Your WordPress theme controls the sitewide design of your website, including layouts, colors, fonts, and more. You can kind of think of it like your website’s “clothing”.

In the previous parts of our getting started with WordPress guide, we covered how to choose and purchase a domain name and how to choose hosting and install WordPress.

Once you have your basic WordPress website up and running, the next step is to choose and install your WordPress theme, which is the topic that we cover in this post.

Below, you’ll learn everything that you need to know about getting started with WordPress themes:

• What to consider when choosing a WordPress theme
• Free vs premium WordPress themes
• Where to find WordPress themes
• Some of the best multipurpose WordPress themes
• How to install a WordPress theme
• Tips for changing a WordPress theme on a live website, if you ever need to

What to consider when choosing a WordPress theme

Because your WordPress theme is such a foundational part of your WordPress website, it’s important to put some time and effort into choosing the best theme for your business’s unique situation.

Here are some of the most important questions and issues to consider when choosing a WordPress theme…

Multipurpose vs niche design theme

In the past, most WordPress themes used a niche design approach. This means that you would look for a WordPress theme that was built for your specific use case, such as a “coffee shop WordPress theme” or an “HVAC business WordPress theme”.

In the modern WordPress theme space, most popular themes have shifted toward more of a multipurpose approach.

In this approach, the core theme offers a flexible, performance-optimized foundation, with lots of code-free design and layout configuration options. Additionally, the developer offers a large library of importable starter sites for different niche scenarios, which lets you still access pre-made designs for more specific use cases.

This approach is used by nearly all of the most popular WordPress themes, including all of the themes that we’ll discuss later in this post.

While there’s nothing wrong with using a niche-specific theme if you find one that you love, this modern approach is probably a better option for most sites because it gives you more flexibility and it’s easier to find help and support.

Theme customization approach

Different WordPress themes give you different ways of customizing the theme’s settings.

Most modern WordPress themes use one of the two built-in theme customization tools in WordPress:

• Customizer – Customize your theme using a live preview and a variety of preset options.
• Site Editor – Design your entire theme using blocks and the block editor.

Some themes also use their own custom theme settings areas, though this is rare in popular themes.

The WordPress Customizer looks something like this:

The Site Editor looks something like this:

Most popular themes still use the WordPress Customizer, and it’s a great place for most WordPress users to start.

However, if you want to embrace the “new” style of WordPress themes and you like working with blocks, you can consider using a theme based on the Site Editor.

Speed and performance

Having a fast-loading website is important because it affects everything from user experience to bounce rates, conversion rates, and more.

While your WordPress theme isn’t the only thing that will affect your site’s speed, it does play a role and it’s therefore important to choose a theme that’s optimized for speed.

It can sometimes be tough to assess a theme’s performance if you’re not a power user, but you can always read unbiased third-party reviews. Most quality reviews should include some performance tests as part of their assessment.

Responsive design

Responsive design is a web design approach where your website will automatically adjust its design and layout based on the screen size of the device that a visitor is using. For example, someone browsing on a smartphone will see a different design than someone browsing on a laptop.

Because more than half of all internet traffic comes from smartphones now, it’s essential to consider responsive design when choosing a WordPress theme.

Every modern WordPress theme is responsive. 

However, looking for “responsive” in the feature list isn’t enough. Instead, you should check to see if you actually like how the theme looks on different devices.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to just open the theme’s demo site on your smartphone, as this will let you see what your site would look like to mobile visitors.

If you want more flexibility, you can also use your web browser’s developer tools. Or, there are free websites to do this such as Website Responsive Testing Tool (easy and simple) and BrowserStack (a little more complex, but supports 3,000+ real devices).

Reliance on a builder plugin

In addition to the type of theme settings/customization options that we discussed earlier, it’s also important to consider whether or not the theme relies on a page builder plugin.

It’s common to find themes that use page builder plugins such as Elementor to power all of the theme’s importable starter sites.

This is neither a “good thing” or a “bad thing” – it’s just something you need to consider.

If you were already planning to use that page builder plugin, you might see this as a positive because it means you can already use your preferred editing experience to customize the starter sites.

However, if you’d rather use the native WordPress block editor, you might want to avoid themes that are 100% reliant on a builder plugin.

