5 Types Of WordPress Themes

Written by Peter Lawlor Monday, 06 June 2011 09:20

WordPress is wildly popular for web designers, small business owners (like me), and bloggers (me again). Since WordPress hit the scene, thousands and thousands of WordPress themes have materialized. The end result is there are now a variety in type of WordPress themes to choose from.

WordPress is wildly popular for web designers, small business owners (like me), and bloggers (me again). Since WordPress hit the scene, thousands and thousands of WordPress themes have materialized. The end result is there are now a variety in type of WordPress themes to choose from.

This article sets out the types of WordPress themes you can buy. You'll have to forgive me, but I'll be coining some terms to describe the types of WordPress themes you can buy and/or use (after all, there are free themes and so you don't need to buy them).

5 Types of wordPress Themes are as follows:

1. Premium WordPress themes

I didn't coin this term. Premium themes refer to themes you buy. Within the "premium theme" realm are all kinds of wonderful themes. In fact, it's the fact there's a market for premium themes that has financed some impressive theme designs and functionality.

2. Free WordPress themes

There are thousands of free themes. In fact, once you install WordPress on your server, you'll be able to browse thousands of themes which you can use for free.

One caveat I have about free themes is to look "under the hood" for any outgoing links to other sites. You'll want to remove these links. Some links may be to nefarious websites such as prescription, pornographic, and gambling sites. You don't want your business website or family blog linking to these types of sites.

3. WordPress theme generators

The WordPress theme generator is relatively recent development. I love these themes because they give pretty much anyone the ability to customize layout and design easily and quickly. It's practically using drag and drop technology in WordPress. If you can conceive it, you can build it with a WordPress theme generator.

WordPress theme generators are premium themes. In other words you need to buy them. They're well worth the cost.

4. Specific-purpose themes

There are hundreds of uses for websites - e-commerce, blog, magazine, photography, video, business, sales pages, membership sites, sports-related sites, product reviews, and much, much more. As more people and businesses turn to WordPress to build websites, wordPress theme developers are creating websites for very specific purposes. For example, you can now find themes designed for restaurants, lawyers, product reviews, realtors, specific sports, fitness, etc.

5. Tumblog themes

A tumblog is mix of Twitter and blogging. Tumblogs create a stream of posts which you can read in their entirety on the home page. A quality tumblog theme makes it easy upload images, video, integrate with Twitter and Facebook, and of course add blog posts.

Within all of the above-listed types of themes, you can find a huge variety of layouts and designs to meet your needs. Common layouts include 1 to 4 columns (I tend to go with 2 and 3 column layouts). The WordPress theme generators and some premium themes make it easy to create different layouts on different posts and pages.