One of the biggest benefits to using WordPress for your site, is the number of Themes that are available.   Themes are what give your site “the look”.  Themes control the layout, the graphics, the colors, the fonts, the menu, the sidebar… basically every visual aspect of your site.  There are literally thousands of options out there.   Many themes often have additional customization or color options within.

The beauty of WordPress is if you want a different look to your site, you can simply upload and activate a new theme and the entire thing changes.  Poof… instantly your website just got a facelift.

But finding the perfect WordPress theme can be like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack.  Where do you begin?   There are thousands of free themes available from WordPress.org.  There are many amazing and well written themes available for free, but it is important to remember, that sometimes you get what you pay for.   When selecting a free theme, pay attention to the last date it was updated, how many times it’s been downloaded, and check out the reviews.  Those factors should give you an insight into how well the theme might work.

There are also Framework Themes (things like Genesis, Thesis and Headway).  These are themes build around a common engine.  While they may all look differently, typically the configuration options are the same.  So moving between them makes configuration much easier.

There are theme marketplaces, like Themeforest.net, where independent developers can post and sell their themes.  These can be great resources, but there’s no real requirement to post a theme there. So the same evaluation rules apply as with the free themes, check out the reviews and support tab, see how many copies have been sold to give you an idea of how well it works.

Finally there are premium theme providers who have yearly subscription models.  Places like ElegantThemes, WooThemes or iThemes.  These are companies that have an entire library of themes (and usually plugins too) and for one yearly price, you get access to every theme and plugin they offer.  These tend to be great quality themes, and are all supported by the company.  As they add new themes, you get immediate access to them.

>> Joshua Pettit is Lead Developer and Project Manager at Sunrise Marketing.  http://www.sunrise-marketing.com/