Integrations with plugins that you’re using

If your website will rely on a specific plugin for the bulk of its functionality, it can be helpful to look for a theme that offers built-in compatibility for that plugin.

Many plugins will work with any WordPress theme. For example, the Gravity Forms plugin can automatically inherit its styles from your theme, or you can easily customize your form designs using code-free settings in the block editor.

However, there are some plugins that require more robust support to function in an optimal way.

Common examples here would be WooCommerce for ecommerce stores, an LMS plugin for online courses, a membership plugin for membership websites, etc.

If your theme doesn’t offer built-in styling for important pages such as checkouts and frontend user profile pages, you would need to add your own custom CSS to ensure a good user experience.

User reviews

As with any product, looking at user reviews can be a great way to gauge the quality of a theme.

If you found the theme at a marketplace like WordPress.org or ThemeForest, you should be able to see user reviews directly on the marketplace.

If you’re getting the theme directly from the developer, you might be able to find reviews on third-party blogs and/or YouTube.

Development history and date of most recent update

It’s also important to use a theme that the developer is still actively developing. Active development is important to ensure future compatibility with WordPress, as well as to potentially give you access to new features and options in the future.

At a minimum, you should check the date of the most recent update and make sure it’s within the past six months or so. Most theme marketplaces post this date publicly somewhere on the page.

If you want to go further, you can also look at the full development history and changelog to see whether the developer is actively adding new features or just handling basic maintenance issues.

Customer support

Finally, you should also consider what, if any, customer support you get.

If you choose a free theme, you typically won’t get direct one-on-one support. If the developer does still support free users, you’ll usually need to get support via public support forum.

On the other hand, most premium WordPress themes do offer direct support, at least for a certain time period after your purchase.

If you buy directly from the developer, you’ll typically get support for as long as you have an active license. On the other hand, if you use the popular ThemeForest marketplace, the default is to only give you support for six months after your purchase.

If having access to customer support is important to you, you’ll want to be able to answer these questions:

• Do I get direct support from the developer?
• What support channels are offered? Public support forum, ticket support, email support, live chat?
• How long do I get support?

Free vs premium WordPress themes: Are paid themes better?

In some parts of the WordPress community, you’ll see statements such as “premium themes are more secure than free themes” or “premium themes offer better performance than free themes”.

These types of absolute statements are inaccurate and there is no inherent difference between free WordPress themes and premium WordPress themes.

Free themes and premium themes are both just collections of code. You can have well-coded free themes and poorly coded premium themes, just like you can have well-coded premium themes and poorly coded free themes.

With that being said, there are some benefits that you’re more likely to find in premium themes than free themes. Here are some of the advantages that premium themes often, but not always, have:

• More customization options – Premium themes often give you more built-in customization options. This can give you more flexibility for tweaking your site’s design without needing to use custom CSS.
• More importable starter sites – Premium themes often give you a larger library of importable starter sites. For example, the free version of the Astra theme gives you access to around 100 starter sites while the premium version offers 300+ starter sites.
• Better customer support – Most free themes require you to go through the public WordPress.org support forum to get support, or they might not even offer support in the first place. In contrast, most premium themes give you direct support from the developer as long as you have an active license.
• Better chance of long-term development – Because popular premium themes earn the developer money, the developer has more incentive to develop and maintain the theme over the long term. A good middle ground here can be to use a freemium theme, as you can still benefit from that incentive even if you’re using the free version.

That said, if you find a free WordPress theme from a reputable developer that does everything you need it to, you should not feel like you need to pay for a premium theme just because premium themes are automatically “better.”

However, there can be advantages to using a premium theme, so it is something you should consider if you’re willing to invest the money into your site.

Where to find WordPress themes

At a high level, there are two main ways to find WordPress themes:

1. Marketplace – Marketplaces collect thousands of themes from different developers in one spot.
2. Direct from developer – Some developers choose not to list in marketplaces and instead sell directly from their own websites.

In terms of WordPress theme marketplaces, there are two big ones:

• WordPress.org theme directory – The WordPress.org directory includes 13,000+ free WordPress themes for you to browse. Many themes are 100% free. Others use a “freemium” model, meaning the developer also offers a premium upgrade in addition to the free theme available at WordPress.org.
• ThemeForest – This is a well-known marketplace for premium themes.

