Looking for the best WordPress themes for blogs can be pretty daunting as there are so many to choose from.
So, here’s my guide on how to choose the best WordPress theme for your blog.
By testing, building sites, and using some of the best blogging themes, free and paid, I’ve narrowed down the top 15 to choose from.
That may seem a lot, but each one offers something unique that will help you choose the best one for your needs.
Let’s take a look.
How to Choose the Best WordPress Theme for Blogs?
Before we get ahead of ourselves, it’s a good idea to know what to look out for when choosing a WordPress blogging theme.
Here are several factors to consider to help you make the right choice:
The Best WordPress Themes for Blogs (IMO)
Here are my picks on some of the best themes for blogs. I hope you find one that works well for you and your blog. 🙂
What help creating a blog? – I’ve got a full tutorial on how to create a blog using WordPress!
1. Popcorn Theme – Best WordPress Theme for Blogs & Affiliate Marketing
Popcorn Theme is the perfect WordPress theme if you write affiliate product reviews or monetize your blog through display ads.
I should say at this point that Popcorn Theme is a project I’m involved in.
Not only is Popcorn Theme great for blogs, but it’s also one of the best WordPress themes for affiliate marketing.
That’s because it’s made by affiliate marketers for affiliate marketers.
What makes Popcorn Theme so versatile is the library of available patterns.
These patterns make your content stand out, improve user engagement, and help you convert more traffic into commissions and email subscribers.
Here are some of the patterns currently available:
You can see these boxes in action over on the Popcorn theme website.
All patterns are added using Gutenberg blocks that can be easily edited to suit the style of your blog.
Popcorn Theme allows you to customize the design using the built-in WordPress Full-Site Editing.
This means there’s no need to learn any code or technical skills. You simply point and click blocks and sections you want to edit.
This also makes Popcorn Theme super fast and lightweight, giving your visitors the best user experience and helping Google crawl and rank your site.
Popcorn Theme features:
Popcorn is a premium theme priced at $99 per year with unlimited site usage. There’s also a lifetime deal if you want to pay once and get updates for life.
2. Challenger – Great Blogging Theme with Header CTA
Challenger is a free WordPress theme that is great for blogs and adding a call to action in the header.
Most bloggers will want to offer a lead magnet or link to a landing page at some point, and Challenger makes it easy to do so.
You simply use the theme customizer to edit the header and button text to convert more readers into leads and sales.
The button link can be a page on your site or used with a popup plugin to collect emails.
Looking at the design and layout, Challenger is a clean and minimal theme placing focus on typography and the content, and eliminating distractions.
Moreover, it’s very easy to set up because there are no demo settings or templates to import. It looks great straight out of the box.
Where Challenger shines is in its premium version.
Installing the Challenger Pro WordPress plugin adds 8 new layouts which can be easily chosen from the customizer.
Other premium features include custom fonts for a more unique design, featured videos for more engagement, and a sticky header for enhanced accessibility.
Challenger Theme Features:
Try Challenger Pro for $49 per year and get premium updates for 1 year. They also offer a 100% money-back guarantee within 30 days of the purchase.
3. Kadence WP – High-Quality Blogging Designs
Kadence Theme is a bit different from the first two on this list as it offers way more options to customize designs and has more pre-made templates.
The designs are modern and of high quality, but the best thing about Kadence is the option to use a pre-made template or completely design something yourself from scratch.
Unfortunately, there’s only one free template that is designed specifically for blogging. If you want more template options, you’ll need to upgrade to the premium version.
That being said, Kadence Pro is an incredible theme with a ton of flexibility. It’s the intricate details you’re able to control that make Kadence so versatile.
Furthermore, Kadence Theme can be bundled with Kadence Blocks, an advanced block-based page builder that adds more control over the standard Gutenberg block editor.
Kadence Theme features:
You can get Kadence Theme Pro for $59 or upgrade to get it bundled with Kadence Blocks for $129.
4. Astra Pro – Lots of Blogging Templates
Astra is similar to Kadence, but I prefer the pre-made templates you get with Kadence. They seem to be more modern and better quality than Astra Theme.
However, Astra offers more free blogging starter templates and its default blogging design will be suitable for most bloggers.
