Best WordPress Themes to Choose and Use on Your Site (Complete Guide)
Best WordPress Themes
There are hundreds of reasons why you might want to create a new website, whether it is a blog, a content posting site, an online store, or even a niche platform, you will always find WordPress as an excellent choice for creating that site, and we can’t come Noting WordPress without talking about a very important component, which is WordPress templates.
A professional WordPress template allows you to achieve the desired goal of your website, and templates are also referred to as WordPress themes, based on the English word Theme, and what makes WordPress a very important component of any WordPress site is that it completely changes the look of the site, adding hundreds of features and features, especially if It was a professional WordPress template.
To understand it more easily, when you create a new site from scratch based on WordPress, your site in this case comes with the default template for the platform, which is Twenty Twenty-One, relative to the year 2021, and every year a new template is released. But this template is a very limited one, and you can rely on it only if you want to create a very limited blog, but in order to create a complete WordPress site, you need a template.
Before we get on with our conversation, if you’ve been thinking about your WordPress project lately and don’t have a lot of experience, we’ve put together a complete guide for you to get started.
What are wordpress templates?
WordPress templates, or WordPress themes, especially professional ones, can be described as tools that change the look, layout, and design of your website. The distribution of the elements, the fonts used, the colors, etc.
The WordPress template comes in the form of a zip file that is uploaded to the website through the ( Appearance ) section of the control panel, and WordPress templates are usually built based on the PHP programming language because it is the programming language that the WordPress platform depends on in general, while it is formatted based on the language CSS formatting.
The professional WordPress template can be described as an integrated software and not just a shape and format, as the template comes with a control panel full of features, in order to change the look of your site exactly the way you want.
As with all products and services, there are huge numbers of free WordPress templates, but they offer very limited customization capabilities, and in most cases they cannot be relied upon to build an integrated site, so getting a ready-made template for your site will force you to either buy from specialized platforms for that. , or collaborate with a specialized programmer and designer to create a special template for your website or online platform.
In order to make the picture clear, especially for beginners, we now move to answer some important questions:
What is a wordpress template made of؟
Any WordPress theme consists of a huge collection of files and folders, so you can find WordPress templates with an area of up to 20 MB, and this is understandable, and generally a template consists of images, code, CSS, and JavaScript files, and that of course besides Lots of pictures and design elements.
What happens if I change the WordPress theme؟
If you already have a live site and would like to change your template to a new one, this will cause a change in the design and appearance of the site, but it will not affect the content, pages and images uploaded to your site, as the template controls the appearance of your site and not your site itself.
What is the difference between WordPress themes and WordPress themes؟
Readers usually confuse the terms (WordPress template) and (WordPress theme), and this happens more among Arab users, and perhaps translation errors, especially at the beginning of the WordPress era, helped in that.
You can differentiate between a template and a theme easily, and here you need to know that the template files are separate files from the rest of the theme files themselves, and in general, you are not able to install a (WordPress template) without installing a (WordPress theme).
For convenience, the WordPress theme is a major part of the WordPress theme, and is mainly associated with it, and is used to distribute the elements and where they appear on each page including the footer, header, and comment area.
WordPress generally relies on the hierarchical system in distributing the WordPress theme, and the WordPress theme can simply be described as being part of the theme, but it is a part that the theme cannot work without, and therefore the term (Wordpress theme) is used to express the whole thing, and this is what we do in this article, where We use this term to refer to the entire theme, which is a .ZIP file that you can upload from the (Appearance) section of your control panel.
To summarize the above, and make it very clear to you, you can consider the WordPress theme as the general design that is applied to the theme, and the Style.css file, which we will talk about next, plays a big role in that process. While the WordPress template is the one that includes the main components, which are the following:
- Header — Header
- Blog post design
- Blog list design
- Landing page design — Landing page design
- Page Footer Design — Footer
How are WordPress templates created؟
WordPress templates are created by professional web developers and designers, and the process includes creating and designing all types of files mentioned above, in addition to writing codes as well, and on the other hand, the template must integrate with WordPress itself, so no designer or web developer can It works on a WordPress template only when it fully understands how it works.
WordPress themes differ from each other in the way they display or layout (Layouts), and in general, the WordPress platform does not adhere to a fixed layout, but rather that each theme can have its own (layout).
