Best Themes and Plugins for Web Design
When it comes to designing a website, the right combination of themes and plugins can make all the difference. Themes provide the overall look and feel of the website., while plugins offer additional functionality and features.
With thousands of options to choose from, it can be overwhelming to know where to start. Here we will highlight some of the best themes and plugins for web design to help you create a website that looks great and performs well.
10 Best WordPress Themes
WordPress Themes Premium
All the themes given below are free to use with limited features. Without paying for a premium plan, you can get the resources provided by them to build your website. With the help of several plugins you can build a complete website studded with great features.
You can buy a premium plan if you are going for a large, professionally designed website. I would recommend you to go for free plans initially.
Divi is a popular multipurpose theme that offers a range of design options and customization features. It comes with a drag and drop page builder that makes it easy to create unique layouts without any coding knowledge. Divi also has a large community of users, which means, you can find plenty of tutorials and support online.
Divi has a layout library, responsive & Inline text editing features, global elements & styles, custom CSS control, drag & drop builder, visual editor and lot more features to give you a truly exciting experience.
Price $ 89 / Yearly & $ 249/ Lifetime (One Time Payment)
Astra is a lightweight and customizable theme that is perfect for businesses of sizes. It offers a variety of prebuilt templates, and is compatible with popular page builders like Elementor and Beaver Builder. Astra also has a free version, which makes it a great choice for those on a budget.
Astra has Ready-to-use starter templates, layout settings, fast performance. This theme has lot of prebuilt websites, and has good load time. They have Yearly as well as Lifetime Plans.
Price: Astra Pro $ 47 Yearly (Lifetime $ 227), Essential Bundle $ 137 Yearly (Lifetime $ 677), Growth Bundle $ 187 Yearly (Lifetime $ 937)
Ocean WP
Ocean WP is another lightweight and versatile theme that is ideal for creating a range of websites, from blogs to ecommerce stores. It offers a variety of customization options, including the ability to change the layout, color theme and typography.
Ocean WP is also optimized for speed and performance, which can help improve your website’s serach engine rankings.This theme is developer friendly and fully responsive, best for building a fully ecommerce website.
Price of OCEANWP PRO: Personal $ 43 Yearly, Business $ 71 Yearly, Agency $ 127 Yearly
This theme is designed to load quickly, which is essential to optimize website speed and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It has a site library with variety of templates to chose from. It also has theme-builder, styling controls, mobile header, advanced layout system and much more features to give your website a unique look.
Generatepress is a versatile and reliable wordpress theme that can be used for any type of website. It’s lightweight coding ensures fast loading time, and its customisation options make it easy to create a unique website design. Whether you are building a blog, eCommerce Store, or business website, generatepress is a great option to consider.
Price: $ 50 Yearly & $ 249 Lifetime (One Time Payment)
Oxygen is an extremely flexible and responsive theme, which is compatible with various plugins. This is one of the best themes for ecommerce and form building sites.You can use it for your blog website or any other sleek and attractive site.
Oxygen has a wide range of layout options, advanced visual features and website builder themes. This is a developer friendly theme with Flexible builder elements, dynamic data with repeaters and loops.
It has 3 pricing plans-All Lifetime Unlimited Licence: Basic–Woocommerce & Ultimate
Price: $129 for Basic plan/ $ 149 for woocom/ $ 179 for Ultimate (Lifetime One time payment)
WordPress Themes Free
ColorMag is a free theme for news and magazine website building. For news articles , you get a lot of options to design your content.
Not only that, but there are also a handful of different page layouts and configurations available, so everyone can find something that fits their niche.
The design itself is optimized to handle a big volume of content – multiple posts being published every day. If your WordPress site doesn’t produce this much content, you might want to consider a different theme.
Feature-wise, this magazine theme is compatible with WooCommerce, gives you good color selection options, has advanced typography, has more than 15 widget areas, and offers many more interesting features under the hood.(1)
Storefront is a free wordpress theme, perfect for a WooCommerce project. This theme is basically developed by WooCommerce developers. That is why it integrates well with WooCommerce. There are several widget regions, developed layout designs, color options, extensible code base, making it an ideal theme for WooCommerce website. (2)
Twenty Seventeen
Twenty Seventeen theme stands tall, and is a highly proven theme, proven for its superb presentation, good typography. This excellent wordpress theme has gained popularity, and is highly appreciated, for its uniqueness and simplicity, by the wordpress community.
What we like particularly about this theme is that it delivers a simple presentation, very well suited to blog themes, business projects and for beginners.(4)
Hestia is a free, simple and customizable wordpress theme. This theme was built to work with page builders such as Elementor, Beaver Builder, Brizy, Divi builder and the new block editor in WordPress. Hestia is suitable for different niche websites. You can go ahead with a variety of styles while using this theme.
You get a bunch of starter sites, which you can use for different niches. For quite a long time this theme has stood the test of time and continues to get a steady stream of new downloads every day. You can use this theme to build your online store, business site or agency.(3)
WordPress Themes Nulled
Nulled word press themes, otherwise known as cracked themes are copied from Premium original themes, and are modified to either sell at a reduced cost or make available free of cost. These are pirated copies of original themes and plugins.Distributing them through the internet contributes to unethical pracices.
