With over 15 years of experience building websites, I‘ve learned that your WordPress theme is one of the most important decisions when creating a new site.
The right theme can help your website look professional, engage your visitors, and even improve conversions. But a poor theme choice can have the opposite effect.
In this comprehensive beginner‘s guide, we‘ll cover everything you need to know about finding the perfect WordPress theme quickly.
I‘ll explain what a theme is, popular options, how to install and activate themes, and much more. Let‘s get started!
Contents
What Does a WordPress Theme Do Exactly?
A WordPress theme controls the design and layout of your entire site. It‘s like the paint and decorations for your website‘s house.
The theme consists of template files, stylesheets, images, and sometimes scripts. Together, they customize:
- The overall layout (sidebar position, header, footer, etc)
- Colors, fonts, and other visual elements
- Features like slideshows, widgets, etc
- How all the pieces of content are displayed
Without a theme, your WordPress site would just be plain text on a white background.
The theme makes it nice to look at!
When you first install WordPress, it includes a default theme. But most people choose a different one that better suits their brand.
Changing themes won‘t alter your actual content. All your posts, pages, data, etc remain in the database. The theme simply changes how it appears to visitors.
There are thousands of free and premium WordPress themes to choose from. The options can be overwhelming!
Here are a few examples of what themes can do:
Let‘s clear up some common confusion about themes and templates.
WordPress Theme vs Template Files Explained
If you‘re new to WordPress, you may mix up themes and templates. Let me quickly explain the difference.
A template is just one part of a theme. The full theme includes many different template files.
For example, themes usually have separate template files for:
- The header
- The footer
- Blog post listings
- Individual blog posts
- Pages
- Sidebars
- Archives
- Search results
- 404 error pages
- And more!
The templates only control the structure and design of individual sections of a site. The full theme wraps them all together into a complete design.
WordPress uses something called the template hierarchy to determine which templates take priority.
Learning the template hierarchy is important for customizing your site‘s design by creating custom templates. But for now, just remember:
- Templates are pieces of a theme
- A theme includes many templates plus other files like CSS
- Changing the theme changes the whole design
Now that we‘ve got that cleared up, let‘s talk about the most popular themes available.
Most Used and Best WordPress Themes
With over 54,000 themes available for WordPress, which ones are the best?
While best is somewhat subjective, we can look at hard data for the most used and popular themes:
Source: BuiltWith Theme Usage Statistics
As you can see, the 3 most used WordPress themes are:
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Divi – made by Elegant Themes, extremely customizable drag and drop builder
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Astra – very fast, customizable, and easy to use for beginners
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GeneratePress – focused on speed and performance, made by Tom Usborne
Others like OceanWP, Hello, and more have usage in the millions of sites as well.
These themes are popular for good reason. They‘re well made, frequently updated, have great documentation and support, and work great for all kinds of websites.
We recommend beginners choose from one of the top multi-purpose themes like Divi or Astra. They‘re flexible enough to work for any type of site.
Here are examples of the popular Divi theme being used for different sites:
Now let‘s go over how to actually install and use these themes on your WordPress site.
Step-by-Step Guide to Installing Themes in WordPress
Ready to activate a new WordPress theme? Here‘s precisely how to install themes:
1. Log in to your WordPress Dashboard
First, access your WordPress admin dashboard. You‘ll need to be logged in as an admin user to manage themes.
Enter your site URL followed by /wp-admin or your specific login URL:
www.your-site.com/wp-admin
Then enter your username and password to access the dashboard.
2. Add a New Theme
Next, you‘ll need to get the theme files onto your WordPress site:
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Upload: If you have a theme ZIP folder already, you can upload it through Appearance > Themes > Upload Theme.
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Search WordPress Directory: You can search and install themes directly from the WordPress.org theme directory in your dashboard.
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FTP: Adding a theme via FTP takes more technical skill but is useful if you don‘t have access to the WordPress dashboard.
3. Activate the New Theme
Finally, head to Appearance > Themes and click the Activate button on your desired theme.
That‘s all it takes to change your WordPress site‘s design!
For step-by-step video instructions, see our tutorial on how to install a WordPress theme.
Discover Which Theme Other Sites Are Using
Ever visit another website and think "I love their design! What theme are they using?"
You can easily find out which theme any WordPress site is using with the WPBeginner Theme Detector tool.
Just enter a URL to instantly see which theme and hosting provider they use:
Give it a try on any live site you‘re curious about. It‘s like detective work for geeks!
Knowing which theme a site uses can help inspire your own design. You may even decide to use the same theme if it‘s suitable.
Create Custom WordPress Themes Visually
Hiring a designer or developer to build a custom theme from scratch can cost $5,000 – $15,000 or more.
Doing it yourself requires learning HTML, PHP, CSS, and other coding languages.
Thankfully there‘s an easier way for non-coders to build custom WordPress themes:
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Page builders like Beaver Builder. The visual editor makes it easy to create custom page layouts.
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Beaver Themer addon. This allows you to turn those page layouts into full WordPress themes with custom headers, footers, archives, etc.
Together, Beaver Builder and the Beaver Themer allow you to create complete custom WordPress themes without writing any code.
Page builders have absolutely changed the game for custom WordPress theme design. You no longer have to rely on developers or be stuck with off-the-shelf themes.
Final Thoughts and Recommendations
Choosing the right theme is one of the most important parts of creating a new WordPress site. It can have a big impact on your site‘s success.
Here are a few key takeaways and recommendations:
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Pick a popular multi-purpose theme like Divi, Astra, OceanWP for flexibility.
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Prioritize themes that are actively updated and have good documentation.
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Don‘t get too caught up on theme options. Focus on quality and speed.
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Use our Theme Detector tool to get inspiration from sites you like.
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Consider a custom design with page builder and Beaver Themer.
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Take time picking a theme you can grow with long-term.
I hope this complete beginner‘s guide gives you the confidence to choose the perfect theme for your next WordPress project!
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