Where to Find Quality Web Templates and Blog Themes
Latoya Irby recently asked on this post where I find my Web templates / blog themes. So I’m going to show you a few of my site themes, let you know where I got the templates, why I tend to choose the ones that I choose, and where you can find decent templates (free and paid) that you can use for your own professional sites and blogs. First, let’s look at some examples:
All Freelance Writing
You can get a good look at the theme while you’re here on the site, but here’s a screenshot for comparison purposes anyway:
And here is a screenshot of the original free WordPress theme I used for this blog (called Pop Blue).
As you can see, I took the free theme and “made it my own” a little bit by changing colors, backgrounds, images, font sizes, and other design elements that made it better fit my needs. I think this is vital when using a lot of themes – many free themes have a lot of potential, and you need to be able to see that in them, instead of solely deciding if you like them exactly as they are.
Naked PR
As another example, you can take a look at my PR blog (one of the blogs I refer to as my “big three” as far as traffic and income – in addition to AFW and my business blog detailed below). Here’s the current design of the site:
And here is a screenshot of the original free WP theme (WP-Premium theme, which comes with three built-in design options) I used before making some edits (edits were a bit more minor for this one):
For this theme, I mostly took care of color changes, and some sidebar changes that you really can’t see from the screenshot (such as adding a featured post section to the sidebar tabs near the search bar). Here I liked the original theme, but wanted to stick to a brighter look with a blue focus (what I’d been using for this blog for quite a while). I chose this theme when I wanted to switch Naked PR back from a magazine-style WordPress theme to a more typical blog (a trend of mine lately as you’ll see below).
BizHow2
This is my business blog where I talk about small business, freelancing, online business, etc. While I haven’t been active there much lately, it’s been one of my biggest earners from its start (and one I’m planning to start pushing again soon, now that I’ve also changed it from a magazine-style layout to an extremely simple blog style with short excerpts – I wanted uber-simple here this time). Here’s the current layout (under the old site name):
And here’s a second site I’ve been (very slowly) playing with for a musician I occasionally do projects for using the same theme:
And here’s the original theme – a magazine-style theme that is very versatile (can be used as a plain blog or online magazine easily) – Structure theme.
As you can see, simple design changes can do a lot to let you personalize even free themes and templates. I’m by no means a Web designer, and generally doing the full theme changes that I need will take an hour to a few hours at most. You could certainly get a designer to help you out in customizing them too though.
Although most of my sites have had at least some design changes to their original theme or template, I also occasionally leave them pretty much as-is if I like the design enough (or if I just never get around to it!). Here’s an example for First Rate Content – the site where I promote my business writing services (and which will eventually be moved to ProBusinessWriter.com). This is a template from Zymic – they allow you to remove the links on their free themes if you pay a small fee (worth it if you don’t want it screaming “free template” to potential customers).
This template is not only one of very few that I haven’t edited much, but it’s also the only content-oriented site that is still a static site as opposed to being set up on a WordPress installation.
If you want to take a look at some of the other themes I’ve chosen, here are a few more set up on WordPress (some of which I still use, and some which are pretty much dead at the moment):
- AudioXposure (the only one here on a premium / paid WP theme)
- All Book Marketing
- Web Writer’s Guide (new)
- JH Mattern Communications (my PR firm site)
- Jentrepreneur
- Free Press Release Writing Guide
- About Green Living
Now let’s get into where I find my themes.
Finding Website Templates and Blog Themes
I don’t really look for static website templates to play with much, but there are a few places I’d suggest:
When it comes to looking for WordPress themes, it can be a little bit harder. I spend a lot of time looking for new theme announcements on forums, monitoring some themes sites, etc., so I can catch a decent new one when it’s released. I have a very set taste with most of my WordPress themes – given the nature of my niches, I often stick to light / bright themes with a red and / or blue focus (because they appeal to an audience on an authority / professional level respectively from a marketing standpoint).
While I don’t use these resources religiously, here are some of my favorite designers or themes sites / lists that I turn to when looking for blog themes I can use as-is or edit:
- Blog Oh! Blog (I’d say hands down this site has the best overall free themes)
- Justin Tadlock (I think he has some of the better free WP magazine themes)
- Smashing Magazine (this post has some beauties)
- WordPress Themes (the official list of free themes)
- FreeWPThemes.net (not a bad collection)
- Brian Gardner (probably my favorite premium theme developer – I’m using his original Revolution theme at AudioXposure.com)
- SoloStream (Another great theme designer, especially for magazine-style themes – some of these were free in the past, but are apparently premium. I’d used the Simplicity 1.0 theme on the Naked PR blog in its last incarnation.)
- WP Remix (This is a premium theme that’s supposed to be pretty versatile – I’m not using it yet, but intend to if I ever have another project to launch where it would be a good fit.)
- PremiumThemes.net (I haven’t ordered any of these premium themes either yet, as it’s a site I only very recently came across. I think they have some excellent designs here – and they might be more affordable than some other premium themes depending on what you’re looking to spend.)
And there you have it! That’s where I find most of my templates and themes, why I choose them (knowing what I can turn them into as opposed to what they look like “out of the box” in most cases), and where you’ll hopefully find some good theme ideas for your own sites and blogs.
About the Author: Jennifer Mattern
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Excellent resource. I’m a big fan of Revolution.
Yeah, I like most of the Revolution series – especially the newer ones. I’m just at the point where magazine-style themes have gotten so time-consuming to set up properly to make them look how I want them to look (and can involve more required updating to keep it looking fresh), so I haven’t tried most of them. I love the mag-style themes, but don’t have the patience for them anymore – back to good old blogging for me.
[...] Where to Find Quality Web Templates and Blog Themes: A great list of theme resources. I use Revolution, which means I’ll be installing a new version over the weekend. [...]
[...] Where to Find Quality Web Templates and Blog Themes [...]
Great post! Thanks for putting this together!
Just an update – I actually sold About Green Living and the Free Press Release Writing Guide late last week, so they’re no longer my babies.
Good article. I like that you’ve given credit where it deserves. Thank you.
[...] Installing WordPress Themes June 5, 2008 – 11:53 am So we talked about how to install WordPress on your own domain if you want to set up a new blog to showcase your writing. There Latoya asked a good question – how can you install a new theme / design to change the look (see my past post on how I choose WordPress themes and site templates)? [...]