Why we say this is unethical, the reason is, this type of piracy causes huge losses to the original developers of these themes and plugins.
Should You Buy these nulled Themes & Plugins ?
The nulled themes are naked as GPL products. GPL is a free open source software Licence used by wordpress. Once you install an original product you are asked to agree to an end-user license. But in case of GPL products, there is no restriction on what you do with these products.
WordPress chose GPL license, and allows it’s unrestricted use on all wordpress sites. In fact, the GPL can be thought of as the WordPress ‘Bill of Rights’. It provides the core basic values that the project believes in.
On the other hand these themes and plugins are not safe to use, as it compromises the security and integrity of websites using these nulled WordPress themes and plugins. Most of the websites get hacked due to this reason. They do not provide you security for the sites you build with the help of these nulled products.
These pirated themes and plugins are known to carry malware. They are extremely harmful to wordpress security. Once the bugs enter into your site, they stay undtected most of the time and it takes a lot of time and hard work to fix it.
These nulled producfts are not only a threat to the privacy of your website, they are also bad for your Search Engine Optimization. search engines will be quick to notice that and penalize your website by dropping your search rankings or de-indexing your website completely.
Unlike original themes and websites which keep sending you updates from time to time and provide you with support & services, the nulled sites may be buggy and insecure. You are ultimately left with an outdated version, as you will not be able to update them. You will have to use the latest wordpress version and properly update wordpress.
Compatibility issues
The developers, who design plugins and themes for WordPress, make sure to synchronize their updates with major releases from the platforms in order to capitalize on the latest features and advancements.
Nevertheless, there are instances where updating may cause complications with existing plugins if they weren’t coded in accordance with the best practices and standards. This is precisely why it is of utmost importance that you maintain regular backups of your WordPress site.
To summarize, the only negative aspect is the remote possibility of site’s malfunction. Conversely, the advantages are as follows:
- improved security measures for your WordPress site
- state-of-the-art WordPress features
- an expedited WordPress experience
- an error-free WordPress website
- enhanced compatibility
You can gather further information about how to update wordpress.
Plugins
Here are 5 Essential plugins for web design
1. Elementor
Elementor is a ‘drag and drop’ page builder plugin for WordPress. It allows you to create custom page layout and Designs without any coding knowledge of Pre built and what you was that can be GD templates, widgets, and modules th that can be easily customersat can be easily customized to to create a unique websitecreate a unique website design.
2. Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is a popular and a must have plugin for optimizing your website for search engines. It offers a range of features that help you optimize your website’s content, meta tags, and other on-page elements to improve your website’s search engine ranking. Yoast SEO has a user-friendly interface, and is compatible with a range of themes and plugins.
3. WPForms
WP Forms is a powerful form builder that allows you to create custom forms for your website without any coding knowledge. It offers a range of templates and customization options, including the ability to add fields, customize the design, and integrate with third party services like paypal and MailChimp.
4. Jetpack
Jetpack is a popula plugin that offers a wide range of features, including website security, performance optimization, and social media integration. It also comes with a range of customization options, including the ability to add custom CSS and JavaScript, as well as a variety of widgets and shortcodes.
FAQ
Q. How Many Plugins are there in WordPress ?
A. As on this date (Feb,2023), there are an approximate estimate of 59,000 plugins in the repository, and the number is constantly growing. It is important to note that not all plugins in the repository are actively maintained or compatible with the latest version of WordPress, so it is always recommended to research and choose plugins carefully.
Q. How many Plugins should I chose for my Website ?
A. The number of plugins you should use in your website or your client’s website depends on the specific needs and goals. In general, it is best to use as few plugins as possible to minimize the risk of compatibility issues and potential security vulnerabilities.
It is recommended to install only those plugins that are essential to your website’s functionality, and to regularly review or remove any unused or unnecessary plugins. It is also important to use well-maintained and reputable pluginsfrom trusted sources to ensure the best performance and security for your website.
Q. What are the best Plugins for SEO ?
There are many SEO plugins available for WordPress, but some of the most popular ones are listed below.
There are many SEO plugins available for WordPress, but here are some of the most popular ones:
1. Yoast SEO
Yoast SEO is one of the widely used SEO plugins. It provides a comprehensive set of tools for optimizing your website’s content, including on-page optimization, meta tags, site maps, and more.
2. All in One SEO Pack
This one is another SEO plugin for SEO, which includes features such as XML sitemaps, meta tags, and advanced canonical URLs.
3. Rank Math
Rank Math is a relatively new plugin, which provides a powerful set of tools for optimizing your website’s content, and monitoring your SEO performance, including keyword analysis, schema markup, and more.
4. SEOPress
A lightweight and user-friendly SEO plugin, SEOPress includes features such as title and meta description optimization, schema markup, and XML sitemap generation.
5. The SEO Framework
This is a simple and lightweight SEO plugin, which provides tools for optimizing your websit’s Metadata, including title and meta descriptions, as well as canonical URLs and sitemaps.