One reason you might want to upgrade to Astra Pro and choose it over Kadence Pro is that Astra comes with a few extra plugins and SkillJet Academy.
This is a membership site with courses to help you get the most out of your WordPress website and grow your blog.
Now, Astra also has their own block-based page builder called Spectra. This extends the Gutenberg editor with more advanced blocks to build more unique designs.
Astra Theme features:
Astra is one of the most popular and best free WordPress themes with over 1 million active users and a 4.9 star rating.
5. Extra – Blog Theme with Built-in Page Builder
Extra is a clean and modern blogging theme developed by Elegant Themes. It also comes with the drag-and-drop Divi page builder.
The style of this WordPress blogging theme resembles a magazine or news-type blog.
However, you’re able to make significant changes to the layout and design, as everything is built with the Divi theme builder.
Another feature that separates this theme from others is the built-in star rating system. This enables blog readers to rate articles and provide the blog owner with useful feedback.
As the Extra theme is also packaged with the Divi builder, you have a lot of control over the layout and uniqueness of your blog posts and category pages.
Furthermore, you have the option to choose from over 800 pre-made templates if the default design isn’t for you.
Extra Theme features:
Pricing for the Extra theme is $89 per year or you can choose their lifetime plan for $249 and get updates forever.
Lastly, all plans come with all Elegant Theme products which include Bloom to collect emails and Monarch, a social media sharing plugin.
6. Ruki – Great Premium Theme for Blogs
Ruki is one of the best premium WordPress themes for blogs. It’s very elegant and visually appealing, making it a pleasure to read articles.
I use this theme on one of my blogs (I sold it a while back) and talk about it in this YouTube video.
I really enjoyed making a site with this theme and I think with the right featured images for you content it can really look sweet. 😍
There are seven layouts to choose from and one designed for food bloggers. It also supports RTL (right-to-left) language support such as Arabic, and Hebrew.
Ruki boasts a mosaic-style layout of posts which can also be displayed uniformly and the ability to showcase custom categories on the home page.
Built with Gutenberg, Ruki also has a lot of layout options that allow you to customize things like colors.
Ruki features:
Ruki is a premium theme available on ThemeForest for $59 which includes lifetime updates and 6 months support.
7. Neve – Modern Blogging Templates
Neve’s mobile-first approach and compatibility with AMP make this an excellent theme for blogging.
Similar to Astra, Neve comes with several blogging templates for specific types of bloggers.
For example, their free Minimal template is perfect for personal, travel, or lifestyle blogs.
Or the premium Recipes template is ideal for the food blogger.
Not only that, but Neve gives you a lot of control when it comes to customizing the blog layout, and the header and footer.
Best of all, all the options to make changes are done in the theme customizer, so like many of these themes, you don’t need any coding skills.
Neve features:
Neve is created by ThemeIsle and is priced at $99 per year for unlimited site usage.
8. OceanWP – Lots of Blogroll Templates
OceanWP makes this list of the best WordPress themes for blogs simply for its popularity.
Currently, it has over 600,000 active installations and a 4.9-star rating for the free version.
OceanWP is a multipurpose theme with tons of pre-built templates to choose from.
Specifically, it has four templates available for bloggers:
More templates are available to choose from with the premium version, and you gain access to way more customization options.
OceanWP features:
OceanWP Pro starts at $54 per year for up to 3 sites and they also offer a lifetime deal.
9. Trawell – Best Theme for Travel Bloggers
Trawell is a stunning blog WordPress theme specifically designed for travel bloggers.
With this theme, you can make your travel blog your own with a selection of beautifully crafted templates.
You can also fine-tune the layout of the home page and select the elements you need. Moreover, there are unlimited font and color combinations to choose from to make your travel blog stand out from others.
Another cool feature is the ability to add a custom-designed Google Map showcasing all the places you’ve traveled to.
Lastly, the Trawell theme has built-in ad placements to help you monetize your blog.
Trawell theme features:
Trawell is $69 on ThemeForest so you get updates for life and 6 months of support.
10. Schema – Fast & SEO Optimized
Schema by MyThemeShop is a blogging theme optimized for speed and SEO. It’s made by the team behind the popular SEO plugin Rank Math.
This free and premium blogging theme is super fast thanks to its lightweight code and clean design.
