In this guide, I’ll show you 6 Amazing WordPress themes that’ll make creating a website easy.
As an entrepreneur, you know that time is money. You need to cut corners where you can and spend more time focusing on your business, instead of spending unnecessary hours working on it.
That’s why choosing the right theme for your website is so important, as it will help you streamline things and get things done more efficiently.
The best thing is that you don’t need to hire a web-designer in order to create a professional-looking website anymore…
In fact, most WordPress themes are so simple to use that even those with very little experience can build and manage their sites without braking a sweat. That’s why I’ve put together this list of the 6 best WordPress themes for entrepreneurs in 2023.
Let’s dive right in…
What Are The Best WordPress Themes?
In order to cut down the time you spend on building your website, you need a WordPress theme that has all the bells and whistles straight out of the box.
Without that, you’re pretty much bound to your computer for hours whenever you want to make any changes. Let’s face it, that is time that could be spent on more useful things like finding new income streams.
Here’s how I see it, you need is a theme that is:
- Fast
- Responsive
- Lightweight
- Easy to use
- Has a good feature set
- And has all the customization freedom you need
And it’s about time to forget the days when you needed to learn coding in order to build a website. A well built, modern theme will have all the tools needed to make website creation easy.
So, here are my top picks for the best WordPress themes this year.
1. Elementor Pro with the ‘Hello Elementor’ theme
Created by: Elementor
The easy to use theme with complete customization on all devices
If you’re looking for a premium WordPress theme for your online business, Elementor Pro with the ‘Hello Elementor’ theme is the one for you.
It has all the features you’d want from a premium theme, including a drag-and-drop page builder, unlimited colors and design options, easy one-click “website kit” importer, and much more. And their own ultralightweight ‘Hello Elementor’ theme gives you a nice blank slate starting point for your website.
And with built in support for both landing pages and pop-ups, there’s nothing that’ll hold you back from growing your email lists.
With Elementor Pro, you get an awesome theme builder that lets you create stunning websites in minutes. It’s also easy to customize and includes unlimited colors plus hundreds of design options. The theme is also 100% responsive, ensuring a good user experience on all devices.
Pricing:
- Free page builder: Yes – Elementor has a free page builder plugin
- Free theme: Yes – ‘Hello Elementor’ is a free theme
- Annual discount: No
- Essential plan: $59/year (1 pro website activation)
- Expert plan: $199/year (25 pro website activation)
- Agency plan: $399/year (1000 pro website activation)
Pros and cons with Elementor Pro and the ‘Hello Elementor’ theme
Pros:
- Elementor is one of the most popular WordPress page builder and it works with hundreds, if not thousands of themes.
- The ‘Theme Builder’ makes it easy to manage your entire site. You can also use it to easily add conditional display your pages, so you can change designed based on category, or why not season.
- The ‘Hello Elementor theme is very fast and works perfectly with Elementor Pro.
- Full customization and lots of widgets and features. Adding custom CSS codes is not a problem.
- Has built in features for collecting leads with both landing pages and pop-ups. You can also integrate it with ActiveCampaign for example using API.
- Has lots of add-ons so you can expand and get even more features for the Elementor editor. I’d recommend Essential Addons if you’re in the free version.
Cons:
- Not the largest library of website kits.
- The ‘Hello Elementor’ theme is built for Elementor Pro and the theme works best that way. If you are using the free version of Elementor, I’d suggest you to choose another theme.
- No built in feature for cookie consent. You will need a plugin like CookieYes to get a GDPR compliant cookie pop-up.
- Support can be inadequate at times.
Get started with Elementor Pro and the ‘Hello Elementor’ theme
2. Divi
Created by: Elegant Themes
Perfect for those who want a lot of templates to choose from
For those tired of the same old WordPress themes, why not try out Divi? With its drag and drop interface, Divi is an ideal theme for those who are looking to create visually appealing websites…fast.
With over 2K layouts and 200 elements, there is no shortage of want you can create, no matter what niche you’re in.
It’s also the perfect WordPress theme for building eCommerce sites and has a huge selection of content elements so you can expand its functionality further. Moreover, the WooCommerce plugin is compatible with Divi, allowing you to create fully functional online stores with just a few clicks.
