’ll have a phenomenal experience.Want to customize your Angle theme to make it really unique? The good news is that Angle comes with extensive options to personalize your website.Need to add a portfolio to your site? Angle allows for truly unique portfolio set up, including a variety of shapes to make yours stand out from the crowd.Did I mention one-click set up? Import all the demo content with literally one click so you don’t have to spend hours building your website from scratch.Then there’s the retina display. Your site will look high-definition and crisp for all your visitors, giving you an air of professionalism.And people have left glowing reviews about the code quality, customer support and overall design.

14. Atmosphere Pro

Genesis Themes tends to do a great job building themes for developers that want something simple to start from, and Atmosphere Pro is no exception.

This is a good choice if:

• You don’t want to have to worry about responsiveness, performance, or security. Genesis Themes has already optimized its theme with these SEO-friendly attributes.
• You want to section off big blocks of space but leave a lot of open space around them.
• You have a good mix of content and lookalike imagery to populate the website with.

Atmosphere Pro has some insane features and functionality. This is the kind of exceptional work we expect from StudioPress and the Atmosphere Pro theme gets top marks.

15. MH Magazine

MH Magazine is a premium WordPress theme from MH Themes. You can use this simple theme across multiple client websites and one purchase gives you access to all the various templates! The theme is clean, modern, and perfect for your editorial site’s needs.

This is a good choice if:

• You have a traditional concept for an online publication that doesn’t require too much customization.
• You intend on building a full magazine or newspaper experience but want to keep the design toned down.
• You want to monetize your website.

As Adelina Tuca said:

Some themes – and especially the best minimalist WordPress themes available out there – come with the most beautiful and elegant of designs.

That said, let’s take a look at what sort of simple premium themes are available for WordPress.

16. ForumPress

ForumPress is a minimalist forum-building WordPress theme that comes from a team of developers who’s been crafting themes since 2011.

It features all the tools you need to build a powerful forum powered by bbPress, including the ability to create multiple forums with a beginner-friendly back-end interface.

This is a good choice if:

• You’re looking to setup a community forum, customer support forum, or a branded community.
• You want to offer a smooth user experience where people can create user profiles, search topics fast, and discuss and reply to threads more easily.
• You want to be able to personalize the theme and customize the design to match your brand.
• You want a forum theme with a responsive design that looks great across all types of devices and platforms.
• You want a theme that’s compatible with all popular WordPress plugins and lets you automatically update the theme with just one click.

Buy ForumPress for $99

What About WordPress Starter Themes?

WordPress starter themes are a bit different from simple WordPress themes, as John Hughes explains in this Torque article. While they are technically very simple in nature, they’re meant to be used more like a framework that you build from.

So, if your goal is to get a simple WordPress theme that takes care of nearly every aspect of the design out of the box, and it’s easy to manipulate, use one of the ones above. If you require something that allows for more customization, but you don’t want to go the route of creating a child theme and then gutting the parent, use a WordPress starter theme.

Best Simple WordPress Themes That Are Free

You might assume that the best simple WordPress themes for business are only available for a premium. In fact, you can find many high-quality themes for free that will do the trick, as ColorLib suggests.

Although you might not immediately look to free #WordPress themes for your clients, keeping a few in mind is a good idea to maintain an economical option. Dollar, dollar bills, ya'll.
Click To Tweet

These free simple WordPress themes could come in handy when building a personal website, a non-profit website, or one for any other type of business that’s cash-strapped:

17. Baskerville

Baskerville is a free theme designed by Anders Noren. Although it’s labeled as a “theme for hoarders”, it’s really just a blogger’s theme. Plain and simple.

This is a good choice if:

• You have a lot of blog posts to share as the masonry layout is an efficient way to display it all.
• You have a number of contributors who write for your blog and you want to give them their own highlighted spot.
• You expect there to be a strong social media and on-site commenting response from visitors.

Wrapping Up

One of the nice things about using simple WordPress themes is that you’re guaranteed a minimal base design and features that are sure to delight visitors. It also means you won’t have to step blindly into a new theme and, later, be blindsided by a complex backend that’s difficult to manipulate and definitely not client-friendly.

That said, do take time to experiment with the simple WordPress themes we’ve recommended above before you buy. We strongly recommends testing the demos before committing to a new theme. And it’s a great idea:

Ultimately, minimalist themes require you to get your hands dirty by testing out the demo sites. That way, you’ll recognize the right solution when you find it.

