16 of the Best WordPress Blog Themes
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Do you want to set the right foundation to build a successful blog? If yes, you’re going to need a great WordPress theme.
A WordPress theme is the basic framework that shapes different areas of your blog, including its appearance, layout, and fonts. Also, the more time you spend running and tweaking your blog, the harder it becomes to switch to a different theme. That’s why it’s so important to pick one of the best WordPress themes for blogs as early as possible.
There are more than 10,000 WordPress themes available for your blog. But having too many options isn’t necessarily a good thing. It impacts your ability to make a decision – and you don’t want that, right? So, here’s our compilation of the 16 best WordPress blog themes online to help you pick the right choice.
1 Cookely
Cookely Gallery
Click the image below to expand Cookely is a minimalistic, premium WordPress blog theme that’s best suited to food blogs. The layout is simple and free of clutter. One of its notable features is the content area, which can be shown as a carousel slider.
Moreover, the advanced customization options allow you to personalize your blog to a great extent. The Cookely theme also comes with built-in shortcodes to easily add buttons, tabs, infoboxes, and more to your posts and pages.
You can purchase this WordPress blog theme for $94.
2 OceanWP
OceanWP Gallery
Click the image below to expand OceanWP is a highly customizable, multipurpose WordPress theme that can be used to build any kind of blog. The core theme is free, and comes with eight free extensions that can be used to enhance its features.
Creating and customizing a blog with OceanWP is easy and it was one of the first themes to support popular page builders such as Elementor and Beaver Builder. OceanWP also offers a bundle of 13 premium extensions to add more powerful features such as sticky headers, Instagram feed, and more. These extensions start from just $39.
3 Divi
Divi Gallery
Click the image below to expand Divi is a premium, customizable, multipurpose theme that you can use to create any type of blog. Plus, when you buy Divi, you’ll also get access to Divi builder, a drag-and-drop page builder which you can use to add and organize elements that shape your blog design.
Divi isn’t sold as a standalone product, but instead as part of an annual membership that costs $89/year. This membership includes additional products such as Bloom (a pop-up plugin for building your email list) and Monarch (a plugin which allows you to add social media sharing options to your blog).
4 Morning Time
Morning Time Gallery
Click the image below to expand Morning Time is a WordPress blog theme with a clean and professional appearance. The premium version of the theme is great for both personal and professional bloggers, as well as for journalists and lifestyle writers.
The theme comes with custom share buttons to make it easy for visitors to share your content on social media. Other than that, you can customize color schemes, and use Font Awesome for font selection.
You can get your hands on this theme for $59.
5 Hestia
Hestia Gallery
Click the image below to expand Hestia is one of the most downloaded multipurpose WordPress blog themes in the market. On top of a free theme and a premium version, Hestia also offers a high level of customization, and several starter sites to quickly set up your blog.
In addition, this particular WordPress theme is optimized for performance, and boasts an SEO-friendly structure to make it easy to rank your blog posts in search engines. Pricing starts at $49.
6 Neve
Neve Gallery
Click the image below to expand Developed by Themeisle, Neve is a lightweight and responsive theme with both free and premium versions. The great degree of customization offered by this theme makes it easy to create any type of blog. In fact, it has a ton of blog templates for art, coaching, photography, and more.
Neve’s premium plans start at $59, and include features such as advanced header customization, scroll to top, custom layouts, and more.
7 Newspaper
Newspaper Gallery
Click the image below to expand Newspaper is among the most popular premium WordPress blog themes, particularly for magazines and news blogs. It offers a great selection of unique, readymade designs that you can pick from to get started quickly.
Moreover, Newspaper comes with a whole bunch of value-adding widgets such as gallery, social media, weather, and more. The theme is easy to use, and well-loved for its clean code, reliable support, and cool features. And, at just $59, it’s a bargain, too!
8 GeneratePress
GeneratePress Gallery
Click the image below to expand GeneratePress is a lightweight WordPress blog theme focused on a fast loading time. It’s also a multipurpose theme with many design options and support for the most popular page builders, meaning you can use it to create a blog for any purpose. In addition to a fully-featured premium version that costs $59, there is a limited free version, which you can download from WordPress.org.
9 Kale
Kale Gallery
Click the image below to expand Kale is a minimalistic theme for food and recipe blogs. Available in both free and premium versions, Kale makes use of the classic top menu bar and a lightweight photo slider to captivate visitors as soon as they land on your blog.
Kale also gives you the ability to create beautiful category pages, and a built-in recipe index to let your recipes do the talking. And, if you use Mailchimp, you can utilize Kale’s built-in opt-in forms to win more email subscribers.
This WordPress theme costs just $35
10 Zakra
Zakra Gallery
Click the image below to expand Designed by ThemeGrill, Zakra is a flexible, multipurpose WordPress blog theme that offers both free and premium versions. This theme also boasts seamless integration with Elementor, a powerful drag and drop page builder that enables you to customize your blog posts and pages easily.
Additionally, there are several pre-made demos, which you can import to quickly, easily set up your blog. The theme is SEO-friendly and fully responsive.
Zakra’s premium plans start at $59.
