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?
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 :
- 100 Favourite Wordpress Themes
- 49 Most downloaded Wordpress themes of all time
- 83 Beautiful Wordpress Themes You (Probably) Haven’t Seen
- The Best Minimalist WordPress Themes
- Most del.icio.us Wordpress themes from around the blogosphere
- 18 Adsense Optimized Wordpress Themes to Maximize your Contextual Ad Earnings
- Comprehensive list of 980+ Free WordPress 1.5 and 2.0 Themes / Templates available for download
- Winners of Alex King theme competition
- Best WordPress Themes Part One
- Best WordPress Themes Part Two
- Top WordPress Themes
- Thèmes WordPress(The best Wordpress themes translated in French)
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.
- I’m staying with Wordpress 2.1.3, so should you!
- Download MyJournal : a light,white,3Columns minimal theme
- Download the best black minimalist theme for your Wordpress blog : ColourFull Wall
- Download the Cloudy smilies
- Download myJournal ethereal major update : myJournal supareal
- 11 Principles to Design a Great Wordpress Theme
Most of all its highly subjective. You cannot say that theme X or Y is THE BEST theme around because What matters most is if the person likes the look and feel of the theme. I know, i know, you can easily do some tweakings to fit basically any theme to your needs, but then as ye mentioned some licences might not allow that. also some people might not have the tech. abilities to do so….
Functionalities are nice, but frankly, if a theme is packed up with functionalities but the look doesnt fit my needs, i will just dissecate it and look at the php which interests me (If its indeed done with php of course
)
Furthermore if its a purpose defined blog with a common line / subject for posts, the theme sure needs to fit the content (I would not start a hentai site with colourfull wall!
lol just joking)
enfin, anyway, you know me, am not the kind who ever looks at the most popular / most downloaded section on download sites, statistics are evil, so is mainstream
Interesting article. I agree with yours considrations. In the “term of use” chapter I would add : “is the theme sponsorised ?”.
I maintain a list of beautiful themes traduced in frenche. Here is the URL : http://wordpress-tuto.fr/themes-wordpress
[...] best Wordpress themes around the blogosphere. Also telling you how to choose a good Wordpress theme.read more | digg [...]
about the load time of your page, there is a site that can help you. It’s webwait (i’m not sure of the url, search google for it). It loads your site a few times and display the mean load time.
Hey great list. and valid points …
the tips aren’t weighing the good themes v/s bad but what points you should be looking in a good theme.
sure the design will follow the content, but I don’t think a particular theme is attached to a particular type of content. Hentai+ColourFull Wall? Why not? The author can just remove the gaara header pic and put a I don’t know what thing lol
I see your point on dissection but on my part, I like studying the layout, how the different div and classes were put there. It’s marvelous to see, moving something at just a line below another one, changes everything. I experimented that with myJournal Supareal
needless to say, have you also heard of the design competition on Sandbox?
thanks libretto, I’ll be adding the link to the post
Perhaps you could be giving myJournal Supareal a french touch 
thanks Nym
I’ll check this out…
thanks Arpit and nice remake of the Dark theme, I really like the colours you chose. Infact I like it more than the Dark theme
Hey there’s a Sandbox theme competition, would you be in?
Hi! Good post. I hope to start another blog soon and this information will help me.
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Great post! I love this stuff.
I especially like the part about commented CSS (so few get that) and making a site flexible (both with graphics and code). Good good.
[...] Best of Wordpress theme galore [...]
[...] Best of Wordpress theme galore [...]
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[...] Best of Wordpress theme galore — BlogoSquare [...]
[...] Best of Wordpress theme galore — BlogoSquare [...]
[...] Best of Wordpress theme galore — BlogoSquare [...]
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A great theme is one that has great seo, is image optimized, and which can be modified with relative ease for appearances sake. Everyone should know that myJournal supareal will have an upcoming update that will provide a total of five layout options, that Hans and I have been working on implementing. When Hans ported it to Sandbox, this became possible and I found a way to do it.
Layout preferences are an important consideration for a theme. Some gurus say columns on the left, some on the right, all depending on where you want your ads to appear. If you don’t monetize, it probably doesn’t matter. With the next version of Supareal you can pick your preference easily. It will probably be ready in the next couple of weeks.
As far as color preferences, that’s a matter of the css, which has color specs strewn all over the place. A bit more work there.
@ Erjati
thanks for the kind word. Providing different colours wouldn’t be a problem when using the ThemeToolkit.
[...] Best of Wordpress theme galore [...]
euhh .. interesting .. enfin .. compared to other blog platforms, wordpress still sounds better ..
Yep, I agree it depends on personal feel for what is best. I’ve gathered my personal top 15 here.
http://susansuarez.com/the-top-15-best-wordpress-themes/
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hi
good list indeed. thanks for your time.
i suggest you to take a look at my free wordpress themes at http://www.theme-finder.net/free
i also have a few payed ones. don’t know if it’s correct to post it here but i’ll try (probably, someone will like them)
so… the address is http://www.theme-finder.net
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[...] Best of Wordpress theme galore [...]
I am installing wordpress on a new domain and the list came quite handy. thank you very much.
i heard someone say that you cant say that one design is better than the other.
The fact is you can, just ask the visitors, or if your concerned with clickthrough ppc it’s even easier to determine the “best” theme… it depends on what “best of” your looking for.
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I would also think about checking out http://new-wordpress-themes.net for a good variety of easy and nice wordpress themes.
There’s been a saturation of poorly designed themes right now. Some points to consider too is if it is valid, standards compliant and well designed.
Best of Wordpress theme !!! Thank you wery much
[...] Best of Wordpress theme galore [...]
[...] Best of Wordpress theme galore [...]
this is what im looking for to choose my template..
and myjournal hypereal has it….
thanks for making myjournal hypereal…
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[...] Han, also feel the same way when he list #1 as the consideration for choosing a WordPress Theme, does it look good on Internet Explorer? Even Lorelle in one of her [...]