After all of this, if your client insists on having you build a website that’s more complex in nature, or they’ve brought along a theme that isn’t as simply designed as the ones below, that’s fine. I would just urge you to make sure you have a fast WordPress theme to work with, at the very least. If you start with a poor base for your website, it’ll be very difficult to remedy the underlying cause of your performance problems down the road.

Want to give your feedback or join the conversation? Add your comments  on Twitter.

Just like the WordPress core has to be updated on a regular basis, WordPress themes require frequent updates, too. These are done for the purposes of performance optimization, vulnerability patches, and implementation of design or feature upgrades.

Recently we wrote on how to update your WordPress website. But updating a WordPress theme is a bit more complicated, especially when you purchase premium themes from external sources or when you need to update a WordPress theme you so meticulously customized.

As such, this guide will hone in on how to update a WordPress theme and all the ways you can do it.

How to Update a WordPress Theme: What You Need to Do First

Before we review all the ways in which you can update a WordPress theme, I want to first suggest some steps to take beforehand.

Step 1: Monitor for Updates

Despite connecting your WordPress account to an email address, WordPress does not send update notifications to you when they become available. As a result, it’s your job to watch your website for that notification ticker:

Then, to make sure each update is handled in a timely fashion.

Step 2: Review the Changelog

Theme developers provide users with what’s called a change log. Essentially, this is a file that provides a rundown of what changes were made to the theme in the update. When you update a WordPress theme manually, always be sure to review this document as it will let you know exactly what to expect.

In the WordPress dashboard, you’ll find information about the new version in the details link:

If you’re using a premium WordPress theme and need to retrieve the files from outside of WordPress, you can usually locate the changelog in the Support section of their website as is the case with Uncode:

Step 3: Make a Backup

Before proceeding with any update — whether automated or manual — capture a backup of your WordPress site. You can do this with a backup and restore plugin like UpdraftPlus:

You can do this through a WordPress multi-site management tool. UpdraftPlus has one of these as well with UpdraftCentral:

You can also handle this through some web hosting accounts. Ryan Gray suggests using Softaculous to do this (especially if you want to automate updates).

Step 4: Test Updates Outside of the WordPress Site

Before committing any updates — core, plugin, or theme — to your WordPress site, always test them in a safe environment first. You never know if your updated theme will throw a conflict with a current plugin or if a new feature of the theme will break something on the site.

To do this, use a staging environment or local development tool like Local by Flywheel to clone your website and install the updated theme.

Step 5: Implement Updates at the Right Time

We receive alerts and notifications from a variety of sources these days: email, mobile apps, messenger tools, software… As such, it’s natural to feel the pull of those notifications when there are so many to distract ourselves with.

That said, Brian Jackson, the CMO of Kinsta, says WordPress developers should wait a week after an update appears in the WordPress dashboard (or ends up in your inbox):

Because developers are humans, just like the rest of us. They sometimes make mistakes. Trust me, my brother and I develop our premium WordPress plugins, and there has been a time or two where we have pushed out bad code by accident, and then immediately had to push another update to fix it. I don’t care how big of a development team is behind a plugin or theme, plugins and themes will always be prone to humans errors.

There are some cases where you can’t afford to wait, like if there’s a critical security patch included in the theme update. Otherwise, you’d be best to follow his advice and wait a week.

How to Update a WordPress Theme: Automate vs. Disable Auto Updates

When it comes to updating a WordPress theme, you have two general options for handling it:

• Automate it (set-it-and-forget-it)
• Do it manually

Because WordPress has already automated some WordPress theme updates, it’s important to ask yourself whether or not you want to handle them on your own or let the software do it. Depending on your answer, you’ll need to do one of the following:

Option 1: Enable WordPress Theme Auto Update

WordPress currently automates the following updates:

By default, only minor releases – such as for maintenance and security purposes – and translation file updates are enabled on most sites. In special cases, plugins and themes may be updated.

And it does so for the following reason:

By default, automatic background updates only happen for plugins and themes in special cases, as determined by the WordPress.org API response, which is controlled by the WordPress security team for patching critical vulnerabilities.

If you want to automate more than just security patch updates, however, you can program your WordPress site to push all of them through on your behalf. To do this, WordPress advises developers to place this snippet into a must-use plugin:

add_filter( 'auto_update_theme', '__return_true' );

Note that this script will only work for themes you’ve installed from the repository.

Themes that come from theme marketplaces or other external sources cannot be automatically updated with this snippet. You will have to use another tool to do this.

