Best WordPress Themes for Blogs

Having too many options can paralyze your ability to make decisions. There are too many WordPress themes out there to just choose one and feel it’s the right fit. We’ve built dozens of WordPress blogs and installed hundreds of themes over the years. In all our experience, we’ve found Newspaper to be the best WordPress blog theme for most users. This adaptive, powerful theme is gorgeous, SEO-friendly, and able to handle blogs with any purpose or design.

The Best WordPress Theme For Most

When you look at Newspaper, you can quickly see why it is one of the best WordPress themes for blogging. You can create pages with the sheen of an international media empire and leverage the same stunning designs for your WooCommerce store and product pages.

With over 120 premade sites and over 1,300 individual elements, you can embed them in your blog. Newspaper eliminates a lot of the work of giving your web pages a makeover without sacrificing functionality or aesthetics. And, with tools like opt-in popups and gated content, you can capture leads and generate revenue with Newspaper without even needing to have a web store as well.

The Best WordPress Themes For Blogs to Consider:

1. Newspaper – Best for most
2. Elementor – Best for improving everything on your blog
3. Divi – Best WordPress page builder
4. Astra – Best lightweight WordPress theme
5. Authority Pro – Best for industry experts
6. Soledad – Best for online magazines
7. Foodie Pro – Best for food blogs
8. Writing – Best for minimalist design
9. Thrive Theme Builder – Best custom WordPress Theme
10. Morning Time Lite – Best for journalists
11. MoneyFlow – Best for Adsense optimization

When it Makes Sense to Invest in a WordPress Theme For Your Blog

Building a name for yourself in the blogosphere? Then it makes perfect sense to invest in a top-tier WordPress theme.

Though you can have several different themes in your dashboard, you can only activate one at a time. So if the blog is the primary focus of your website, it’s crucial that you have a blog-friendly WordPress theme and remove the rest.

This will improve load times for your site and WordPress dashboard.  

With that said, full-time bloggers, personal blogs, travel blogs, business blogs, food blogs, and any other website where the blog is the primary component must have a blog-friendly theme.

Sometimes changing your WordPress theme can be a pain and result in problems. So it’s important to pick the right theme early on, to avoid having to switch down the road. 

If your blog is secondary to your website, then a full-fledged blog theme is not as important. If you are focused on ecommerce, then that is the theme you need. But if blogging is your claim to fame, this guide is all you need to make the best choice.

#1 – Newspaper — The Best for Most

Your blog helps establish your authority in your industry and creates an overall enjoyable experience for your site visitors.

So, why mess around with lesser or unusual options when you can capture the professionalism of legacy media in one WordPress theme? Newspaper, from the developers at tagDiv, delivers that in a multitude of adaptive templates.

Whether your blog is the main attraction on your website or it exists in tandem with your web store, Newspaper can lend a high-gloss sheen to your WordPress pages. From news sites and interest blogs to product reviews, business pages, and specialty ecommerce, Newspaper can handle it all while making your content, imagery, and branding more appealing.

Beyond improving the look and feel of your WordPress blog, Newspaper 11—the latest version of the theme—also packs a lot of useful tools for blog runners and site administrators.

With its built-in performance analyzer, you can make critical adjustments to improve your site’s search engine optimization and load times. It even analyzes your page structure and helps to move CSS code to better areas, cutting down the number of requests and the size of key files required to load your site.

Best of all, you don’t need to have any familiarity with coding to use this feature.

That’ll help your blog get noticed more readily, as Google always appreciates efforts to make the user experience better. Make little tweaks and watch your blog rise in search results.

That’s not all. Newspaper also includes tools for:

• Composing beautiful blog posts and WordPress pages
• Prebuilt elements and layouts to deploy on your site
• Header and footer builders
• Opt-in forms and gated content for subscribers
• WooCommerce shop builder
• Instagram, bbPress, and BuddyPress integrations

It’s an all-purpose WordPress theme that helps with creating, promoting, and improving your blog at every step.

You can get a regular license for Newspaper 11 for $59. If you want a full year of developer support as opposed to six months, just add another $17.63 to that price tag.

Get the most-loved, most highly rated WordPress blog theme out there—use Newspaper and reap the benefits of better blog presentation, better reach, and easier creation and adjustment to every element.

#2 – Elementor — Best for Improving Every Part of Your Blog

Elementor is so much more than a WordPress theme or even a set of themes. This is a powerful, effective, all-in-one tool for building out potent WordPress sites, applying professional designs to them, and enhancing every aspect of the visitor experience.

If your blog feels dated or your blogging peers seem to be leaving you in the dust, Elementor is the platform to take your WordPress site from follower to leader.

Let’s start with the main scope of this article. With Elementor, you’re not just getting one theme or set of generic ones. The Elementor Kits Library contains a bevy of options that can overhaul the look and feel of your blog in just a couple of clicks.

