WordPress Themes

In this category you will find the best WordPress themes, templates and designs for your next website project. No matter if you are looking for free themes, premium themes or a design for a very specific purpose.

I put several weeks of research and over 15 years of professional WordPress experience as a developer into this list for you. To help you find the best WordPress theme for your project.

What is a WordPress Theme?

A WordPress theme is a ready-made design template for the WordPress content management system. The theme centrally controls the appearance of the entire site, such as fonts, sizes, colors and other visual functions.

The short and sweet answer. Fold out the text if you want to have even more basic knowledge about WordPress designs and templates 😉.

How do WordPress themes work?

In the past, the life of a web designer was super complicated. A website consisted of numerous individual pages. If you wanted to change the font size of the headings, for example, you had to do it manually on every single subpage.

With the introduction of content management systems, this has changed fundamentally.

A theme is stored in WordPress CMS, which contains a whole set of files that centrally change the look of your website. The most important files are:

Style.css
The most important file when it comes to the pure look of the website. Within the style.css you define which fonts you use in which sizes, or which colors certain elements of your page should have.
Functions.php
In the functions.php already more code is used. Whenever you want to add javascripts or custom functions to your website, you do that via functions.php.
Single.php
This file is where you design the look of your individual blogposts. For example, if you want to have a large header image at the top and the headline below it, you can restructure that in this file.
Archive.php
With Archive.php (sometimes also with category.php) you control the appearance of your category pages. That is, the pages that list your blogposts on a particular topic.
Header.php
As the name suggests, the header.php controls everything at the top of your page. Mostly the basic structure of your menu and general elements.
Footer.php
Sure, where there is a header, there is also a footer. With the help of footer.php you adjust everything that should appear in the lower area of your website.

Best WordPress themes & templates

An overview of the best WordPress themes you can find at the moment. I have picked out the top candidates among the templates for each area of use. The best list from professionals.

What is important to me as an old hand when choosing the perfect WordPress design:

1. Search engine optimization

The most beautiful website is of no use at all if it can’t be found. That’s why I check all themes for the optimization possibilities for the search engine.

2. Plug-in compatibility

This is not always possible with every plug-in. But this should be the case for the big and well-known plug-ins.

3. Great design out of the Box

Great design is a must. Your visitors must feel comfortable so that they stay. A theme should always create a good base for the design that you can then customize according to your wishes.

Premium WordPress themes

Gutenbiz Pro

Gutenbiz pro will help you to create one with an elegant design.

The theme is fully compatible with the WordPress editor, WooCommerce plugin, SEO plugins, Contact Form plugins, etc. that will provide extra features.

Gutenbiz Pro theme comes with a premium Gutenbiz addon (WooCommerce minicart, advanced heading and advanced typography) and the Rise Blocks Pro, a Gutenberg Page builder. Henceforth, you need to install the Gutenbiz WordPress theme.

Bizline Pro

Bizline Pro is a premium corporate WordPress theme, best suited for business as well as eCommerce websites.

This theme includes the Top info bar, Header options, Featured Slider, Services, About, Feature, Testimonial, Team, Call to Action, News, and Updates sections.

It offers all the features of the Bizline WordPress theme – Free Version along with other additional tweaks to make the website awesome, aesthetic, and elegant.

DarkBiz Pro

DarkBiz Pro, a multipurpose WordPress theme, has a dark bold look which will give a unique modern website.

This theme is SEO friendly, cross-browser compatible, Gutenberg Support, and fully translation ready.

Our dedicated team will help you in setting up websites. Follow the links for instructions. Full Demo: https://preview.risethemes.com/sites/darkbiz/

Avada Theme

Avada is actually less of a theme and more of a complete website builder.

Included are the base theme and an integrated page builder. This leaves nothing to be desired.

With Avada you can very quickly build a website including a Woocommerce online store.

Astra Theme

Astra boasts that it has created the most popular theme of all time.

Although I doubt it, Astra is one of the most popular themes on the market. Highlights include loading time optimization and the ability to create any kind of website with the theme.

Super customizable and most importantly very lean in terms of file sizes.

Zakra Theme

Zakra is flexible, fast, lightweight and modern multipurpose theme that comes with many starter free sites.

Check all the starter sites at https://zakratheme.com/demos.