The best part is that it’s super easy to use and comes packed with tons of features. Divi gives all its users complete creative freedom, making it an excellent choice for both beginners and experienced entrepreneurs.
Pricing:
- Free page builder: No
- Free theme: No
- Annual discount: No
- Yearly Access plan: $89/year
- Lifetime Access plan: $249/one-time
Pros and cons with Divi
Pros:
- With over 2K pre-made designs and over 200 complete website packs, there is a high chance that you’ll find a template that’ll work for you.
- Very good and fast customer support.
- Create pop-ups with Bloom and start collection leads on your site. It also integrates with 19 email marketing software and with Monarch you can easily set up social sharing buttons.
- Divi can be used on unlimited websites, so you’re always free to use them on as many of your sites as you want. No limitations.
Cons:
- Lots of customization options might sound like a good thing, but when each element have so many options, it can become overwhelming. Especially if it’s the first time you build a website.
- Divi uses shortcodes to make it easier for you to use it. The drawback though is that it adds lots of code to your site, which in turn can slow it down. So you need to pay extra attention to page speed optimization.
- You can build stores and pop-ups, but there is no support for landing pages. It would’ve been nice if they added that too.
Get started with Divi
3. Thrive Themes
Created by: Thrive Themes
Best for those who wants to turn their website into a full-blown business
Thrive Themes is a premium WordPress theme that gives users the tools they need to build a thriving business. It puts everything you need to succeed in one place: a powerful admin dashboard, a custom-built sales page builder, helpful SEO tools, and more.
Thrive Themes were built with small businesses in mind, but there are plenty of features for anyone who wants to grow their online presence. Whether you want to launch your first product or sell thousands of widgets every week, Thrive has everything you need to get started.
As you grow, you can upgrade to additional plans with more features and support. Plus, Thrive offers year-round support and updates so you always have the latest tools at your fingertips.
If you’re ready to take your business to the next level, then Thrive Themes is the perfect choice.
Pricing:
- Free page builder: No
- Free theme: No
- Annual discount: Yes – Save $97/year
- Thrive Theme Builder plan: $97/year (1 site – Includes Thrive Theme builder and Thrive Automator)
- Thrive Suite plan: $99/quarter or $299/year (5 sites – Includes all Thrive Themes plugins)
Pros and cons with Thrive Themes
Pros:
- A perfect business suite if you want to turn your WordPress site into a real business.
- Has everything you’d expect from a business suite: websites, sales funnels, landing pages, email lists building, course creation, and more.
- Lots of use-cases, from blogging and affiliate marketing to agencies, making it extremely versatile no matter what your end goal is.
- You can buy individual parts of the complete suite if you want. If you only want the theme builder, you can get only that and grow from there.
- The walkthrough Wizard is amazing if your new to building websites. It will guide you through everything you need to setup in order to launch your site.
- Since it’s business oriented, Thrive can integrate with almost all the essential tools and apps natively.
Cons
- The Thrive Theme Builder will only help you build your site. If you want more, you need to buy more “modules” and soon it will be cheaper to just get the entire suite.
- This is a business theme, and I think it’s for those who are serious about growing their businesses online. It might be a little overkill if your just playing around with websites for fun.
- Thrive Suite comes with tons of cool features that most businesses will find useful. However, all this coolness comes at a price making this them one of the more expensive themes on the market.
Get started with Thrive Themes
4. Blocksy
Created by: Creative Themes
Great if you need a very capable free theme
Blocksy is a WordPress theme design for all kinds of bloggers, small business owners and website owners alike. It’s a clean, robust, and easy-to-use WordPress theme that lets you build posts and pages in no time at all.
With a grid-based layout, this theme is perfect for bloggers who want to create an eye-catching design and add some visual interest to their site. It’s also well suited for businesses who want to promote their brand through strong visuals. It also comes with a fully responsive layout that ensures that your website will look great on all devices.
The wide range of pre-built website layouts to choose from, means that you can easily start building your site in minutes. Then you can choose from plenty of custom widgets to create your own unique layout. Whether you want to display posts in one big column or break it up into smaller blocks, you’ll be able to customize it however you like.
This theme is a must-try for anyone looking to create a professional and eye-catching WordPress website.