These aren’t just templates—they’re fully built-out, professionally designed WordPress sites that also include clutch features like popups, sidebars, sticky menus, grid layout blogrolls, ecommerce functionality, search functions, and more.

Choose from the over 100 kits available, choose which elements of the kit (such as demo content and site settings) you want to use from it, and in just about one minute the kit will be applied to your site.

From there, you can tweak and rework any part of your site to fit the kit to your desires. Add your logo, customize the navigation menu, connect popups to pages, and make changes to your blog with Elementor’s visual builder (which is, honestly, miles ahead of WordPress’ own native builder).

You may be starting to see how Elementor is much more than just slapping a fresh coat of paint on your WordPress blog.

It’s a more powerful, yet more user-friendly WordPress site builder that gives you incredible design freedom alongside the more the 100 pre-built kits.

Don’t need all the bells and whistles just yet? No problem. Start with Elementor’s tried-and-true Hello theme.

Built for speed and easy on the eyes, the Hello theme is lightweight enough to boost your blog’s SEO and user experience—it loads in just one-quarter of a second—while still giving you enough options to customize it for your needs.

A Swiss Army knife, like Elementor, must be crazy expensive, right?

Actually, no. In fact, it’s cheaper for one year than a lot of the other themes on this list.

You can even use Elementor for free. That gives you access to the Hello theme, a basic version of their site and theme builders, and over 30 basic widgets. You’ll only have access to five website kits and you won’t be able to use the popup or form builders, unfortunately.

But, for a single site, you’ll only have to pay $49 per year to get access to everything we talked about above. Get the full kit library, premium support, a ton more professional widgets and designs, and the popup, form, and WooCommerce builders for that price. You also can pay $69 per year for one website and built-in hosting.

That’s a whole lot of ways to modernize and improve your WordPress blog for a low annual price. Get started with Elementor today and make your blog more beautiful and functional in one fell swoop.

#3 – Divi — Best Versatile WordPress Theme for Bloggers

Divi is an all-in-one tool for customizing your blog. Built by Elegant Themes, it comes with a drag-and-drop builder and visual editing capabilities. 

I like this theme because of its versatility. It’s trusted by website owners, freelancers, and agencies alike for running high-quality blogs on WordPress.

The theme supports CTAs, forms, galleries, sliders, and everything else you need in a theme.

Choose from 800+ different pre-built designs and customize the layout to accommodate your needs. 

From beginners to advanced WordPress users alike, anyone can use Divi for their blog. 

For starters, Divi makes use of a drag-and-drop interface, so you can adjust the look of your blog easily. You do not need to learn coding to create a great looking blog. Additionally, Divi offers simple text editing features, so what you see is what you get. Start typing and add text design elements on the fly, and you will always see exactly what the page looks like.

For those who need advanced features like custom CSS control, Divi delivers. Developers and coders can make use of their own custom CSS with the visual design controls that Divi offers.

You can get Divi for $89 per year or for a one-time payment of $249. Since I don’t recommend switching your theme too often, I strongly suggest the lifetime access option.

Try it risk-free for 30 days. 

#4 – Astra — Best Lightweight WordPress Theme

Trusted by over 1.6+ million websites worldwide, Astra is one of the most popular WordPress themes in existence. With a claim to be the fastest-growing theme on the planet, it’s an excellent option for first-time blog creators and anyone that wants to give a facelift to their existing blog.

The theme really shines due to its flexibility. If you’re new to blogging, you can easily control every aspect of your site’s design without a steep learning curve. 

Astra is fast, lightweight, and fully customizable. It provides everything you need to edit your headers, typography, blog designs, settings, colors, and more.

Astra has an SEO-friendly page markup to help your blogs rank high on Google. This makes your site much easier to be found in the sea of other blogs fighting for the top spot.

If you’re looking to take your blog to the next level by writing engaging content and influencing your audience, Astra improves your chances with its eye-catching design and robust back-end customizations. You can easily let your imagination run wild and customize every aspect to your liking.

Plans start at just $49 per year for a single license. You can also purchase a lifetime Astra license, starting at $239. All purchases are backed by a 14-day money-back guarantee. 

#5 – Authority Pro — Best WordPress Theme for Industry Experts

Authority Pro is a WordPress theme designed for professionals who want to position themselves as an expert in a particular space. If you consider yourself an authority figure in a certain niche, this theme is perfect for you.

The theme draws attention to your experience, credentials, and areas of expertise. 

Authority Pro was designed by StudioPress, an industry leader in WordPress themes.

With a one-click setup, getting the theme installed on your WordPress site is easy. You’ll also benefit from a theme customizer, mobile-friendly design, and compatibility with WooCommerce.

Even if you’re just getting started as an authority figure in your space, the Authority Pro theme is still a great option for you to consider. 