When it comes to buying premium themes directly from the developer, here are some common ways to find them:

• WordPress.org freemium themes – Many of the most popular premium WordPress themes use the freemium model and are also listed at WordPress.org.
• Google – If you search Google, you can find tons of theme lists for various types of themes. Just be careful and do your own due diligence.

In the next section, we’ll also recommend some high-quality themes to start you off.

Best multipurpose WordPress themes

If you’re not sure where to start your theme search, we’ve collected a few great options.

All of these themes use the same general approach:

• The core theme is available for free at WordPress.org but the developer also sells a premium version. That is, they use the freemium model.
• They’re multipurpose themes that you can use for pretty much any type of website.
• The core theme is lightweight and optimized for performance.
• You get tons of code-free customization options in the native WordPress Customizer.
• The theme offers dozens or hundreds of importable starter sites for all different niches.

Basically, regardless of what your site is about, these themes can probably get the job done thanks to their customization options and starter site libraries:

• Astra – Free / from $59 – Astra is one of the most popular themes in existence. It’s highly customizable and offers more than 300+ importable starter sites.
• Kadence Theme – Free / from $99 – Kadence Theme is another popular option that’s owned by StellarWP, the same company behind a number of popular plugins. It offers 88+ importable starter sites.
• GeneratePress – Free / from $59 – While all of the themes in this list are fast, GeneratePress takes speed to a whole other level and is one of the fastest WordPress themes in existence. It’s also highly customizable and offers 90+ importable starter sites.
• Neve – Free / from $69 – Like GeneratePress, it’s exceptionally lightweight, while also offering lots of customizability and over 100 importable starter sites.
• OceanWP – Free / from $44 – While it’s not quite as lightweight as the other themes on this list, it’s still better than most other themes and it’s absolutely packed with design options. It also has 225+ importable starter sites.

How to install a WordPress theme

The exact process for how to install a WordPress theme will depend on whether you found the theme at WordPress.org or you’re installing a theme that you got from somewhere else.

We’ll cover both situations below…

How to install a WordPress theme from WordPress.org

To begin, go to Appearance → Themes in your WordPress dashboard. Then, click the Add Theme button at the top.

You should be in the Add Themes interface:

1. Use the Search Themes box to search for your theme by name.
2. Find the theme that you want to install in the list of results – make sure it’s the correct theme as some themes have similar names.
3. Hover over the theme and click Install.

Once the installation finishes, make sure to click the Activate button to make the theme live on your website.

How to install a WordPress theme from anywhere else

If you want to install a theme from outside WordPress.org (such as one that you purchased directly from the developer), the process will be a little different.

First, you’ll need to download the Zip file that contains your theme’s files. If you purchased a premium theme, you’ll usually find this in some type of “My Account” dashboard.

Once you’ve downloaded the Zip file that contains your theme, here’s how to install it…

Go to Appearance → Themes in your WordPress dashboard. Then, click the Add Theme button at the top.

You should now be in the Add Themes interface:

1. Click Upload Theme at the top. This will display some new options.
2. Click Choose File and then select the Zip file that contains your theme from your local computer.
3. Click Install Now to upload the file to your site and install your theme.

Once the installation finishes, click the Activate link to make the theme live on your site.

Tips for changing WordPress themes on a live website

If you’re working on a brand new WordPress site, you can just install your theme and start building.

However, if you’re changing the theme on an existing website, there are some extra steps that you should take to ensure that you do things in an optimal way:

• Use a staging website (if possible) – This will allow you to set up the theme on a sandboxed version of your website before applying the changes to your live website.
• Back up your website before changing to your new theme – This will allow you to roll back your website if anything goes wrong.
• Thoroughly test everything – After making the change, you should test important user touchpoints, such as any forms, checkouts, user profile areas, etc.

Choose the best WordPress theme for your website

Because your WordPress theme has a huge effect on how your website looks, choosing the right WordPress theme is an essential part of building and growing your business’s website.

In 2025 and beyond, most businesses will probably be better served by using a lightweight, multipurpose WordPress theme with a large starter site library, instead of choosing a niche-specific theme.

However, if you find a niche-specific theme that you love, there’s nothing wrong with using that theme (as long as it meets the other considerations that we discussed above).

Ultimately, the best WordPress theme is the one that gives your business the flexibility to grow, the performance to compete, and the design foundation to connect with your audience for years to come.