Create any layout you want. The theme is responsive, Gutenberg compatible, SEO friendly, translation ready and major WordPress plugins compatible.

Charitize Pro

Charitize is a fully responsive, beautiful & clean multipurpose WordPress theme that is most suitable for the Non-Profit Organizations (nonprofits), NGOs, Charity, Donation camps, Foundations, Fundraising events, Welfare activities, etc.

With many highly customizable features, you can easily build a professional website that impresses.

This theme supports most of the popular plugins such as Contact Form 7, Jetpack, PS Sitemap, Woocommerce, Yoast SEO, etc.

OceanWP

OceanWP is a free multipurpose theme. Multipurpose in this case means nothing else than that the design is suitable for pretty much any use case.

The free version of OceanWP already offers you a lot of features and design options.

If that’s not enough, you can buy paid extensions.

Sydney Theme

Sydney is a powerful business theme that provides a fast way for companies or freelancers to create an awesome online presence.

As well as being fully compatible with Elementor, Sydney brings plenty of customization possibilities like access to all Google Fonts, full color control, layout control, logo upload, full screen slider, header image, sticky navigation and much more.

You can import one of our existing demos (https://athemes.com/sydney-demos/)

Which WordPress design is suitable for me?

Choosing your theme is a very basic part of your website planning. Each theme has its own specifics that you will use to build your individual pages. That’s why it’s important to choose a WP theme you like and will be happy with for a while. Redesigning an existing site with a new theme sometime later is a huge amount of work that you’d like to save yourself. Trust me, I know what it’s like 😉.

A few tips for choosing your WordPress templates

If you’re wondering which WordPress theme is right for you, it’s best to ask yourself the following questions:

Does the theme work with a lot of custom shortcodes?
Divi or Elementor Basic do that, for example. If you change the theme later, your website will look completely shot because the new theme doesn’t recognize the elements of your old site.
Does the theme offer me fast loading times?
They all advertise it, but only very few stick to it. Loading times are THE decisive factor in this day and age. Mobile display is becoming more and more important and so are the lancets. And we are not talking about perceived, but measured loading times.
How does the theme do on a mobile device?
Almost every theme seller also offers a demo page. Tip: Don’t look at this page on your desktop, but with your smartphone and/or tablet. Looks good? Bonus point for the theme.

Where to buy WordPress themes?

WordPress theme creators are now a dime a dozen. Countless freelancers have built up a small additional business through their own templates.

This quickly becomes confusing.

That’s why we have picked out several sources for the best WordPress premium themes for you. All of them are providers with whom we have had good experiences ourselves and who really offer you something for your money.

Rise Themes

Rise Themes is digital store for premium WordPress themes, plugins and extra Elementor Addons. We sell elegant premium WP themes developed by in-house experience team.

Evisionthemes

Evisionthemes is a development agency that operates on WordPress based designs, offering high-end solutions for web and mobile market. We offer our services throughout the global market.

Themeforest

Themeforest by Envato has been around for an incredibly long time. The platform is by far the biggest marketplace for excellent themes that you can buy for little money.

Themegrill

Themegrill is digital store for premium WordPress themes, plugins and extra Elementor Addons. We sell elegant premium WP themes developed by in-house experience team.

Theme Palace

Theme Palace is a platform where you can explore amazing themes curated by our team from our experienced designers, as well as from independent creators with secure and standard coding.

Elegant Themes

Elegant Themes is a professional development studio for premium themes. The most famous theme is definitely Divi, an all-in-one theme that allows you to implement pretty much any website wish.

Can I modify WordPress themes?

I know this from myself. At the very beginning you like the design of the website quite a bit and you are satisfied. Then you sleep on it a few times and you notice little things that you would like to adjust.

The call-to-action buttons could have a different color. The font is somehow not so readable and the logo could be bigger.

If you feel the same way, I have good news for you: WordPress themes are always customizable. You can change them completely according to your wishes.

There are usually two ways to do this:

1. Via the theme’s settings

2. Via CSS and adjustments to the individual theme files

If your theme offers settings in the administration area, you are on the safe side even as a beginner. Mostly you can find the settings in the so called Customizer.

If you go over the CSS and theme files, you will need a basic knowledge of CSS and PHP.