How to Automate a WordPress Theme Update with a Plugin

The Companion Auto Update plugin is one way to automate a WordPress theme update with a plugin.

This plugin enables you to turn on automatic updates for the core (minor and/or major updates), plugins, and themes.

You can disable theme updates completely, if you’d like. The Advanced Settings tab gives you the option to schedule the frequency of theme updates, so be sure to configure that to your liking. #WordPress
Click To Tweet

If you are using a WordPress theme from outside of the WordPress repository, you can also take control of updates with the Easy Updates Manager plugin, which works with WordPress Multisite, too.

In the settings of the plugin, you can configure all automated updates for your WordPress theme. Or turn them off altogether.

You may also set individual update controls for your WordPress themes under the Themes tab:

Once the changes are saved, the plugin handles the rest.

Automated updates can typically be programmed and scheduled using your WordPress multi-site management tool, too. They work quite similarly to the plugin above (UpdraftCentral even utilizes Easy Updates Manager to handle the automation for it).

Option 2: Disable Theme Updates in WordPress

Automated theme updates may be fine for smaller personal or private websites. In other words, if there isn’t a lot at stake if a plugin should break or the white screen of death appears for a few hours, then, by all means, entrust your theme to automated updates.

If you’d feel more comfortable disabling theme updates — and you know you’ll make the time to check in on them regularly — WPBeginner suggests two options to do this:

The first is to install the Disable All WordPress Updates plugin.

It’s a simple enough plugin. Install it on your website and all automated updates will be disabled. There’s no need for configuration.

If you’d rather not burden your website with another plugin, you can add a snippet to your must-use plugin that turns auto updates off for your theme:

add_filter( 'auto_update_theme', '__return_false' );

Now that you know how to automate WordPress theme updates or turn them off completely, let’s look at the various tools and processes you can use to manually update a WordPress theme.

How to Update a WordPress Theme Manually

For all other themes whose updates you have not updated, here is how to update a WordPress theme manually:

How to Update a WordPress Theme from the Repository

One of the benefits of using WordPress themes from the repository is that you never have to leave your WordPress dashboard to find one, install it, and, later, update it.

So, when an update comes into WordPress that says it’s time to update your WordPress theme, you can do so from one of two places.

The first place is under Dashboard > Updates. If your theme appears on the list, you can issue the theme from there.

The second place is under Appearance > Themes. If your theme has an update waiting, there will be a notice about it directly below.

Updates inside of WordPress can be handled with a single click.

How to Update a WordPress Theme from ThemeForest

There are a number of reasons why you’d purchase a premium WordPress theme from outside the WordPress repository. Just keep in mind that it’s usually your responsibility to find out when an update is available and to install it on your own.

Whether your theme developer or marketplace notifies you by email about an available theme update or not, this is how you will handle the manual installation of it.

1. Log into the developer’s site or marketplace and download a copy of the new files.

To update a WordPress theme from ThemeForest, you can retrieve the files from your Downloads area:

To update a WordPress theme from an independent developer like Elegant Themes, go to their website and retrieve the files from your Downloads area:

2. Remove or rename the previous theme version.

In order to install a theme update manually, you have to delete or deactivate the older version first. That’s because the old and new version have the same name and WordPress won’t allow the same-named files to be installed.

There are a few ways to fix this:

• Delete the theme files from the wp-content/themes/ folder via FTP or file manager.
• Rename the theme files from the themes folder to something like [themename-old]. That way, if something bad occurs during the update, you still have the older version installed which will make it easier to restore.
• Or you can take Compete Themes suggestion and use the Easy Theme and Plugin Upgrades plugin. This way, you won’t have to delete or rename any files. It handles the safe update for you.

3. Upload the updated theme file.

There are two places where you can upload the updated theme file for your website.

The first is inside WordPress, under Appearance > Themes > Add New:

If you’re already logged into the control panel to deal with the renaming or deleting of the theme files, though, you might as well take the other option and upload them there:

Once the theme update has been uploaded, check on your WordPress site to make sure everything is okay. If you installed the update on your test server first, there shouldn’t be any problems, but it’s still important to check.

Log into WordPress and verify that you’re not seeing the white screen of death. Then, visit the website itself and make sure everything appears as it should.

4. Delete the old theme file.

Once you’ve confirmed that the update is good, go ahead and permanently delete the old version of the theme.