There is no way for the average person to create and design his own professional WordPress template, but he must cooperate with a specialist, or buy a ready-made template, but on the other hand there are multiple tools that work on designing and formatting pages, including Beaver Builder, but in general the matter It doesn’t work, and buying a ready-made WordPress theme is still the perfect solution.
Types of wordpress templates
There are many types of WordPress themes, but we can categorize them into two main types, the first type is multipurpose themes, which are also known as (Multipurpose Themes), and the second type is specialized themes, which are known as (Niche Themes).
The first type of templates allows you to create different types of websites, as the templates themselves, as their name suggests, come with support for many uses and different types of websites, and can offer you wide customizations of shapes and pages, all the way to widgets, plugins and code.
As for templates specialized in a specific field, they come to serve a specific field as previously mentioned, for example, you can find a template specialized in news sites or magazine sites, and of course if you want to use the template to create a service site, landing pages, or even an online store, it will not serve you much. .
Of course, you should pay attention to the rating of the template when purchasing it. In the event that you are going to work with a company or individual to design and implement it, you are required to explain all the details.
Free WordPress Templates
No matter how long you have been in the fields of website creation or even technical fields, you have at least tried one product or one service in its free and paid version, and you probably already know that paid services and products are always higher quality than free ones, and this is normal.
We can’t expect that an individual or organization will work on a product – a WordPress ready theme for example – for months on end and put their time and effort into it and then make it available for free! And if he does, he may profit from you in another way. In general, relying on free themes deprives you of effective technical support, constant updates, and various other features of professional WordPress themes.
By now you may be aware of all the important things related to WordPress themes, or WordPress themes, but there is another point that interests everyone, especially beginners, which is the differences between the parent theme and the child theme, and what the WordPress themes framework is:
Father and Son WordPress Theme (Main and Child)
Many of us hear about the Child Theme and the Parent Theme, and similar settings appear in some templates and some features within the control panels, which is why we wanted to explain the differences to you.
Simply, as you can deduce from the name, the parent template is a main template that includes a large number of features and settings, and every professional WordPress template can be a parent template, and this happens when another template is built and designed based on the first template, which is then known as the son template.
The child template inherits all or some of the properties of the parent template, which is the parent template. This can be used for a number of operations, such as making changes to the child template and changing its properties without compromising the parent template. Also, the parent/son template allows you to update the template to a higher version without losing any modifications or edits.
The user can create a child template only by copying the Style.css and Functions.php files to the parent template, but we recommend using these features only if there is sufficient technical expertise on the one hand, and if there is a need for it from the ground up on the other hand, especially since It takes experience, especially in dealing with the parent template itself, and you can learn more from the article
WordPress template framework
Users often confuse the concept of a parent template with the concept of a framework, due to the fact that every framework is actually a parent template, but the opposite is not true, meaning that huge templates are not necessarily frameworks.
The term framework for WordPress themes, framework, refers to a library of custom code that facilitates the development of WordPress themes for professionals, just like the programming libraries that rely on programming languages. The framework is known as the parent template that includes all the features and add-ons, which is relied upon to create different forms of templates based on one foundation.
And if you don’t know, the WordPress development team, known as the Core WordPress Team and in cooperation with the developer community have established the concept of frameworks and parent templates to protect code and prevent hacking and vulnerabilities.
How to choose the right WordPress themes for you
We understood from the previous points that the process of developing a WordPress template or a professional WordPress theme requires cooperation with a specialized designer or programmer, or both, and this process is really expensive, as getting a professional WordPress template for your site may cost you an amount ranging between 500 and 2000 USD, Of course, it may increase or decrease.
Instead, the best solution is to buy a professional WordPress theme from multiple selling sites, as the template is of high quality, but its price is low because its owner sells it to thousands of other users, but the biggest advantage here is that these templates are highly customizable, and you can Simply convert your template into a completely new one by continuing to customize.
Whether you are going to cooperate with a competent authority to obtain your own theme, or you are going to buy a WordPress theme from multiple selling platforms, there are points that you should be aware of:
1. Simplicity inside and out
Your WordPress theme should be simple and distinct in terms of appearance and layout. Gone are the days when websites needed hundreds of layouts and features, and now ease of browsing and speed of loading are indispensable factors.