Plus, as the name suggests, it also supports rich snippets to help Google rank your content higher in search results.
With the theme options panel, you can make tons of customizations to improve the functionality of Schema Theme.
For example, the performance tab allows you to turn on things like prefetching, lazy load images, and optimize CSS and JavaScript.
There’s also a built-in reviews system, which is great for affiliate product reviews.
Schema features:
Schema is priced at $49 per year and can be used on unlimited sites.
11. Indigo – Magazine Style Blogging Theme
Next up is Indigo, which would be the perfect theme for a men’s fashion, tech, or lifestyle blog.
This magazine WordPress theme created by WP Zoom boasts a bold, minimal design, and is more on the masculine side.
You can customize the home page with category blocks that show off blog posts and thumbnails elegantly.
Using the options panel, you’re able to adjust the layout and design to make it suit your specific needs, changing things like colors and fonts.
Elements include an image slider, tabbed recent posts widget, social media icons, and a sticky top menu.
Other unique widgets include an email subscription form widget, scrollable editor picks, and many more.
Indigo features:
Indigo costs $69 for unlimited sites and 1-year of updates. Or you can pay a little extra to access all WP Zoom themes.
12. Blog Feedly – Minimalist & Personal Blog Theme
Blog Feedly is possibly one of the most minimal and elegant themes on this list.
It’s perfect for all sorts of niches, such as travel, lifestyle, fashion, self-help, and personal blogs.
What I also like is how easy it is to set up. You simply click on the child theme you want and you’re done.
Plus, there are options in the WordPress customizer to edit colors and fonts to make your blog look more unique.
However, many of the customizations are only available in the premium version.
BlogFeedly features:
BlogFeedly is a free WordPress blog theme great for beginners, but the premium upgrade starts at only $39 for 1 domain and with lifetime updates.
13. Soledad – Multipurpose Blogging Theme
Soledad is a multipurpose WordPress theme that has a ton of options for starting a great-looking blog.
Soledad offers possibly the most options in terms of the type of blog or website you need to build.
For instance, there are over 220 pre-built website designs to choose from. Plus, more than 6,000 home page designs, all available in one click.
Something unique about this theme is the built-in AI Smart Content Creator, which lets you generate blog post titles and AI images inside WordPress through the Open AI API.
Another unique feature is the Smart Crop Thumbnails plugin, which allows you to pinpoint exactly where images get cropped.
Soledad features:
Soledad is available on ThemeForest for $59 with lifetime updates and 6 months of support from the developer.
14. Cookely – Best Theme for Food Bloggers
If you’re starting a food blog, then you’ll want to take a look at Cookely by WPZoom.
This WordPress theme has everything you need to publish recipes with style. It’s also packed with blocks for displaying ingredients, meal directions, and widgets for top-viewed recipes with view counts.
The theme options panel lets you change the look and feel of your food blog and includes six color options with plenty of Google font options.
Cookely features:
Cookely pricing starts at $69 for unlimited sites and a year of updates. Or you can choose their lifetime deal for $179 and get updates for life.
15. GeneratePress Pro – Best Theme for Tech-Savvy Bloggers
GeneratePress is one of the best WordPress themes for bloggers who want total freedom of design without needing to write code.
The free theme offers basic customizations with the default settings being satisfactory for minimalistic blogs.
However, the gold is in its premium plugin addon that opens up a ton of additional configuration settings.
GeneratePress Pro also offers a range of starter templates if you prefer to import a ready-made design.
If you’re looking for a theme that is loved by developers and want to design something truly unique, GeneratePress might be for you.
Lastly, the GeneratePress team has a Gutenberg blocks addon called GenerateBlocks, which is one of the best block-based page builders available.
GeneratePress features:
The core theme is completely free and the GeneratePress Pro plugin is $59 per year or $249 for a lifetime deal.
Final thoughts
Choosing the best WordPress blog theme can be challenging. Hopefully this article has made it easier for you.
Sure, there’s a lot to choose from, but each one brings something unique to the table.
For example, Popcorn Theme is a great choice for affiliate blogs and ease of use. Whereas Challenger has a built-in header call to action for collecting emails.
Both these themes are ready to go straight out of the box, but if you want more customization options, then Kadence or GeneratePress might be the better choice.
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