How to Automate a WordPress Theme Update from ThemeForest

If you find the idea of having to stay abreast of premium theme updates annoying, use your license key to bring those update notifications into the WordPress dashboard. You can even automate these updates with it.

Here is an example of how Divi handles this:

Simply input your username and API key so that the theme developer has the ability to send updates directly to your WordPress dashboard.

ThemeForest themes allow for this, too.

Under your Settings tab, you can retrieve an API key that connects your Envato account with WordPress, so that updates can be shared between the two. WPExplorer Themes explains how to use the Envato Market plugin to activate the key on your website.

You will not receive ThemeForest updates in your dashboard otherwise.

How to Update a WordPress Theme without Losing Customization

Finally, let’s talk about how to update a WordPress theme without losing all the customizations you’ve made.

Why is this even something to consider?

Well, when you apply updates directly to a WordPress theme’s files and code, any updates installed afterward will override the changes made. If there are just a few customizations and you remember what they are easily enough, you could just reapply them to the theme after the update.

The best way to do this is with a file comparison tool.

How to Use a File Comparison Tool to Save Customizations

WPBeginner recommends three file comparison tools for this purpose:

1. WinMerge for Windows
2. Kaleidoscope for Mac
3. Meld for Linux

Choose the one that matches your OS and install it. Then, upload a copy of your old (current) WordPress theme files and your new (update) WordPress theme files to the software.

The file comparison tool will scan the folder structure and files contained with them to identify discrepancies between the two. As you locate your customizations in the old files, copy them into the new ones. That way, all of the customizations are captured before you manually install the WordPress theme update.

Too many customizations on your site? Don’t want to go through the process of changing them every single time? There’s another way to more efficiently handle updating a WordPress theme without losing customization. #WordPress
Click To Tweet

How to Update a WordPress Child Theme

If you don’t know why or when to use a child theme, read this guide from Smashing Magazine. It’ll answer all your questions.

Once you’ve familiarized yourself with child themes (if you’re not already using them), you’ll see that they’re insanely helpful for customizing WordPress themes. Because you’re using a copy of the theme that’s outside of the parent theme’s files, updates won’t affect the customizations you make.

That said, questions about how to update a WordPress child theme are still quite common from WordPress developers:

So I leave the child theme in my theme folder on the server. And even if I have a child theme folder in the new theme package I don’t have to use it. Am I right?

The answer to this is, “Yes. All you need to do is update the WordPress theme that the child theme is dependent on.”

That said, if your WordPress theme developer provides you with an update to your child theme and you want to install it, you’ll have to preserve your customizations somehow.

You can follow the procedure above whereby you use a file comparison tool to identify customizations and then copy them into the new theme files. Or you can use these tips from The Design Space Co. on how to store customizations inside your theme’s settings:

“If you know which (if any) edits you have made in your current child sheet, then make [a] copy and paste them over to the Divi Theme Options Custom CSS box, in order to protect them.”

This suggestion refers specifically to Divi. Other premium WordPress themes should offer a similar option in the theme’s settings menu.

You can then install the child theme update. You may need to reassign the correct menu to your navigation bar or make other small adjustments to widgets, but all other customizations should now be preserved since they’re saved to the theme’s configuration.

Put Your WordPress Update Skills to the Test

As you can see, the process by which you update a WordPress theme can vary. Sometimes it depends on the size or purpose of your website. Sometimes it depends on if the theme is customized or out of the box. And sometimes it depends on who is responsible for managing the updates

As always, if you find yourself overwhelmed with having to log into your clients’ websites (or even your own) on a daily basis to monitor for and manage theme updates, reach out to WP Buffs.

WP Buffs WordPress update services safely handle your theme updates on a weekly basis and at the perfect time, too. Plus, update services come with regular reports, so that, even if you don’t manage the updates yourself, you’re always in the know about what happened during them.

Want to give your feedback or join the conversation? Add your comments  on Twitter.

You start to think to yourself, “I bet it would be better if I hire somebody to build the whole thing from scratch with a custom WordPress theme so it looks and acts exactly as I want.”

Do. Not. Do. It! The amount of overhead and upkeep that’ll be needed is going to turn your dream into a nightmare.

Still not convinced? Let’s take a look at some reasons why a custom theme is just a bad idea.

1. You need to keep paying to have it updated.

You may have budgeted for the initial development of the custom theme, but did you budget for having its code updated by your custom developer? If you aren’t having your custom theme regularly checked and rewritten by a developer, you are leaving it open to bugs, security vulnerabilities, and incompatibilities.

