3 Powerful WordPress Themes to Build A Great Website

powerful wordpress themes

When it comes to WordPress themes you certainly have a lot of choice. Back in 2013 (that is 3 years ago), there were around 10,000 WordPress themes on the most popular marketplaces online.

So, if you are going to start creating your next dream website, what themes should you consider? It is a difficult question to answer, so in this post, I want to show you some of the Themes that I use professionally, and on a regular basis, to build amazing websites for my clients. But before we do that, it would be useful to know the kinds of things you should look at when considering a theme.

What To Consider For Your Theme Choice

Deciding on which theme or library of themes to choose is quite difficult so I wanted to also give you a quick list of things to think about when making a decision.

It is a complete list, but should serve as a guide to help:

  • the purpose of your website importance of branding (colors and fonts available in the theme)
  • the importance of branding (colors and fonts available in the theme)
  • cost over the long term (some themes require membership)
  • ease of configuration (Customizer for layout)
  • ease of page builder (drag and drop builder)
  • speed of page building (library of pre-built layouts for common pages)

Once you have a think about what pages your site will have, what purpose it will serve, and whether strict branding is an issue, it will start to give you an idea of which theme you can use.

3 Powerful WordPress Themes To Help Build Your Website

Now that you have a few criteria to keep in mind, let’s take a look at 3 great options for your next WordPress theme…

X Theme
One of the most modern and flexible themes on the market and perhaps one of the biggest sellers on the Envato marketplace is X Theme.

X Theme is based on 4 main “child” themes, that allow you to choose from fundamentally different types of website design. These include:

  • Integrity
  • Renew
  • Icon
  • Ethos

Once you have the child theme chosen, you can then start configuring your website in great detail using the powerful customizer. Many modern WordPress themes have been making use of the WordPress Customizer and X is no exception. You can change the main layout, header, font, and colors as well as all widgetized areas very easily.

Then, with your layout all set, you can start using their custom-built page builder to build stylish pages with their huge library of elements.

Here are a couple of example websites to show you what is possible:

As you can see from the above examples. there is a lot of variety and flexibility in the theme, and you can create almost anything.

Divi Theme
Divi Theme is the flagship theme from Elegant Themes, who are well known for the simple to use themes.
You can choose from any of their themes when you take out their yearly membership, but the most powerful and flexible is Divi. It is also the one I use the most with my client’s websites as it is also:

  • simple to maintain
  • constantly updated
  • and rock-solid

Divi 2.5 now comes with a very flexible customizer like X, which allows you to define the basic layout of the website and pages, as well as the blog, the colors, and fonts on all pages and areas (headings, text, header links, etc).

They also have their own builder (Divi Builder), which although not as visual as Thrive (the next theme), is very powerful and recently completely updated. I have given it to a few clients, and they are able to learn it very quickly.

The builder comes with a vast choice of elements to allow you to quickly build almost any page you could imagine, but also, what makes it quite a great asset to any business owner or blogger is the page library which allows you to start with a known template for your pages.

Here are some example websites for Divi to help you see the amazing array of website created with this powerful theme:

You can find more examples that demonstrate the flexibility of Divi Theme here.

Thrive Themes
Thrive have a great range of products including a series of themes and a page builder, all of which come with their membership much like Elegant Themes.

So when you get access, you can take your time deciding which one is best for your particular website before committing to a specific Theme. That amount of choice alone is quite useful because it puts you in a position to create the perfect website for your needs without much work.

Note: Unlike Divi and X, Thrive allows you to buy just one theme, so if you don’t want the builder, it may not be worth taking out the complete membership.
After choosing your base theme, you can start building your site, which the Thrive team assumes will be marketing focused. This is their main selling point. However, don’t let that fool you as their choice of Themes gives you a wide choice of options.

Another plus from their themes is that they have built-in a huge amount of features that normally require a plugin.
More plugins usually mean either:

  • more costs
  • more security issues
  • a slower website

So by adding in these features, they are really helping you out by keeping things simple, clean, secure, and fast.

They also have their own professional drag and drop builder which is far more intuitive to use than many of the others. So if this is something you care about, then Thrive might be the theme company for you.

You can see some examples of websites built with Thrive Themes below:

Note: If you want a detailed blow by blow comparison of all these powerful WordPress themes check out this post: Divi Theme vs X Theme vs Thrive Themes.

Final Thoughts

Choosing a theme is never easy, but these three will certainly give you the flexibility, power, and support to create almost anything you can imagine.
If you start with one of their base themes that is almost what you need for your website, it should be quite simple to get to the finished product quickly.
Do take into account the exact elements, functionality, and features that you need before diving in a making a purchase, because none of these themes is cheap.

This is a guest contribution by Ashley, a Web Designer, SEO Specialist and founder of Mad Lemmings. When he is not immersed in the Internet, he can be found in the Swiss Alps hiking or making Swiss chocolate disappear! You can follow him on Twitter @madlemmingz.

[image source: flickr.com/photos/zergev]

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