8 Stylish & Elegant WordPress Themes for Bloggers
So, you started your own blog! Congratulations!
If you don’t have a blog, yet – read this step-by-step guide for beginning bloggers first.
You’ve registered your domain name, you’ve found yourself the perfect, reliable hosting provider, WordPress is installed, and now you are faced with the next blogging decision to make: your WordPress theme (the layout of a website).
But which theme should you pick from this never-ending selection of WordPress themes? Are you opting for a free or premium theme? And where can you find the best elegant WordPress themes that are so trending among bloggers today?
In this post, I’ll explain to you why I eventually decided to go for a premium theme and why I should have done this from the beginning of my blogging journey. In this article, you’ll also find a list of my favorite stylish and elegant WordPress themes. If only I could use them all at the same time! I’m in love with each one of them, really! 😉
Let’s see which ones are your favorites!
Disclaimer: This blog post contains affiliate links. I may earn a small commission to fund my coffee-drinking habit if you use these links to make a purchase. You will not be charged extra. So it’s a win for everyone! Please note that I won’t link any products I don’t believe in or don’t resonate with my blog site. Thank you!
If you blog just for fun, there’s nothing wrong with a free WordPress theme. Then, please, don’t invest in a premium one. But… if you intend to make your blog more than just a hobby and want to make it a professional business, a premium WordPress theme is definitely not a superfluous luxury to invest your money in.
This small investment will pay for itself easily if this is the case for you. For instance, free WordPress themes are not updated frequently. And this can result in a website that’s quickly outdated and lagging behind the latest developments.
How long do you usually stick around on a sloppy-looking and outdated website?
I almost instantly click away from websites like that. Yes, it doesn’t necessarily mean the content there is not of top-notch quality; but the eye needs a little pleasure as well. Anyway, who’s got time to find out what the quality of the content is like. We know that bad-looking websites almost always come with bad content anyways.
Like it or not: a blog’s design plays a huge role in its success. Humans are visually oriented beings and the design, together with the speed of your blog, are the first parts of the user experience you’re giving to your visitors and these parts will make them either click away or stick around for more.
A premium theme gives your website that extra sauce that you need to stand out from the crowd and it gives your website a professional look. Other benefits of premium WordPress themes are:
- After-sales support: with a free WordPress theme you need to do everything by yourself and there is no customer support to fall back on
- Better secured: free themes are more likely to have security problems because no one invests in them
- Fewer plugins: you will often need to install a lot of extra plugins when using a free theme, and plugins can significantly slow your blog down
- Premium themes have more features, so you don’t need to install, code, and figure everything out yourself
- Premium themes will pay themselves back in the that time you don’t need to spend on tweaking your website
- Premium themes are updated regularly
- Free WordPress themes are downloaded by many people. Premium themes are downloaded a lot less, and they are way more customizable, which makes your website unique. It’s much easier to stand out from the crowd with a premium theme. Fun fact: Just to give you an idea of the crowd I’m referring to: over 4 million blog posts are published every day!!
Discover: 5 branding apps to create your business branding
I used a free WordPress theme at the beginning, which was fine for the time being. I never had any problems with my free theme, but as my blogging hobby started to get more serious, I quickly discovered I lacked quite some options to customize it to my taste and needs.
I hopped from free theme to free theme, but with each free theme, I stumbled upon another element that I was unable to customize the way I wanted. And after lots of struggling and messing with my code, I thought: f… this, I’ll just pay for it 😉 I could’ve bought a $1.000 theme for all that time I spent on trying to make the free themes work for me! 😉
I chose the Responsive Blogily theme in the end. This was a theme that I was using for free at first and then switched to the premium one. The theme was fine, but as a blogger, you always want to change themes again I guess. 😉 And now I recently switched to one of Astra theme, and I love it so far! <3
Anyway, you haven’t made your choice yet, so hopefully, I can at least help you make the right choice for your blog!
When purchasing a WordPress theme, what should you pay attention to?
Before you buy a premium theme, you should take a few things into consideration to make sure you won’t regret your purchase later. Make sure the theme of your choice is a high-quality WordPress theme and make sure you won’t be stuck with a slow or poorly coded website.
Tip: preview the Demo-version before you purchase a theme. This way you can check if all the features you are looking for are included in the theme, and you can see what your blog is going to look like.