11 Trawell
Trawell Gallery
Click the image below to expand Trawell is a premium WordPress blog theme for travel blogs, tourism brands, and adventurers. Its stunning video background is great for making your blog stand out, while its visual map is ideal for travelers who want to show off the places they’ve been.
Another great feature of the Trawell theme is its compatibility with most page builder plugins. It also comes with several ad slot areas, to help with monetization.
You can score this theme for just $69.
12 Astra
Astra Gallery
Click the image below to expand Astra is a lightweight, multipurpose theme that’s suitable for any type of blog. The core theme is free, although you can enhance it with Astra Pro – a premium plugin – for a bit of extra cash.
Astra’s user-friendly customization and layout options make it easy to build an attractive blog. Developed by Brainstorm Force, Astra comes with extensive blog layouts and advanced customization controls.
The pricing for Astra Pro plans starts at $59.
13 Soledad
Soledad Gallery
Click the image below to expand Soledad is a highly flexible and customizable premium WordPress theme which is particularly well-suited to magazines and travel blogs. With a large selection of demos at your disposal, you can create a beautiful blog out of the box in no time.
Soledad is available on ThemeForest for just $59.
14 Kloe
Kloe Gallery
Click the image below to expand The Kloe WordPress blog theme allows you to build a lifestyle or fashion blog with ease. One of its great features is the portfolio showcase, which gives you the space to highlight your previous accomplishments.
Kloe also offers seamless interaction with WooCommerce, in case you later decide to sell products as part of your blog. In addition, the header module consists of a stunning photo area to grab visitors’ attention.
Kloe is available for $69.
15 CheerUp
CheerUp Gallery
Click the image below to expand CheerUp is a premium WordPress blog theme with pre-built layouts that are ideal for travel, beauty, and lifestyle blogs. In addition, there’s a selection of templates for individual blog posts, which can go a long way in empowering you to present your blog content in unique and interesting ways.
You can also add photo galleries, and take advantage of CheerUp’s Mailchimp integration to embed newsletter signup forms in different areas of your blog.
The pricing for the CheerUp theme starts at $59.
16 Noemi
Noemi Gallery
Click the image below to expand This lifestyle and fashion blog theme is elegant, simple, and great for beginners who want to showcase photos as the main highlight of their content. It’s a premium WordPress theme that comes with several built-in layouts to configure your blog’s design.
Moreover, you can utilize Noemi’s Mailchimp integration to create opt-in forms – and grow your email list – while its advanced theme options allow you to customize many aspects of your blog.
Noemi costs $49.
What to Look for in a WordPress Blog Theme
When it comes to setting up a blog for success, not all WordPress themes are created equal. So let’s take a look at all the important factors to consider when choosing a WordPress theme for your blog.
Loading Speed
Most beginners get impressed by multi-purpose themes bloated with too many features, most of which they’re not even going to use. Don’t let that be you!
Loading time has a direct impact on your blog’s bounce rate. The slower the website, the more people will drop off without waiting for it to load. So it’s important to choose a lightweight theme with only the features you need.
Price
The next important consideration is website costs. If you’re willing to invest in a premium theme, it’ll cost you around $70 to 150. With a premium theme, you’ll benefit from easy-to-use customization options and technical support from the developer. On the other hand, a free theme – despite being more budget-friendly – typically has limited scope for customization, and almost no technical support.
Mobile-Responsiveness
Smartphones and tablets have been in the ascendancy in recent years as the preferred devices for many users. In fact, 70% of web traffic comes from mobile devices. This is why it’s crucial that your blog must render well on different screen sizes.
Most of the reputable and popular WordPress themes these days are responsive by default – so there’s not too much to be concerned about. However, there may still be some theme developers who code WordPress themes with fixed layouts, so it’s still worth double-checking that the theme you’re considering is responsive!
Customizability
Chances are high that whichever theme you pick will not exactly be the way you want it to look out of the box. This means that you’ll have to customize key aspects of your blog’s theme, such as colors, fonts, layout – and you’ll probably want to make these changes without having to fiddle with any code! So make sure to check the customization options, before committing to a particular WordPress theme.
Support and Updates
WordPress themes can occasionally have technical glitches, just like any other piece of software. So ensuring that you have access to reliable support is another crucial factor when analyzing the range of WordPress themes on the market.
To check this, you can view certain details on the theme’s landing page, such as how often the theme is updated, how long you’ll have access to the support, and all the ratings, reviews, and comments left by previous buyers.
The Right WordPress Theme for You
Feeling overwhelmed with so many options? When picking a WordPress theme for your blog, it’s natural to feel that way. In fact, we wish we could tell you just the one perfect WordPress blog theme – but it’s not possible. The right WordPress blog theme for your business or portfolio will depend on your industry, goals, and personal preference so recommending them is rarely a ‘one size fits all’ kind of endeavor.
However, the 16 recommendations we shared above are the best, and they will definitely give you a head start in your search. As you evaluate your options according to what we discussed, you’ll eventually find a theme that helps you launch your blog with a bang. If you’re ready to start a WordPress blog now, you’ll certainly want to check out our list of the best WordPress blog hosts, too – good luck, and we can’t wait to see your blog hit the internet!
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