Therefore, your template should be simple on the outside, that is, from its appearance and the experience of using it by visitors, and from the inside as well, that is, in terms of its control panel and ease of coordination and customization, and as Da Vinci said, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
Look at the mega sites in your field, and you will notice that they are simpler and easier to use than any other feature, and the same is the case with WordPress in Arabic, where we are keen on simplicity, clarity, speed, and the perfect use experience.
2. Responsive WordPress Templates
Several years ago, most of the Internet users were owners of personal computers of all sizes and shapes, but nowadays, most users prefer a smartphone or tablet to browse the Internet.
Therefore, the worst decision you could make is to use a template for your website that does not support mobile screens, tablet screens, or screens of all sizes, even if they are cinema screens! Currently, there are software technologies available that allow the template to integrate with any screen, and you need to make sure that your template supports it.
Don’t forget that you can always test your template design for responsiveness using Google’s Mobile Friendly Test tool.
3. Integration with major browsers
Perhaps this point is self-evident, but you must make sure of it, as long as you are (on righteousness), as we say. You should test the theme on all major browsers, whether it is specially programmed for you or you intend to purchase it.
There is no doubt that the main browsers in our time are Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, as well as the rest of the browsers based on the Chromium kernel such as Microsoft Edge and Brave.
4. Support for plugins and translations
If you are going to buy a ready-made template, then you must buy a template that supports the most popular and used add-ons such as Yoast, W3 Cache, or others. You must also make sure that this template supports the Arabic language.
Usually, professional WordPress templates with multiple sales come with these features, but the point of support for the Arabic language is not always certain, so you have to buy a template that supports the direction from right to left, and therefore eastern languages, including Arabic, by searching for the word (RTL Support) within the description of the template .
5. Technical support is available
Whether you are a beginner or a professional, you may need flexible technical support at some point, even after months of purchase, so you should make sure that the service provider provides high-quality technical support before you even pay.
6. WordPress Theme Support for Search Engines
Whatever the type of your site and whatever segment it serves, the interest in the performance of the site within the search engines is never a luxury, any site of any size and any goal should be interested in appearing in the first results within the search results, and WordPress templates play a major role in the performance of SEO in general, as the The template should be programmed and prepared in a search engine friendly manner.
It is recommended to make sure that the template supports the SEO features, either by looking at the source code for it by an expert, or by checking it through specialized sites such as W3C Markup Validation . In general, there is a large role for the content of the site in the performance of SEO, but in the case that the template does not support SEO in a built-in, the results are worse.
If your experience in search engines is limited, then you must read and learn before establishing your site, and you can start with our comprehensive guide: SEO Explained “Beginners Guide to Getting on the First Page” .
7. Support page builders
When you get professional website templates or theme templates ready-made or custom made for you, you should make sure that the template supports page builders, especially if you personally use these tools.
You may know about tools like Elementor, WP Bakery, or others, which are used to build pages based on ready-made elements in their library, or in the template library itself. Also, professional WordPress themes sometimes come with a custom page builder system. In another case, if you are going to get a template specially designed by a company or an individual, you may not need tools for building pages as the developer can help you with that.
8. The importance of loading speed in a WordPress template
This point remains moot, as it usually comes with the famous question: Does site speed affect SEO performance? At first, site speed did not directly affect Google’s evaluation of the site, but in recent years site speed has become a very important factor in ranking within search results, especially on smartphones.
Therefore, you must buy a professionally made template that is fast to download, and if you buy a ready-made template, you must measure the speed of its download based on specialized tools, by copying the preview link, and pasting it into the following platforms:
And based on the results that you will get, you can judge the speed of the template and the speed of its download, as this factor affects the search results on the one hand, and on the other hand, it plays an excellent role in the experience of use, and of course any reader or browser will love to use the site Loading is fast rather than slow, and with previous platforms, you should also make sure that the template is compatible with Google’s Core Web Vitals.
9. The frequency of updating and documenting the template
In the event that you intend to purchase a ready-made template that is sold in multiples, it is necessary to make sure that the template is constantly updated, and to make sure that it comes with a documentation that explains how to deal with the template easily, and these points are very important now, especially updates These updates make the theme compatible with future versions of WordPress on the one hand, and protect you from any security vulnerabilities.