Pay close attention to the following aspects when deciding on a premium WordPress theme:
- What type of website are you going to create? You’ll need different functionalities for a beauty or lifestyle blog compared to a food blog.
- Which features does this theme have? This will prevent you from having to install too many additional plugins later on.
- Does this theme come with good customer support and with adequate documentation?
- Is it a responsive design; that is, is it mobile/tablet-friendly? Does the theme adapt itself so it can be viewed on all different types of devices?
- Can you fully customize the theme? You want to be able to customize the website in such a way that it reflects your brand identity on all fronts. If you use a free theme, you will quickly discover that you are faced with some designing limitations, such as; no option to upload your logo, no option to change all the colors to your brand colors, no option to customize the header or not having enough space for widgets in the sidebars/footer.
- Do you need the Genesis Framework as the framework for this theme? Pay close attention to this, because many themes run on this framework and it costs $59.95 on top of the price of your theme. Make sure you don’t get any unpleasant financial surprises afterward.
- Most themes are made for self-hosted WordPress.org websites. If you have another CMS, for example, WordPress.com or Wix, you cannot install these themes on your website. Need to switch to WordPress.org? Check this tutorial on Kinsta.com.
Extra tip: download the Elementor plugin directly, if you pick any theme except for Divi. This is a visual website drag and drop builder which makes designing your pages much easier.
And now, presenting: the most stylish and elegant WordPress themes
You now know what to pay attention to when buying a premium WordPress theme, so it’s time for what you came for; the elegant WordPress themes themselves! I’ve listed the themes with the best functionality, design, customer support, and documentation for you.
Just one more important last tip I would like to give you before purchasing a theme; I’m sorry to inform you about this, but the photos you see with the themes are not included with the theme. 🙁
Superbthemes
Responsive Blogily Thema – Superbthemes
Let’s kick off with the premium theme I use for this blog: the Responsive Blogily Premium theme. The price for this theme is $29 (this is currently a promotional price, normally this theme costs $ 35) for 1 domain. As the name of the theme suggests, it is a responsive design. Plus, the Responsive Blogily theme is optimized for SEO and it comes with 1 month of Premium theme support. If you want access to future updates – which I highly recommend – then you can go for a Business subscription, which costs $89 annually (the promotional price at the moment is $67 annually).
Features:
- Custom header logo or text
- Fully optimized for SEO
- Widget Recent posts
- Google Fonts
- Change copyright text
- Customizing colors
- Elementor Compatible
- Theme support
Bluchic
Bluchic is the absolute pinnacle of premium WordPress theme websites when it comes to stylish, feminine, elegant WordPress themes. Here you’ll find a wide selection of themes designed for the female entrepreneur. Unfortunately, I didn’t know Bluchic when I bought my theme, otherwise, I think I would’ve chosen a theme here!
The Bluchic themes are designed by this amazing creative duo, Kathie and Andrew! She takes care of the design and he takes care of the code, which appears to be a brilliant combination. All of their themes have a demo version that you can view before you buy and the prices vary between $79 and $347. They’re not the cheapest themes but you get a lot for it in return!
Features:
- All themes are SEO-friendly
- Responsive design
- You can customize fonts, and colors and add the logo of your brand in order to give it the look and feel of your brand
- All future updates are included
- Access to the Bluchic help center and tutorials
- No prior coding experience needed
- You can hire them to install the theme for you
- They also sell beautiful landing pages!
Bluchic – ChicServe Theme
Features:
- Theme designed for female entrepreneurs who want to run a service-oriented business and need personal branding
- Stylish
- Flexible
- Customizable
- Also available as Divi-theme
- Compatible with the Elementor drag-and-drop plugin
- Responsive design
- WooCommerce-ready
Bluchic – Chicboss theme
Features:
- Lifetime updates
- Compatible with the Elementor drag-and-drop plugin
- Brand Style Guide Canva Template
- The photos from the demo are included!
- SEO-friendly
- Responsive design
- WooCommers-ready
- Newsletter opt-in form
- Announcementbar
Restored 316
Again, the same applies to the themes on this website… if only I had known about this website before! I’m a big fan of all of Lauren’s elegant, feminine themes! The themes you find here are so beautiful. Soft, soothing, sweet, fresh, and light are the words I’d use to describe all of the themes on this website.