One of the most important things that your website should be compatible with is the latest versions of PHP. PHP 7.2 is currently the recommended version for WordPress and comes with a TON of performance enhancements that aren’t available with older versions of PHP.

However, if your theme isn’t updated to be compatible with PHP 7.2, it will start causing a lot of problems for your website if your server’s PHP version is updated to 7.2.

WordPress core updates are another thing theme developers watch for. When new WordPress versions are preparing to be released, there are Beta and Release Candidate versions that are available for developers to use for testing their themes and plugins to make sure they work with the updated WordPress software.

If your theme isn’t being actively updated by the developer who wrote it, you run the risk of the website not working once the WordPress update rolls out.

2. It’s probably not getting checked for security.

When commercial theme developers sell a theme license, what you’re usually paying for is support and updates. These updates are crucial for site security. As security issues are discovered, theme developers update their code to fix the vulnerabilities. Some of these vulnerabilities can be minor, but some may also be major vulnerabilities.

For a commercial theme, developers are being paid to update the code as quickly as possible to fix the vulnerabilities. When you have a custom developed theme, unless you are paying to have the theme’s code checked for vulnerabilities on a regular basis, it is most likely not being checked or updated.

3. It may not work well with popular plugins.

One of the most common issues we fix on sites that are on our care plans is conflicts between plugins and themes. Popular commercial themes are in use on millions of websites, so it’s safe to assume they have been tested to work well with all of the top WordPress plugins either by the developers or by website owners themselves.

On the other hand, a custom developed theme won’t be tested to work with all of the top plugins until you try to use them on your site. At which point, they may break your website.

For example, the big update to WordPress 5.0 included the new Gutenberg editor — marking a major change to how WordPress post and page editing is handled, It was vital that themes were compatible when the update rolled out.

Custom developed themes that weren’t being updated might not have work with Gutenberg and potentially saw major issues as a result. On the other hand, commercial theme developers had been given months to test their plugins for Gutenberg compatibility and most made sure their themes were ready for the change.

4. It might not be well coded.

When a commercial theme is used on many websites, users report issues to the developers on a regular basis. The developers who work with that theme when they build websites have also become very familiar with the theme’s code and often contact the theme developer if they find issues that require fixing.

However, with a custom built theme that’s only being used on your website alone, the only people checking that theme’s code are you and whoever developed that theme. In these situations, several bugs can slip through the cracks and negatively impact your site via malware, site performance issues, or both.

5. There is no user community to help you.

One of the best parts about well-known commercial themes is that they usually come with support from its developer and an active community of users that share tips and help each other out. For example, three of the best themes, Genesis, Astra and GeneratePress together have tens of thousands of users in Facebook groups dedicated to their themes!

A theme that’s only being used on one website also won’t have a community of developers with experience working on that theme. That means that each time the theme needs to be worked on by a developer (if it’s not being worked on by the original developer) you will have to pay them for time spent going through the theme to find out how it’s built just so that it can be worked on.

When you use a popular commercial theme, many developers within the WordPress community will be familiar with it and can quickly make customizations for that theme because they already know how it’s built. Over the course of a few years, the amount of money saved by being able to hire developers who already know your theme and can make quick edits can save you thousands of dollars.

6. You’re paying someone to reinvent the wheel.

When someone is creating a completely custom theme for you, they’re doing something that has already been done and perfected by many others. No matter how good of a developer they may be, they are still having to unnecessarily write code that would not have needed to be written if you had instead started with a commercial theme.

When editing a commercial theme to fit your design needs, a developer needs to only add enough code to make those design changes. The amount of coding needed is significantly less than what would be required to create the theme from scratch. The difference in time and cost isn’t counted in minutes and hundreds of dollars, but rather in hours and thousands of dollars.

The amount of time and money spent reinventing the wheel could instead be used to perfect your site’s design and grow your website’s traffic.

The Bottom Line

It may not seem like a custom theme is too expensive to get the features and design you want, but when you factor in all the hidden costs listed above, I hope you will consider using a well-supported commercial theme. It’s my plea, as someone who spends every day working with a dedicated team, fixing websites that are broken because of outdated and poorly written custom themes: please consider the future of your website!

SaveSave

SaveSave

Now comes the hard part – picking the right WordPress theme.

When you start your search, you may be overwhelmed by the seemingly endless number of free or premium themes available. So what should be on your mind before you select one that will make or break your new site?

And if you’re a developer, you may want to take a look at a WordPress Theme development course.