10. Your choices are your own
Perhaps other elements that you should pay close attention to are the ones that interest you personally and that directly concern your project! Which you can get to know more precisely when you decide how to get your next template. This is something we will discuss in the following points
Questions to answer before choosing a WordPress theme
- What is the right mold shape and performance for your project?
- Do you need a theme that supports WooCommerce or are you not going to sell products?
- Will you need to install a full version (Demo) or will you customize the template from scratch?
- Do you need a template with a custom page builder, Elementor, or something else?
- Do you have any programming experience?
Your answer to this question should influence which template you will buy, or your answers control which template a developer will create specifically for you.
Twenty Twenty-One format
For many years, the WordPress platform has been launching a default template with the platform, which is the template that is installed on your site by default once it is created, and the latest version of this default template is Twenty Twenty-One, which was launched – evidently – in 2021.
The template comes based on the Gutenberg editor, which is the default editor for the platform, and it depends on the system of blocks or blocks. Of course, the template is very limited in terms of specifications and features, but it is a good start for any new website builder.
Avoid Theme Lock-In
It happens that sometimes the user finds the perfect theme, and this template comes with all the features that they would need in their career, from support for short codes to support for SEO features and more.
And then the process of using the template begins for a long period of up to a year or two, and at this stage if the user thinks of changing the template with another template, he will face a big problem, which is that the properties he used in the previous template do not continue to work when changing the template, and this It includes the short codes, of course, and the specialized settings that the user set himself.
And you can avoid this problem from the first day, by choosing an ideal template that you do not need to change, or relying on plugins to provide the feature you want, for example, if you want to add a table of contents in the post, the best is to use a custom extension for that instead of the option The built-in template, because if you change the template it will spoil the view of the TOC, and you will need to edit the pages again and add the TOC in some other way.
Also Read: wordPress Plugins Every Website
The software side of WordPress templates
Millions of websites are currently relying on WordPress, just because of the platform’s capabilities to adapt to any goal and serve it, and professional WordPress templates and WordPress themes in general play a prominent role in this, as the user is able to provide any form of content or services through their site.
Looking at the application side, we can describe any WordPress theme as a set of files that tell the WordPress platform what it should look like to visitors, relying on collaborative programming and design, and we can see this by looking at the files that are used to create any WordPress theme:
1. Style.css file in WordPress themes
This file is one of the most important files in any WordPress theme, as it is the main design file, which is referred to as the styles file, and as you can see it is based on CSS. This file contains the CSS rules that are applied to the template, as well as giving WordPress key information about the template through the Comments indicated at its beginning.
2. Functions.php File in WordPress Themes
This file is downloaded by the WordPress software as soon as the template or theme is activated on the site, and it provides more features and programming information for the platform.
3. Index.php, Header.php and Comments.php . files
As with the previous file, these files come in PHP format, that is, they depend on the programming language of the same name, which is the language supported in the WordPress platform if you do not know. The Index.php file plays the role of the theme’s home page, the Header.php file contains the necessary code for the top of the page, the header, and the Comments.php file plays an important role in dealing with the WordPress code.
4. Single.php, Page.php and Author.php files
As you can conclude for yourself, these pages are responsible for displaying the post, the page, and the author’s file, respectively, as the Single.php page expresses the regular post page and what you need for design and customization, all the way to the Page.php page, which is responsible for displaying and formatting the pages, In addition to the Author.php page, it acts as the template for the author’s page.
5. Sidebar.php . file
This is the file responsible for all the sidebars on your WordPress site, and it is used from the programming and design aspects, as is the case with the previous files.
Meaning of The Loop in WordPress themes
The Loop component is referred to as the component that contains all the main components that appear on your homepage. to databases and are generally relied upon to render content.
Accordingly, we can understand that the WordPress template consists of various PHP files, various CSS files, as well as image files of course, which are used throughout the template, and come in different formats such as GIF, PNG and JPG, and all of these images are stored in the template folder Which is uploaded to your site, and when uploaded it becomes stored on your hosting or server:
Use the built-in WordPress theme editor
WordPress software comes with a built-in text editor to edit template files directly through the control panel, a feature that it gained in one of the recent updates, and this feature allows you to edit the entire template files without having to use FTP or log into your hosting files.