Prices for the themes here range from $75 to $99 plus an additional $59.95 for the Genesis Framework that is needed to run the Restored316 themes on your website.
Features:
- All future updates for the theme you buy and 6 months of customer support.
- You may also opt for the annual subscription, which gives you access to all the themes of Restored 316. You”ll have access to updates as long as your subscription is running and customer support throughout the year.
- Features vary by theme, but overall they all have a responsive design and you can customize them to your brand. All features are clearly listed per theme on the website.
Restored316 – Sprinkle Pro Theme
Features:
- Gorgeous, colorful design
- Unique design
- Automatic plugin installation
- Instagram page template
- WooCommerce-ready
- Responsive design
- Upload your brand logo
- Optimized for Gutenberg
- Newsletter opt-in form
- Announcement bar
- Customize colors
- Styled for ConvertKit
- Excl. Genesis Framework
Restored316 – Beloved
Features:
- Lifetime theme updates
- 2 homepage design options
- 6 months of customer support
- Optimized for Gutenberg
- Sales page template
- Category Index
- Custom Instagram page template
- Customize colors
- You can buy the demo’s stock photos
- Automatic plugin installation
- Excl. Genesis Framework
Elegant Themes – Divi
The Divi theme is not just a theme, it is a theme and an all-around visual website builder in one. Divi replaces the traditional WordPress editor with a visual drag-and-drop editor. If you know Elementor you can compare it a bit to that. But with a lot more features. Since the design possibilities are literally endless and because it allows you to build a site that is 100% unique, Divi has become a real craze among bloggers. It does require a little more knowledge than for the ready-made themes though.
There are over 800 pre-made website layouts in Divi that you can use and customize to your liking and you can download free royalty-free images that you can use for your blog! And last but not least, given the SEO requirements, perhaps the most important one; the Divi theme is very fast!
StudioPress
The StudioPress themes are all built on the Genesis Framework. The Genesis Framework is a product of StudioPress which means you can buy your theme and framework at the same time! They sell many beautiful, reliable WordPress themes here as well. All StudioPress themes are known for their SEO-friendliness, security and fast website speed!
StudioPress – Niche Pro
Features:
- Incl. Genesis Framework
- For lifestyle blogs
- Choose from multiple Page templates
- Styled for WooCommerce
- Real-time customizing of theme settings, colors, and content
- Space for widgets
- Customizable header
- Responsive design
- Landing page
StudioPress – Brunch Pro (for Foodbloggers)
Features:
- Customize theme setting, colors, and background images in real-time
- Space for widgets
- Customizable header
- Responsive design
- 3 layout options
- Recipe-index
- Inc. Genesis Framework
Didn’t find the right theme for your blog yet? Take this test on the Restored316 website to see which theme fits you best!
How to install a WordPress theme?
Found the perfect WordPress theme for your website? Congratulations! Now it’s time to install your theme:
- Go to your WordPress dashboard
- Go to Appearance → Themes
- Click ‘Add New’
- Click ‘Upload Theme’
- Choose the .zip-file that you received with your purchase
- Click ‘Activate’
That’s all! :))
Let’s connect!
Are you going to invest in a Premium WordPress theme? Or will you opt for a free theme? I would love to know what your favorite themes are! Leave a comment in the comment section below! 🙂
Don’t forget to share this post on social media! Sharing = caring!
Thnx voor alle tips en voorbeelden.
Ik ben op zoek naar een andere gratis Thema voor mijn blog.
Kwam kijken of je daar ook tips voor hebt.
Zie door de bomen het bos niet meer
Toevallig staat het op mijn to-do list om hier ook nog een post over te schrijven, maar het is er nog niet van gekomen. Als je bij de gratis thema’s in WordPress het woord ‘blog’ als zoekopdracht invoert, krijgt je veel thema’s te zien die ontworpen zijn voor blogs. Probeer ze even uit en kijk welk design het beste voldoet aan je wensen. 🙂 Je mag me altijd op Insta dm’en als je er niet uitkomt.
So helpful! I can’t wait until I can justify purchasing a fancy blog theme, and I’m definitely saving this post for later!
You’ll get there soon! Your blog is great, and all good things take time. :)) Can’t wait to see the result! X