There are essentially four different methods to go about creating your WordPress website. You can choose to use a multipurpose theme, a subject theme, use a Gutenberg template, or create your own theme using base foundational code.
Multipurpose Themes
A lot of people use multipurpose themes for their website. These WordPress themes can be molded into many different theme styles using demo themes provided by the theme maker. You can also develop your own theme style using a theme builder such as Gutenberg, Elementor, Beaver Builder, Brizy, or Divi. A lot of the multipurpose themes are often ranked among the top themes by WordPress website reviewers. Oftentimes these themes are optimized for eCommerce add-ons such as WooCommerce. These themes include:
- OceanWP: The OceanWP theme is generally ranked as one of the best themes. It has a catalog of demo themes where the content can be downloaded and used to make your own theme. A number of the websites created by Silphium Design were created using the OceanWP theme.
- Astra: The Astra theme is often compared to the OceanWP theme and the two are similar in features. Like the OceanWP theme, it has a catalog of demo content that can be used on your website.
- Shapely: This theme by Colorlib is a minimalistic multipurpose theme that allows for full-color control. However, a number of reviews have noted that you cannot change the font or header color, which is white. Colorlib also has a number of themes in its stable that are optimized for various industries and uses.
- Hello: If you are into or experienced in the Elementor page builder, this is your theme. This theme by Elementor is optimized for the same and is noted to be a very fast theme.
- Divi: Another popular theme, from Elegant Themes, comes with its own paper builder. Divi has a lot of fans and allows you to produce essentially any theme you can design.
- Kadence: Last, but not least, is probably the theme that a number of themes seem to be copying the features of. The Kadence theme is a multipurpose theme that contains some prebuilt demos and has great flexibility. Kadence is the theme that the Silphium website is built on. The free version of this theme has a lot of features that are found in the paid versions of other themes. Kadence also has a paid version that contains much more flexibility. In addition to the theme, it has integrated Kadence Gutenberg Blocks.
Subject Theme
A subject theme is specifically geared towards a particular industry or purpose. These are the themes you see when searching for themes on Restaurant, Accounting, blogging, and so on. These themes work well if your purpose is represented. However, they often do not well for other uses. Sometimes, if your use is parallel, they can be adapted to serve another use.
Gutenberg Template
Regardless of the theme that you use, there are a number of Gutenberg templates that act as a demo theme. These templates, sometimes called starter sites, can be found in plugins such as Gutentor and Kadence Blocks.
Creating your own Theme
If you want to make a custom website, know coding and are tech-savvy, you can use foundational code. Quite a few WordPress websites are developed using the starter theme called Underscores (underscores.me). This theme gives you a basic front-end and back-end website upon which you can build upon to create your custom theme. If your theme is good and meets the requirements, you can even post your theme on the WordPress repository.
To Sum up the Above
The best thing to do when selecting your theme is have a good idea of what you want to have in your theme. You can read this post on good website design. Once you select a theme, it is best to stick with it and become an expert on that particular theme. If you are knowledgeable on one theme then you can do most things that you can do in other themes.
For whatever theme you pick, just make sure it is a flexible theme and can grow with your blog or business. For instance, you may not be using WooCommerce now, but if you think might remotely use it in the future, then you would want to pick a theme that is Woo compatible. This way, even though you are not using it now, you at least have the option in the future.