You can gain access to the Authority Pro theme, as well as other themes, when you subscribe to Genesis Pro for $360 per year. You also can receive Authority Pro for free when you subscribe to certain hosting services, such as WP Engine or Flywheel.

#6 – Soledad — The Best for Online Magazines

Soledad is branded as a “multi-concept blog magazine” theme for WordPress. 

There are 6,800+ homepage demos for you to check out. Any of which can be installed with a single click. 

The theme offers various post templates for different types of stories, which is what makes it such a great choice for online magazines. Soledad is optimized for SEO, and it’s responsive on all devices.

Nearly 40,000 WordPress users have installed this theme. It has an average rating of 4.86/5 stars based on real user reviews.

Soledad is available on ThemeForest for $59.

#7 – Foodie Pro — Best Theme for Food Bloggers

As the name implies, Foodie Pro is a WordPress theme designed for food bloggers.

It’s a top-selling Genesis child theme, and it’s one of the most versatile Genesis child themes available on the market today. Overall, the theme has a minimalist feel but still has a wide range of typography and color choices.

The theme is fast, highly responsive, and has strategic placements for advertisement space.

Use this theme to share recipes, cooking tips, and everything else you need to run a successful food blog. You’ll benefit from featured images on all of your posts, as well as flexible grid archives.

The theme is available for $75.

#8 – Writing — The Best for Minimalist Designs

The Writing theme from ThemeForest is perfect for bloggers seeking a simple and minimalist design. 

Overall, the theme keeps your blog looking and feeling clean. So the main point of emphasis will always be your content. 

The theme is trusted by 2,500+ writers. It’s not quite as popular as some of the other themes on our list, but you’ll definitely enjoy Writing’s simplicity.

Since Writing has a minimalist design, your visitors will benefit from enhanced readability. The theme is SEO-friendly, fast, responsive, and easy to set up. 

You can easily switch between blog styles and formats to experiment with the best way to showcase your content. 

The Writing Theme is available on ThemeForest for $49. 

#9 – Thrive Theme Builder — Best Custom WordPress Theme for Blogs

Thrive Theme Builder is not your average WordPress theme. It’s a complete theme and WordPress site builder bundled into a single solution.

You can customize your blog post templates, header, footer, page layouts, search pages, category pages, and essentially every other element of your WordPress blog.

The theme is easy to use and customize, even if you’re new to WordPress and don’t have much experience. 

Thrive Theme Builder is mobile responsive, optimized for conversions, and integrates with dozens of tools that you’re already using. There are hundreds of customizable design elements built into the theme as well.

If you’re starting a new WordPress blog from scratch, you can use Thrive Theme Builder to launch your site in less than 15 minutes.

More than 22,000 WordPress users rely on Thrive Theme Builder to run their blog. 

I would recommend that you go with the Thrive Suite when using this WP theme. It has a great value, while offering plugins aimed at helping you with conversions. It gives you access to 24/7 customer support, as well as access to multiple help documents aimed at delivering the results you want to see. 

Thrive Suite costs $299 per year or $99 per quarter, and you can install and use it on up to five different websites for that price. It also has a 30-day money-back guarantee.

#10 – Morning Time Lite — Best WordPress Theme for Journalists

Morning Time Lite is extremely versatile. It’s a great option for family blogs, personal blogs, and journalism. 

The reason why Morning Time Lite is my top recommendation for journalists is because it is designed for frequent posting.

You can use the theme to upload multiple blogs per day, even if they’re just quick news updates.

Morning Time Lite comes with clean code, which makes the theme optimized for speed. It has a responsive design, and it’s multilingual ready.

Use Morning Time Lite to create a custom logo for your blog. You’ll also benefit from unlimited color schemes, custom share buttons, and simple installation. 

Morning Time Lite has a free version that offers only the basics. Thanks to this theme’s working speed and customization with logos and color schemes, the free version will give you a nice starting point.

Having said that, for those looking to create a professional site that looks great while offering high-quality content, I would recommend going with one of the paid versions of this theme. You’ll gain access to child themes, technical support, and software updates, all for a starting price of $59.

#11 – MoneyFlow — The Best for AdSense Optimization

If you want to make money blogging by putting ads on your site, MoneyFlow is the best WordPress theme for you. It’s trusted by 715,000+ WordPress users.

The theme has a modern and professional look. This feeling makes it easy to impress your blog visitors while simultaneously benefiting from a seamless AdSense integration.

MoneyFlow is also SEO-friendly and optimized for speed. You can add featured posts to your blog page and a slider section for displaying multiple posts in a dynamic manner, all from an engaging design.

The theme is responsive on all devices, including smartphones and tablets. 

In addition to AdSense, MoneyFlow integrates with WooCommerce as well. This is perfect for those of you who want to sell products through your blog while simultaneously running ads. 