You can access the code editor built into WordPress by following these simple steps:
1. Log in to your WordPress site control panel by adding /wp-admin after the site link
2. From among the options, go to the appearance options, and then to the (template editor):
Once you go to this option, you can notice that an alert from WordPress appears, as follows:
You can easily understand the content of the alert, as any wrong change you may make to the template files may cause it to stop working directly. But when you press (I understand), the page for editing template files will appear, which is as follows:
As you can see, this feature allows you to choose the template you want to update, and gives you access to all the template files, which are the files we talked about earlier as well as the special files that the template developer has created.
The platform shows you an important piece of information above, which is that you do not need to edit the CSS formatting code directly from the template files, but you can do so by customizing the template itself.
Edit and customize a WordPress theme without programming experience
In order to avoid problems and errors that may lead to a complete stoppage of the site, WordPress provides the Customize feature built-in, but note that the template itself must support it! This is a factor that you may need to pay attention to while purchasing.
You can start the customization process by going to the appearance section again, but then head to the customization section, as in the following picture:
When you head to the customization section, you will find dozens of options on the right of the screen, which may differ from one template to another, in addition to the default options in WordPress itself, including (site identity), for example:
Brand design and user experience in WordPress templates
Each website has its own identity, for example, our WordPress site in Arabic is characterized by the colors purple, white, and black, and it comes with its own logo and icon, and more of these different factors. And you can notice the use of these same components everywhere both on and off the site, even on social networks, and here we invite you to follow us on Facebook , Tweet t, and watch our clips on YouTube .
Your site also must include all of these factors, and you must be aware of them when developing your WordPress theme, or when modifying a WordPress theme that you purchased or downloaded from the Internet.
Therefore, you must choose a template that is customizable enough to be able to modify and change its components so that it is similar to the identity of your site, and this also applies to its ability to create and edit menus of various kinds.
In addition to all this, if your site will work in the Arabic language, you must develop a template that supports RTL themes, that is, the direction of texts and elements is from right to left, as is the case in our Arabic language, and you can rely on custom plugins to localize and direct WordPress templates English if you want to, but it’s still a complicated process.
Therefore, your site should pay close attention to the language and direction of texts, colors and logos, as well as menus, and you can depend on the plugins you want, but choosing a suitable template from the beginning will save you a lot.
get wordpress templates
We previously talked about basic ways to acquire a new WordPress template, which is to develop it with the knowledge of a designer, a specialized programmer, or a specialized company, or to buy a template that is sold in multiples and then customize it as you want, or download a free template.
And in case you want to use a free theme, the WordPress library itself will provide you with excellent options to start with, and you can browse through the free WordPress themes directly from your site’s dashboard.
Your first step is to log in to your site’s control panel, and then head to the Appearance section, to find an option called WordPress.org Themes, and now you just have to browse through the templates and choose a free template that is suitable for you:
And here you have to know, all the templates in front of you on the page are not completely free, but rather they provide you with a limited set of plugins and features for free, and in order to get more features and customizations, you will pay for it.
Of course, the rule is not universal, as there are completely free templates, but you will easily notice that they are very limited in terms of specifications and features.
Buy a paid theme from Themeforest
From the previous points, we knew that the templates available in the WordPress database and shown within the control panel are also purchasable in their paid versions, for example, templates such as Astra and Generate Press. But if you want to buy a paid theme directly without a trial or free version of it, then Envato’s Theme Forest platform is the perfect choice.
You can search for the template you want within the Themeforest platform, including the templates that we will explain below, and then proceed to the purchase process, and the steps are as follows:
1. Head to Themeforest website
2. Create a new account, or log in to your account if you have one,
and the registration process in Themeforest is very easy and similar to any other site, by clicking on Sign In:
3. Then choose to create a new account as shown below:
4. Fill in your data normally, so that your account is purchasable, and now go to the template you want to buy, or search among the available templates.
In order to get the best search result, head to the WordPress templates page within the site by clicking here, and then start selecting the options you want based on the filtering and filtering options within the platform
Among the options, you can choose to categorize the template, whether it is a blog / magazine template or other, in addition to using certain tags within Tags, and here you can write RTL to show you templates that support Arabic, or Mega Menu to show you templates that support mega lists by default, Up to choosing to display templates that are subject to a certain number of reviews, sales, etc.