Pricing:
- Free page builder: Yes – Works with Elementor, Gutenberg, Brizy and Beaver Builder
- Free theme: Yes
- Annual discount: No
- Personal plan (1 site license): $49/year or $149/one-time (lifetime access)
- Professional plan (5 site licenses): $69/year or $199/one-time (lifetime access)
- Agency plan (unlimited licenses): $99/year or $299/one-time (lifetime access)
Pros and cons with Blocksy
Pros:
- You can build a well functioning site with the free starter themes and your favorite page builder.
- Comes with a child theme, which is a nifty thing. With this you can develop and test custom codes for example without risking damaging your original site
- The free version of Blocksy is very generous and will get you far before you need an upgrade. It even comes with some WooCommerce features as standard.
- It’s a well documented theme. If you have any questions there are both written guides and video tutorials. If that doesn’t cut it for you can also check out the Facebook community or contact the support.
Cons:
- The WooCommerce features are few on the free plan, so if you want the most out of the sales part of this theme, going pro is the only alternative.
- No native integrations.
- Custom code snippets are only available in the pro version.
Get started with Blocksy
5. Kadence WP
Created by: Kadence WP
The simple yet powerful WordPress theme
If you’re looking for WordPress themes that are ready to go, then Kadence WP is one to consider. It’s a WordPress business theme that comes with everything you need to build a successful online business.
This theme has a lot of use-cases, from ecommerce websites to blogs, portfolios, and more. It’s also super easy to use and includes features like one-click install, drag-and-drop page builder, device responsive layout, custom header, and footer, etc.
Kadence WP is fully customizable, and it comes with all the tools you need to build a professional-looking website that stands out from the crowd. Plus, you don’t need any coding skills to set up your site, and you can easily change the look and feel of your site by adding custom widgets or changing the color scheme.
Making it a perfect theme for bloggers and other professionals who want to increase their visibility online.
Pricing:
- Free page builder: Yes – Works with Gutenberg and Elementor.
- Free theme: Yes
- Annual discount: No
- Free Forever plan: Free
- Essential Bundle plan: $129/first year, then $149/year
- Full Bundle plan: $199/first year, then $219/year
- Lifetime plan: $699/one-time
Pros and cons with Kadence WP
Pros:
- You can try the theme out in sandbox mode before actually installing it on your real site. That’s not something you see every day.
- Has a lot of different standalone plugins you can buy if you need a specific feature. Plus, most of them can used with any theme.
- Kadence ‘Free Forever’ plan is generous and comes with a bunch of good to have features and nice looking starter themes.
- Lightweight theme that is focused on performance.
- It’s a very easy-to-use theme that has a modern feel to it and the Kadence Blocks makes building sites simple even for the beginner.
- If you happen to fall in love with this template and want in for life, there is a plan for that.
Cons:
- There is no point in buying more than a few standalone plugins, simply because they’re in the $40-$80 price range. Once you get two or three, it’s actually cheaper to go with a bundle deal.
- If you want to do product sales or lead generation, you sort of only have one option, and that is to get the ‘Full Bundle’ plan.
- Lifetime plan is expensive and is touching over priced territory.
- You can’t white-lable it, which to me is important if you’re building a personal brand or a building sites for customers.
- The AMP pages plugin should be included on all plans in my mind. Because fast loading pages on mobile devices is always important, no matter your budget
Get started with Kadence WP
6. Astra
Created by: Brainstorm Force
Lightning fast with complete customization freedom
Astra is a premium WordPress theme designed to bring your website to the next level. You can set up a fully-functional website that looks amazing right out of the gate by choosing from one of 280+ website templates, each with its own unique look and feel.
Every page and template uses a responsive design that adapts to different screen sizes. This makes it ideal for mobile devices such as smartphones as well as desktops.
The Astra theme comes with an intuitive interface and has a wide range of features that make it ideal for both small and large businesses. An extensive options panel lets you tweak almost every aspect of your site so you can get exactly what you want.
And because Astra is built on powerful WordPress technology, it’s super fast and easy to use. All this makes Astra an excellent choice for businesses of all sizes.
