Building your own WordPress website can be quite easy if you use a free WordPress theme. Luckily, a dedicated community of designers and developers consistently delivers new WordPress themes so you can focus on your business objectives.
We understand there is no one-size-fits-all theme. So we’ve made a list of the 17 most impressive free WordPress themes released this year. We hope it helps you choose the theme that will work best for your project.
Masonry
Masonry is one of the best free WordPress themes of 2017. This minimalist theme from Dessign.net will be perfect for portfolio websites, personal websites, or agency websites. It features a responsive design, a grid style layout, hover effects, stylish typography, social media icons, a fixed navigation bar, etc. Masonry can be easily edited even by people with no coding experience. Feel free to download this theme and use it on as many websites as you want.
Newspaper X
Newspaper X is a new WordPress theme by Colorlib which is also available on WordPress.org. The theme was released in the middle of 2017 and it is quite popular with people building news sites and online magazines. Newspaper X is fast, responsive, and SEO friendly. The layout looks clean and engaging. Hover effects bring an interactive feel to the overall design. Sticky posts are added to help you promote your most popular content. Also Newspaper X is translation ready, meaning it can be used for a multilingual website. When it comes to customization, you can edit the theme on the fly in the WordPress Theme Customizer. Simply change colors, layouts, fonts, menu, logo, or widgets using a WYSIWYG interface and live preview changes you make to your theme.
Free Shop
Free Shop is a free eCommerce WordPress theme that looks simple and elegant. It is geared towards online merchants and those who specialize in building beautiful eCommerce sites. This responsive theme is compatible with WooCommerce, the most efficient and flexible plugin for building online stores. Free Shop is easy to navigate thanks to a sticky navigation bar. Other features include a clean grid style layout, a full-featured blog, stylish typography, custom background, unlimited usage, and more. Actually, this theme is great for anyone who loves simplicity and keeping the focus on content.
Shapely
Shapely is another powerful free WordPress theme released in 2017. It offers great options for customization. For example, you can easily add portfolio, testimonials, parallax sections, call to action buttons, and much more. The theme is responsive, SEO friendly and WooCommerce compatible. Also, it supports some great WordPress plugins like Jetpack, Gravity Forms, Contact Form 7, Yoast SEO, and Google Analytics by Yoast. Shapely is a multipurpose theme: it is well suited for personal blogs, landing pages, portfolio websites, news websites, eCommerce websites, and other projects you might have in mind.
Minimalist
Would you like to build a personal website, a portfolio website or an agency website? We have a solution for you. Minimalist is a free WordPress theme that is designed to help you show off your creativity and personality. Actually, it is a typical example of minimalism and a beautiful use of negative space. The theme allows you to effectively prioritize content. Also it features responsive design, an elegant typography, a stylish image slider, a custom background color, and more. In fact, Minimalist is licensed under the GPL license so you can use it as many times as you wish.
Framer Lite
Another excellent WordPress theme from 2017, Framer Lite allows you to create a stunning portfolio website, be it a personal portfolio website or an agency website. Moreover, the theme is WooCommerce ready meaning you can not only showcase, but also sell your works on your website. Framer Lite has a responsive grid style layout and a number of other features. For example, it is compatible with WPML so you can use it for a multilingual site.
Also, Framer Lite comes with FontAwesome Icons, hundreds of Google Fonts and some custom widgets that make it easy for you to display social media icons, ads, Flickr, and Dribbble images on your website. You can edit the theme with a user-friendly Theme Customizer. Finally, once you download Framer Lite you get a detailed documentation on how to install and use the theme.
Ripple
If you’re a fan of one page WordPress themes, consider using Ripple. This lightweight theme is built for landing pages, portfolio websites, business sites, and more. It will amaze you with its customizability and ease of use. Ripple has a highly configurable homepage that features such sections as Portfolio, About Us, Features, Blog, Contact Us and others. The theme is enhanced with a full-width slider, a sticky menu, and a parallax scrolling effect. Also, it is responsive, SEO friendly and can be easily translated into any language. If you want to make some changes, just use the Theme Customizer.
Hamilton
Hamilton is a new free WordPress theme by Anders Norén. It features a clean grid style layout, large images, a hamburger menu, elegant typography, infinite scroll and many other options. This minimalist WordPress portfolio theme is perfect for photographers, designers, travelers, and other creatives looking to showcase their images, illustrations and blog posts.
Hamilton comes with a nice resume page template. Also, it works great with the default WordPress image gallery. In fact, the theme has a Dark Mode. As a result, you can choose whether you prefer a dark text on a white background or a white text on a dark background. In short, Hamilton is one of the most promising free WordPress themes of 2017 that will be good for image-heavy websites.