When choosing a template and making sure that you want to buy it, you are required to follow the following steps:
1- Go to the template page on Themeforest
2. Start the purchase process by clicking on Add to Cart or add to cart
3. The following window will appear indicating that you have added the product to your cart, and asking if you wish to pay now or continue shopping:
4. If you click on Go to Checkout, you will go to the payment page directly, and here note that the site charges an additional $2 above the price of the products, so if you are sure that you fully want to buy more than one product, it is preferable to buy them in one process in order to avoid paying those The cost is twice.
5. With this, the purchase process takes place, and when you go to the Downloads section, you will find inside it all the products that have been purchased, with the ability to download the entire work files, including the explanation files, or the installation file .ZIP for the template only.
Best WordPress Themes of 2022
We talked with you in dozens of previous articles about the best WordPress templates currently available for Arabic as well as foreign sites, and you can see the best related articles from here . But in this article, we will show you a set of prominent WordPress themes that deserve to be placed in your accounts.
1. Astra template
The Astra template has achieved huge successes in recent years, and has reached a stage that makes it one of the main WordPress templates, and it is known as a versatile template, and you can rely on it to create different types of websites, whether content sites, blogging sites, or business sites.
Astra template comes with excellent performance for search engines along with fast loading speed, and you can view it here , or buy it here .
2. Divi template
This template comes with many features and features, and provides more than 100 templates that you can rely on and apply directly on your site.
The template allows you to build your own specific design very easily and in simple steps, and you can preview it or buy it directly through its official website .
3. Hestia Professional WordPress Theme
Contrary to expectation, the Hestia template comes for free, and it is suitable for small business sites, for blogs, or even for more complex sites, depending on a number of distinctive plugins, and it also supports the Elementor page builder, which will allow you to create your site in simple steps and with a different design You can learn more, and view or download the template through its official website .
4. Ultra format
The Ultra template is known as one of the most prominent templates currently available, as it provides more than 60 preset designs, one of which can be applied with the click of a button, in addition to its reliance on drag and drop in the design and preparation of site pages, up to a different number of widgets and others, and different designs, and you can Head to the official website to know more.
5. Avada template
Known as one of the most popular and best-selling WordPress themes, Avada offers more than 255 pre-built page templates that you need to apply with the click of a button, along with more than 40 ready-made designs for different websites.
This template is suitable for almost all types of sites, and you can customize it amazingly, along with the presence of thousands of options and settings that you can continue to work on for years, there is no doubt that it is worth taking a look at it, and you can view his site and his page on Themeforest from here .
6. Soledad template
This template comes with perfect features for blog and magazine sites, is also available on Themeforest and has high ratings and sales, and it supports page and site builders like Elementor and WP Bakery Page Builder. View his page here .
7. Premium Website Builder X Theme
The X Theme template has been widely known for its distinctive features and capabilities in building pages and sites, and it relies on the drag and drop feature as well, with ready-made templates for site pages of all kinds.
The template comes with ready-made templates (Demos) for different types of websites, and it is more suitable for websites of brands or small companies, but it is customizable to work perfectly with any field, and you can take a look at it here .
8. Heaven WordPress Theme
The Jannah template comes from an Arab designer, which is what appears from its name, and the template comes as an ideal template for content sites of all kinds, whether they are sites for magazines, small blogs or huge content sites, and the template offers many advantages and features with a large number of pre-designs that you can import, to An upcoming side with a custom page builder tool.
You can learn more about the theme or purchase it through its Themeforest page .
9. JNews Template for News Websites
The JNews template offers a very fast use experience, and it is dedicated to creating content sites, articles and news, and it offers more than one pre-made design for you to use, and besides that, it offers a powerful control panel, which are essential features in any WordPress template mentioned in the article, and you can receive Look at the template here .
10. GeneratePress Template
The GeneratePress template offers a very fast loading speed, which is why a number of sites prefer to use it, along with somewhat limited customization features, and as we mentioned earlier in this article, this template is available in a free version as well, and you can rely on this template if speed is a matter Very important for your site, or if you like a simple and distraction-free design. I saw it from here .
With this, we have come to the end of the article by learning about the concept of WordPress templates and their ideal use for WordPress site owners.
This is a video showing the best WordPress themes for 2022 and the most popular among WordPress themes
Professional WordPress as he likes our site to be specialized in WordPress to make a professional site