Pricing:
- Free page builder: Yes – Works with Elementor, Beaver Builder, Brizy, or Gutenberg.
- Free theme: Yes
- Annual discount: Yes- Save up to $62 on annual plans, and up to $312 on lifetime plans
- Astra Pro plan: $47/year or $227/one-time (lifetime access)
- Essential Bundle plan: $137/year or $677/one-time (lifetime access)
- Growth Bundle plan: $187/year or $937/one-time (lifetime access)
Pros and cons with Astra
Pros:
- Astra one of the fastest loading theme on this lists.
- As soon as you get on a paid plan you get tons of features. Astra Pro comes with advanced blog layouts, white-labeling, WooCommerce controls, native AMP support and more. Very generous for a starter plan.
- It’s a very customizable theme. You can literally change and tweak every little thing on your site to make it perfect.
- It’s compatible with both Elementor and Beaver Builder. Plus, if you get the ‘Essential Bundle’ you also get Ultimate Addons for one of them (both in the Growth Bundle), giving you even more customization options.
- Comes with 280+ ready-to-go website templates that you can import and use. These also cover a wide range of niches, so there is a high chance that you’ll find something that’ll work for you.
- Integrates with both LearnDash and LifterLMS so you can create membership sites and deliver your content with ease.
Cons:
- The free version is very limited and the get the most out of Astra you need a paid plan.
- Lifetime plans are expensive. You really need to know that you want in on this since a investment in the ‘Growth Bundle’ is over $900. However, you do get a lot of bang for your buck.
- All this customization freedom can make beginners feel a bit overwhelmed. This also results in quite a steep learning curve.
Get started with Astra
How To Choose Between All The WordPress Themes?
As you probably begin to understand, there are a lot of WordPress themes out there. And picking the one that fits your business like a glove, can be a bit of a minefield.
This is because there are a lot of factors to consider when you’re making a decision. Get it wrong and you end up with a bunch of extra work that you didn’t plan for. I did that mistake once, and it cost me almost two weeks of work rebuilding my site.
So a word of advice it to first look at what you need, then you look for the WordPress themes that fits the bill.
Here are some of what I feel are the most important things to look at:
1. Lightweight
This is probably a aspect that should be high on your list of things you want. Because this will determine how fast or slow your site will load. And faster site loading speeds has been proven to convert better and have a lower bounce rate.
But what decides how “light” a theme is?
It’s actually fairly simple, the more code your theme has, the more time it takes to read when your website is loading. How the code is written is also something that will impact how fast it can load.
Since most code renderers read the code from top to bottom, the longer you themes code is, the longer it takes to read it to the end. This is why “in-lining” CSS code is a popular way to optimize loading speeds. Now your entire site code is compressed to one line of code.
The best thing you can do to ensure that the theme you want is lightweight is to:
- Read the reviews of the theme and see if people are mentioning that it’s a slow theme.
- Check that the theme is using the lates coding standards are optimized for fast loading speeds. Usually the creators will state this on their sites.
2. Responsive
In the past you could get away with a site that only worked on desktops, because no one was surfing the web with a Nokia 3310.
Nowadays though, a majority of your traffic will most likely come from mobile devices. So the theme you choose must be able to adjust according to the screen size of the users device. So you need a theme that allows you to optimize your pages per device type.
There is no way around this, and if the world keeps on progressing like it does, mobile devices will only become more popular.
The last thing you want to happen is that menus, texts or images ends up outside the users screen. This leads to a horrible user experience and in return you’ll get higher bounce rates. Not forgetting to mention that search engines will “penalize” websites that can deliver a good experience on mobile devices.
Luckily for you, all the themes on this list are highly responsive and allow full customization of your page no matter the device type.
3. Price
Price is always an important aspect when choosing anything really, and WordPress themes are no exception. There is no point in dreaming of that one theme that costs thousands and has all the bells and whistles, when you can’t afford it.
What you need to do instead is…
Sit down and have a serious talk with your bank account, to figure out what you can afford. Then you need to look for themes that has the features (or as many as possible) you want, while still in your price range.
On the other side of the spectra we have the free themes, this can also be a good option, but I’ll talk more about that in a minute.
4. Customization
I touched upon this earlier when I talked about responsiveness, and that is how easy your theme is to customize. Not only for mobile, but in general.