Belise Lite
Belise Lite is a free restaurant WordPress theme from ThemeIsle. It is responsive, SEO friendly, and translation ready. The theme is optimized for speed which is important for user experience, traffic and conversions. Other features include flat design, clean layout, bold typography, full-featured blog, custom backgrounds (image/slider/video), a user-friendly mega menu, etc.
It should be also mentioned that Belise Lite is compatible with WooCommerce, so you can not only display your dishes, but also sell them. In fact, the ThemeIsle team guarantee a one minute setup and real time editing of their theme. Also, they will provide you with a comprehensive video tutorial on how to build a website with WordPress.
WP Generic
WP Generic is a responsive, SEO friendly, and translation ready WordPress theme. This free multipurpose WordPress theme can be successfully used to build a business site, an online portfolio, an agency site or an eCommerce site. It allows you to switch between a full width and a boxed layout. Among other things, it offers nine homepage layouts, two blog page layouts, two team page layouts, multiple color options, etc. As for editing, all the changes can be made in the WordPress customizer.
Louis
Louis is a free multipurpose WordPress theme by ThemeFurnace. It is meant for different types of websites, including personal blogs, corporate websites, agency websites and so much more. You can even build eCommerce websites with this theme because it is compatible with the WooCommerce plugin. Louis is also a great option if you want your website to be easily translated into multiple languages. Other features include responsive design, a grid style layout, the Live Customizer, and a detailed documentation. By the way, this WordPress theme is available on WordPress.org meaning it meets the latest WordPress theme requirements.
Yosemite Lite
Yosemite Lite is a stylish WordPress blog theme that will fit any blog you might have in mind, from a personal blog to a fashion blog, from a travel blog to a photography blog. The theme is responsive and optimized for speed. Also, it is easy to setup and customize. Its main features are clean layout, a sticky header, an image slider, and infinite scroll. Another thing you might like about Yosemite Lite is that it is integrated with Instagram, so you can display your latest Instagram images on your site.
Food Express
Food Express is one of the newest free WordPress themes released in 2017. It’s perfect for restaurants, cafes and other food related businesses. Main features include responsive design, parallax scrolling, Menus and Reservations sections, etc. This food WordPress theme easily integrates with well-known WordPress plugins like Restaurant Reservations, WP Google Maps and others. Food Express is designed so that people with little or no coding skills can create food websites and recipe blogs. And of course, experienced web designers can also use this theme to build websites for clients.
Croccante
Croccante is an elegant one-page WordPress theme that’s perfect for showcasing your best work, style and resume. This responsive theme has a few dedicated sections: Home, About Us, Our Team, and Contact Us. A Blog page is included as well. Beyond that Croccante is compatible with WooCommerce and WPML, meaning it can be used for an eCommerce or a multilingual website. Also it features an intuitive Theme Options panel to help you edit the theme effortlessly. Croccante is worth a try if you’re creating a blog, a landing page, a portfolio site or an online store.
Serenti
Serenti takes the next spot on our list of the best free WordPress themes of 2017. This blogging WordPress theme comes with a clean layout and stylish typography. It might be a great choice for travel bloggers, fashion bloggers, food bloggers, writers, photographers, freelancers, and other creative folks. The theme is responsive and easy to customize. It is based on Bootstrap framework. Also, it comes with a free social sharing widget and an image slider.
OnePress
OnePress is a stunning one page WordPress theme for freelancers, photographers, architects, digital agencies, online merchants and everyone else who appreciates single page layouts. The theme is responsive, SEO friendly and translation ready. It comes with eight flexible sections (Features, About, Services, Gallery, Team, News, Contact, Shop), a fixed header, a trendy parallax effect, and a built-in Theme Customizer. The OnePress theme is based on Bootstrap four and is compatible with the latest version of WooCommerce. This all makes it a great choice for a business website, a portfolio website or an eCommerce website.
Magnetism
Magnetism is a free WordPress theme that is built for bloggers and anyone who enjoys posting content regularly. This beautiful magazine-style theme features a clean layout, an elegant typography, a widgetized footer and sidebar, and other great options. For example, a sticky menu ensures that your website will be easy to navigate; a news carousel allows you to promote the most important content to your readers and so on. Magnetism is mobile and SEO friendly. It can be edited in the Live Customizer. In fact, you can download this theme on wordpress.org.
Thanks for visiting our list of the best new free WordPress themes of 2017. We hope you enjoyed it.
Do you have any free WordPress theme you think we missed? Share your suggestions in the comments.
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