I don't think more than 24 hours pass without me seeing the dreaded question – “Hey so, what's the best free WordPress Theme?”. There's not exactly anything wrong with it as a question, it's just difficult to answer. The best theme for your website really depends on a lot of different factors.
What's your site about? How do you want it to function? Does it need a single homepage, or just a blogroll of your latest posts? You've got to figure out how your site works before you can decide on the best theme.
To really get the answers to the above questions, you can try a number of different things. First, have a look around at other sites in your niche. It's not a great idea to just try and copy them exactly, but you'll be able to get a feel for what works, what you think you could do better, and so on.
Choose A Clean/Simple WordPress Theme
When I first started Kettlebell Exercises For Women, I was annoyed that most of my rivals had really “busy” and messy magazine style themes. I went for something cleaner.
I also started out on a very simple theme. I didn't exactly know how I wanted my site to work back then. Did I want to direct people via sidebar banners? Did I want a static homepage? I realized that what I needed to do, was keep adding content, grow my site, and figure it out as I went. I'm currently one my 4th theme for that site, so you can see that it's an evolutionary process.
Free WordPress themes are great for you in the beginning, because you'll likely chop and change as you get a better idea of what you actually want your site to look like.
Keep It Simple Stupid!
If your theme is too complicated, you might get lost in the finer details and find yourself focusing on small things here and there. Ideally, you just want to keep it simple, and focus on the actual content of your site instead.
It's also a good idea to do this, because when you first create a site, you'll see thousands of different themes to choose from, and after a while, they all lose their character. You'll have no real way of differentiating them all, and you'll end up making no decision at all. I see this all the time in newcomers, they get stuck choosing a good one.
Choose an easy clean one like Twenty12, Simplo, or Twenty14, then consider others as you go.
Eight Free Themes
In the video below, I'll highlight around 8 free WordPress themes that I think are worth considering. In light of what I've said about the best theme for you being dependent on your niche, your site, and your wishes for that site, there are definitely some themes that I'll recommend to everyone. If only to get you started!
Conclusion – What's The Best Free WordPress Theme?
The eight themes featured above are far from exclusively the best, but they are great themes that I'd recommend to anyone. Of course, everyone will have differing opinions, so if you've got one, share it with me!
Truth be told, I think there are hundreds of terrible themes out there, but I know that with the ones I chose above, you'll definitely be building a site that looks good and works well, which is the most important thing at the end of the day.
So how about you? What theme do you use?