Does the theme you want allow you to customize all the aspects of your website, or are you locked in some areas.
Any good WordPress theme will allow you to:
- Change the layout
- Adjust coloring, fonts and font sizes
- Add and remove widgets without the page breaking
- Allow you to add custom CSS code
- Have control over menus and their placements
- In short – You should be able to adjust every part of your website however you see fit
5. Website importer
Not everyone wants to build a website form scratch, I know I don’t.
This is why you need a theme that not only provides you with good templates, but also has an easy way to import those templates.
If you first have to download the template file to your desktop, then upload it manually into WordPress, it’s too much work.
Any good theme will have:
- A variety of themes for a variety of niches, so you have an easy time finding a good starting point for your site.
- A simple one-click importer that installs all the necessary files, pages, colors, fonts, etc. into your WordPress site.
6. Integrations
Another important aspect of any good WordPress theme is how many and what kind of integrations it supports. This is especially important if you’re trying to build a business.
You need a theme that integrates easily with things like SEO tools, writing tools, email marketing platforms, and more.
If you for example want to build a landing page in your theme, it’s important that you can connect your CRM software to that landing page. This makes it easier for you to store your leads and build your lists, and it also makes it easier to trigger automations.
In most cases, all the best WordPress themes can integrate with any of the major 3rd-party software. All you need is a API key and you’re good to go.
7. A/B testing
Here’s where things can go either way, and whether you need this or not is totally up to you. But before you decide, hear me out…
A/B testing or split testing is when you test your original page to a new one with minor modifications. You do this to find the best possible version of your page. The more you keep on doing these tests the better the results will be, aka. increased conversion rates.
My take on this is that if you are building a business that will process sales with either a store, sales funnels or landing pages, then this is something you need. Having the ability to find the page version that converts the best can have a major impact on your revenue.
However, if you’re a blogger, affiliate, or similar, and you use your website to publish high quality content regularly. And if you occasionally use landing pages to convert those visitors into leads, then this feature is not as critical.
8. Ecommerce support
Okay, this one is not for everyone, but if you’re looking to start an online store, the theme you choose must support ecommerce functions.
Any theme that does this will have widgets like:
- Product image
- Price
- Cart
- Upsells
- Checkout
- Accounts
So, if your theme integrates with for example WooCommerce, then setting up, building, and launching your store will become much easier.
It’s something to have in mind if you have a product you want to sell.
Choosing Between Paid And Free WordPress Themes
Whether to go for a free one of the free WordPress themes or a paid one sounds like a no brainer…right?
Just pick a free one and get plugins for the features you’re missing.
Yes, this very much one solution to the problem, but I don’t thinks it’s that simple.
First of all, not every feature you want will have a free plugin alternative. Meaning that you’d have to go and buy that plugin anyway.
The second problem is that the more plugins you add, the slower your page will load and the bigger the risk of something breaking.
I have used this kind of method back in the days when I first started my website. Why? Simple, I wanted to do everything for free, because why not, it’s free. But in early 2022 I changed my approach…
I decided (after much consideration) to go with Elementor Pro and the “Helle Elementor” theme. That action alone gave my entire site a performance boost:
- I could uninstall almost 20 standalone plugins.
- My performance index went up over 20 points (62 to 89) on desktop and over 30 (28 to 55) on mobile devices.
- And my site became much, much easier to manage.
So I can say from experience that I saw the benefit of going to a paid theme.
Whether you go down the free route or the paid one is up to you. I encourage you to come up with your own conclusion on what’s best. But I will say this…
A well built paid theme will come with almost all the tools and features you need to build a beautiful website. And it will also ensure that all of the features works with the theme and are up to date. Plus you get support if something goes wrong.
Conclusion
There you have it, these are my top 6 best WordPress themes for 2023.
With so many options to choose from, building a business website is no easy task. However, with the right tools, you can make the process much, much easier. WordPress makes it easy to build websites, and with the right theme, you’ll be up an running in no time.
But if you want to use something other than WordPress to build your site, then this guide is for you.
Now I’d like to hear from you:
Which on of these WordPress themes are you going to try first?
Let me know by leaving a comment below.