For those of you who are ready to make money blogging, you can get MoneyFlow for $39 from MyThemeShop.

Methodology For Choosing The Best WordPress Themes For Blogs

With thousands of WordPress themes to choose from, finding the right option for your blog can feel like an impossible task. To make this process easier for you, I’ve identified the features and elements that must be taken into consideration as you’re shopping around. 

Hassle-Free Custom Designs with One Click

One of the biggest fears you may have is picking the wrong theme. And that’s normal. You’ve never done this before. Or, if you have, you’re not an expert. But, between us—you don’t have to be. 

Focus on selecting a WordPress theme that allows you to control your designs with one click. You give yourself the freedom to test how your blog does with one design over another. And, more importantly, you can do it fast. 

Themes that give you push-button control of your design make it easy for you to create a blog people love to visit. While at the same time removing any fears you may have about making a mistake when picking your first theme. 

You don’t have to spend large amounts on a designer. You can create a stunning blog that’s easy to read—and one your visitors will enjoy. All with zero experience. 

Easy to install templates make this possible. They give you the power to personalize them rapidly with no added effort or having to learn anything new. It’s the best way to give your blog a facelift with no extra costs. 

But it also gives your blog the chance to make a bigger impact than before. Blogs that are easy to scan and read are most popular and do the best online. 

SEO-Friendly Themes That Rank On Page One Easily

How cool will it be to see your blog ranking on page one for your desired keywords? 

Now, imagine never seeing it because your theme’s coding structure works against you without you even knowing it. 

Site speed, responsive design, and clean code are core factors that make your SEO-friendly theme rank high on a search engine.

If your blog’s theme has a mediocre codebase, is slower than most blogs, and doesn’t look good on every device it can be viewed on, you’re in trouble.  

Now, before you think you need to learn code—you don’t. But you do need to understand that just because you have a WordPress theme doesn’t mean it’s going to rank. You’ll need to make sure that the code used to create that theme is written well and updated regularly. 

Google is finicky and looks for certain best practices when it comes to SEO inside a theme. The good news is you can easily rank higher than others by having a theme that manages this. 

And, you don’t have to do anything special or be any more technically savvy. 

So when you’re selecting your WordPress blog theme, you want a theme provider that manages the code written for the theme in a format Google loves.

Are you thinking, “How will I know about all this?” 

It’s simple—the provider of the theme will tell you whether it’s optimized for SEO in the features section of the theme. 

It’s hard enough to rank as it is. Don’t make it harder by having a theme that works against you. Focus on themes that follow best practices and give you that extra boost to rank on the first page easily.  

Lightweight Themes That Shave Seconds Off Load Time

Speed matters. As we mentioned earlier, site speed is important. And that crucial speed comes from a lightweight theme that is not cluttered with unnecessary code. 

Some WordPress blog themes will flat out say the theme is blazing fast. But some don’t. You have to read and dig through the major features. 

Then, from there, you can continue your own research, looking for speed-related guarantees. Or, you can use the providers on this list and save yourself time while also gaining peace of mind you’re getting the best provider selection.

We laid out the best themes that make speed a priority for your blog. 

But why is speed so important? Because Google doesn’t want to serve up slow sites to people. And—even more important—it creates a positive user experience. 

Consider how fast two to three seconds is. 

That’s all you get to convince a visitor your site is worth looking at. So, if your load times are longer than that, you’ve already lost them. No matter how great your content is. It won’t matter because they will never see it.  

Focus on lightweight themes to keep people from leaving your blog early and to rank higher on search engine results. 

Monetize Now, Later, Or Never?

As you start a blog, you have a million things going through your head. And, more often than not, the ultimate goal you have for your blog is one of them. 

When you’re selecting a WordPress blog theme, you can choose one that will let you earn some income passively if you so choose.

You might not be thinking if you want to make money using your content. But it’s important to consider this early on. 

Let’s say you start your blog with the intent to entertain and it’s just for fun. But then you start gaining subscribers. People start commenting left and right and, in six months to a year, you have thousands upon thousands of daily visitors. 

Countless posts and guest posts are piling up and you are rocking and rolling, loving every second. 

It’s pretty awesome and now you’re thinking, “Hey, I could make a few bucks with ads.”  If you picked a theme that doesn’t support monetization, you have to buy an entirely new theme and rearrange all of your content to match the layout. 

This is time-consuming. So, we recommend really making sure you know if you’re going to want to monetize as soon as possible, later, or never. 

If you’re going to generate income now or later, it makes sense to get a theme that can play nicely or even directly handle ad placements.

Summary

What’s the best WordPress theme for bloggers?

With 11,000+ options to choose from, naming just one as the top overall choice is unrealistic. But with that said, the 11 recommendations on our list above will be the best place to start your search.

Furthermore, make sure you reference the methodology described above to help you find the best WordPress theme for your blog.