Best of Wordpress theme galore

In this post, I’ll be telling you how to choose a good Wordpress theme and provide you with a list of posts regrouping the best Wordpress themes around the blogosphere.

Points to look in a good Wordpress theme

1. Compatible with major browser.
Does the theme work on Internet Explorer as it is on Firefox? Some themes tend to be developed under only a certain browser leaving your visitors with a broken or inaccessible site if they are using a browser that can’t understand how that theme was laid out. Check through the theme’s feature list to see whether it works on major browser like Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera,etc..

2. Free help and support.

Is there a particular place where you can get help on the theme like a forum or discussion group? Is the theme developer willing to provide his own help to you?

download the best wordpress themes

3. Support for plugins you need.

Some theme may not work with particular plugins so do check whether it will work with those you’re willing to implement. For e.g comment’s preview, sidebar widget,gravatar,etc

4. Speed/loading time.

Many themes come with lots of bloated graphics : background image, icons, list images, etc. Do you need all these graphics? What’s more important in your visitors’ eyes : the look or the time it takes them to access your blog?

Check the theme’s size after downloading it. Themes have an image folder so do check its size and also the stylesheet, style.css. The stylesheet gets loaded each time, so the smaller in size it is, the faster your page/blog loads.

There are also such features like LiveSearch, javascript(for effects such as the sliding tray/section,etc). These will put an extra load on the blog’s loading time. So will you and your visitors require them?

5. Easy to work with/modify

Is the stylesheet(style.css) well commented with appropriate section for different layout? If there’s a header image, can you change it easily?

6. Additional features

Has the theme developer taken some time to add additional goodies with the theme? Making it SEO optimised or providing you with appropriate sitemap,archives and link template pages.

Some features which I think most theme should come with are SEO optimised, quick social bookmarking(appropriate buttons and links to submit to digg-like sites) and language translation. Instead of relying on plugins for these features, they should be coming out of the box with a good theme.

7. Terms of use/copyright

See the conditions under which the theme is released. Can you modify it and make it your own version? Can you remove the links pointing to the theme’s page? Can you distribute your own modified version of it?

8. Upgrades/fixes

Is the theme frequently updated fixing bugs, browser issues, Wordpress update problems, etc?

Resuming : Will the theme bring value to the blog? Sure, look matters but do look out for the above points too when making your decision.

Collection of the best free Wordpress themes

The posts below gather a list of the best Wordpress themes, with screenshots and live demo link to allow you to test the theme on a real blog :

If you’ve got such a post gathering a list(at least 10 great themes) with their screenshots and live demo, please submit it through the comments and I’ll add it above.

In your opinion, what makes a good Wordpress theme? Should the look matters for everything? Do tell me.