WordPress is no doubt number 1 CMS to create websites and blogs. WordPress is most popular and widely used Content Management System and blogging platform. It started as a simple blogging tool now became a very powerful Content Management System.

There are many reasons, why WordPress became no 1 CMS and blogging platform. One of the most important thing that makes WordPress first choice of blogger and companies its user-friendly, easy to use interface and ability to customize WordPress.

Further Reading: Most Popular Free Responsive WordPress Themes 2016

WordPress allows you to easily create and publish content, with plugins you can add additional functionality and with WordPress themes, You can easily change the design of your blog/website.

Design of your blog plays a very important role even if you publish most amazing content on your blog but your design sucks people will leave your blog immediately. Must pay attention to the design of your blog, take some time and choose perfect theme for your blog.

Now a days, we have so many devices, smart phones, tablets, large screen desktops, notebooks and other devices. All these devices have different screen resolution. People use different devices to browse Internet.

Related article: 10 Free Best WordPress Wedding Themes 2016

People use smart phones, tablets and other small screen devices to browse their favorite blogs/website, buy products and read emails. That’s why you can not avoid a large audience.

When buying a theme remember all these things. Don’t try to ignore mobile users. Make sure you choose a fully responsive theme with elegant design or choose a plug in to make your site responsive on small screen devices.

Do you know that you can create With WordPress 35+ Type Of Websites with WordPress

JetPack allows you to choose a mobile theme, free and premium plugins are also available to make your theme responsive.

Now a days, almost all premium themes are fully responsive and works well on small screen devices. Premium theme developers pay attention to design and features of themes.

How To Choose A WordPress Theme For Your Blog? Things to Remember

But questions remains whether you should use a free theme or a buy a premium theme for your blog, when there are so many awesome free themes with great design and features available for you.

Here i will discuss some key points to remember before choosing a free or premium theme for your blog.

8 Reasons to buy premium Themes

You can argue why spend money on premium themes, when you can download and use free themes. There are many reasons, benefits and advantages of buying premium themes. For professional looking blog don’t hesitate to spend few dollars.

1. Premium theme developers offer great support and you actually pay for premium support
2. Reputable theme providers, developers use best practices and coding standards.
3. Premium themes are designed and developed with current web standards in mind such as responsive web design, new HTML 5 features, Microformats etc.
4. Premium themes are always up to date (mostly) or updated on regular basis you pay them to keep themes up to date all the time when a new version of WordPress is released.
5. With timely updates, your theme does not break and your site does not look creepy and weird.
6. Premium themes are most likely to be fully responsive and don’t forget that Google highly recommend responsive web design.
7. Premium themes offers easy to use control panel/interface to change the design and formatting of your blogs/website.
8. Security is very important and you can avoid security issues by purchasing premium themes from trusted and reputable developers, resources.

8 Things to remember when choosing Free Themes

There are thousands of free and premium themes are available for you to choose. WordPress.org/themes has over 2000+ free themes as of writing this article. You can download and install your favorite theme with few clicks.

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There are developers who provide support and also try to update their free themes as well. You can go with free themes as well. Here are few key points to remember when choosing a free theme.

1. Never trust on google to find free themes, always download free themes from trusted websites.
2. There are some bad guys who offer free themes with malicious code that can harm your blog. Your blog can be advertising stuff.
3. Download free themes from wordpress.org/themes or trusted sites (popular premium theme providers).
4. You can download free themes from WordPress.org without any hesitations because WordPress theme review team review and approve every theme submitted at wordpress.org
5. Check when the theme was last updated. Don’t use/download outdated themes
6. Read the reviews about theme and make sure all pages look great and there isn’t anything weird.
7. Many premium theme developers offers free themes as well. You can download free themes from premium theme providers.
8. When choosing a theme, make sure you know the theme developer. Somebody introduced you or some one you know and trust.

13 things to consider When Choosing a WordPress Theme For Your Blog

Whenever you decide to install a new free or premium theme on your WordPress website, make sure your theme offers

1. A clean and simple design and good color scheme
2. An easy and fully responsive Navigation
3. Easy to Customize
4. SEO Friendly
5. Social Media links
6. Must be mobile friendly and fully responsive
7. Text is easy to read on all type of devices
8. It must be light weigh
9. It is up to date and supports latest version of WordPress
10. Theme is from trusted developer
11. Ease of updates
12. Features
13. Price

Do you really need a Theme with unlimited features

There are many free and premium themes available with thousands of features sliders, widgets, pages etc. You think it does everything in the world, you just download the theme because everyone else is downloading the theme. Please don’t do this.

There is a problem it does not mean if someone has recommended a theme it is also the best theme for you. Remember themes can increase and decrease the page load time as well.

Choose a theme wisely, if you want to publish blogs post only, you don’t need a theme with 10 different slider options. Do you really need a theme with 15 different pages and unlimited widget areas.

Many themes have built in contact form, SEO features as well but it is not a good idea to use theme’s SEO features and contact form. What if you decide to change the design of your website/blog and you want to use a new theme from a different theme provider.

There will be a lot of pain to update to a new theme, you will have to make sure everything is working fine. For contact pages and SEO features always use recommended and popular contact forms and SEO plugins for WordPress.

For example WordPress SEO by Yoast is very popular plug in for SEO. For contact form there are many free plugin such as contact form 7 and others are available. I like to use Jetpack. Jetpack offers so many useful features no need to install 10 different plugins for different features.

Related Article: 10 Most Popular Free Responsive WordPress Themes 2016

Caution : Before buying premium themes

I hope now you have a clear understanding of premium and free themes. If you have decided to purchase a premium theme, make sure you buy [Premium WordPress Themes](https://justlearnwp.com/premium-responsive-wordpress-themes/) from reputable market places and developers.

We already have created a list of 17 MarketPlaces to Buy Premium Themes.

Any one can create and sell WordPress themes, there are individual developers who sell WordPress themes and there are many reputable shops and marketplaces where you can buy premium themes.