1. Responsive Design

One of the features that isn’t optional anymore. Many users are switching devices from desktop computer to tablets and mobile phones so your website has to display properly on each one. You can easily filter themes and avoid those which lack responsiveness.

Google even offers a free mobile-friendly testing tool to check whether the theme you’re thinking about is mobile-friendly.

Most theme companies, like CyberChimps for instance, build only mobile-responsive WordPress themes. The folks at Themeco specialize in responsive themes as well, like their Pro theme! This should be the case with any high-quality theme shop.

2. Compatibility Across Browsers

Make sure the WordPress theme you’re thinking about appears well across different browsers. As your users use various devices, they also have different browser preferences. The theme may look awesome on your current browser, but it may not perform well on others.

WordPress themes developers usually test their themes, but if they don’t mention it in the theme description, you may try a simple test by trying it on different browsers such as popular Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, Internet Explorer or Firefox. Use browser compatibility tools to save time!

3. Easy Customization

The customization options vary from theme to theme and by changing a few features, you can create diverse layouts without any knowledge of coding or CSS.

Some of the themes come with advanced options but it still may not include the functionality you’re looking for. You want to be able to do everything from implementing the WordPress REST API to easily editing your source code.

To find out how the basic layout do look, spend time on trying demo versions. Keep in mind that a variety of functionality is not an essential part of each theme, but could be useful depending on what you want your website to do.

You always want to choose from among the best WordPress themes providers in order to get more custom options and be able to do as much as possible without messing with the code! Webcreate.me offers a professional collection of WordPress themes for creative designers, portfolio showcases, agencies and other creative businesses. Then there’s the Divi WordPress theme, and easy-to-use page-builder for those new to WordPress.

4. Loading Speed

Website speed today is one of the most significant factors affecting conversion rate. Most people won’t waste their time on a website that takes ages to load.

Average user expect loading time up to only 3 seconds. That’s why you should be thorough when choosing a theme because the problems with load performance may destroy the beauty of well-coded and good-looking site.

5. Customer Support

If you go for a premium theme, customer support is usually a part of the package. It can be email support, a call center, or even a forum and tutorials.

Although free themes are often only side projects for developers, many of them offer at least some form of email support. You may wait a little bit longer for your answer, but it’s better than trying to deal with issues yourself.

6. SEO Friendly

Many vendors say their themes are “SEO-friendly,” but they may be full of mistakes! On the one hand, it´s a good sign that a developer has considered SEO, but on the other hand don’t trust it 100% until you’ve investigated yourself.

7. Support All Essential Plugins

The popularity of WordPress stems from a robust plugin library. Some of them are necessary for every website, so don´t forget to check if your theme supports all plugins you might need to use in the future.

Simple and Uncluttered Design

A user-friendly design means people will enjoy their visits to your website. Many themes come with plenty of colors, layouts and features which may be useful, but in the end your want to focus on simple design.

It´s not a secret that minimalism is timeless trend, not to mention it affects conversion rate. Make sure that the WordPress theme isn’t too complicated and will make your content easy to understand.

Some templates might be beautiful, but that doesn’t mean they’ll help to grow your business or improve sales. Remember that you are creating website for your potential customers and you want them to find what they need quickly.

9. Updates and Security

Your theme should automatically update with new core updates of WordPress. Undoubtedly, the most important reason why WordPress is launching updates is security. As of April 2016, 26.4% of websites are running on WordPress, which means WordPress sites are often targets for hackers.

Some themes, especially those that are free, aren’t launching updates straight after a new WordPress update is out. The reason is mention above – usually it’s a side project of developers.

Make sure your theme comes with regular updates, otherwise you put your website under risk of threads and security vulnerability.

10. Read What Others Think

Reviews are always a good way to assess quality. Many vendors offer an option to filter themes by ratings. Customers’ past experiences can help you to find potential problems before you choose the theme.

No theme is perfect, but selecting an optimized WordPress theme that will help you be successful, especially if you’re starting your own online business. Before selecting a free theme or purchasing a premium one, take these important factors into account so your can use the same one for years to come!

And if you’re looking for very specific niche themes, these might help:

• WordPress Video Themes
• 20+ Best Food Blog WordPress Themes 2018
• WordPress Gallery Theme
• WordPress Magazine Theme (How to Create a Magazine Website With WordPress)
• WordPress Fashion Theme
• Premium WordPress themes

Want to give your feedback or join the conversation? Add your comments  on Twitter.