Responsive WordPress themes are very popular among web designers these days. This is for two very good reasons. First, as we know the majority of most sites traffic comes from a little search engine called Google and they have come out with statements that they are using the mobile versions of sites to establish relevance and rankings before the desktop version. Second, according to this report from Comscore, Cyber Monday marked the first time mobile sales exceeded $1 billion dollars (yes you read that correctly). So if you are preparing to get business from a fast, responsive mobile version of your site, you are costing your business big profits if you aren’t going responsive.
So why start with a theme for your responsive design? First off, choosing this route can shorten the cycle from website design & development to your launch date. At the same time, a good website theme will offer a customizable framework that your developer can massage to fit your vision. Additionally, there is often great support for popular themes & frequent updates to ensure that they are as future proof as possible. The hard part comes from finding a theme that fits your goals, your eye for design and that has been thoroughly tested for functionality and stability. At Chase Design we work with many frameworks when conducting website design projects, however we have extensive experience with responsive wordpress themes and in most of our website design projects we consider anywhere from 3-8 different themes and analyze the unique benefits of each before moving forward with our final decision. We thought it was time for a review of our favorite themes to use in 2016 and into 2017.
Here are 5 responsive WordPress themes that we love!
It’s hard to say enough about the team over at Divi. They are so dedicated to the support, stability and innovation that shows through in this theme and it really shows. Even at first glance, you can see that they have taken a different approach. The theme is used by a huge community of designers and developers with over 385,000 site builds. However the flexibility has allowed users to truly differentiate themselves and brand their internet presence with each launch.
If you can think of a need for a site, chances are that the team at Divi has already developed a solution, if they haven’t they may be able include it in their next update. This includes features like Visual Optimizer, integration of just about any WordPress based shopping cart, endless layout and design options readily available, 32 language options with complete translation of the backend, security that is certified by Sucuri.
Two of the features that we really love are the split testing and analytics solutions that are built in. This really allows us to gain valuable insights into what is working by developing real data on users, conversions and site engagement. The second is the user roles that allow us to ensure that clients can make the changes they want, but not changes that could irreversibly damage the site operation or code. We hear that saying, “I know just enough to be dangerous” enough to know that it is sometimes true. Clients appreciate this many times, knowing that they can work on the site within a safe role.
2. NewsMag by tagDiv
NewsMag theme is a flexible theme. It can be said that this theme has all the qualities of a modern responsive website design. NewsMag is a theme for online magazines, blogs or large content resources and other publishers. Considering the design flexibility and versatility, it is an ideal theme for promoting any type of literary work. This theme is designed to be messed with i.e. can be changed to be suitable for any type of literary website a user wants.
NewsMag comes with various features like limitless sliders and carousels, various google fonts, customized logos and much more. It is easily customizable theme so anyone who knows a little bit about web development can customize it to his or her liking.
NewsMag features include custom made lightbox, smart sidebar, custom build drag and drop gallery, smart list and Youtube/Vimeo video playlists & visual composer integration for easy page builds. Other features include live search with AJAX, E-commerce support, review system, video thumbnail downloader, footer styles, lazy load effect, top bar templated and many other features. It is a truly robust set of feature that can allow your designers to excel.
Design is just beautiful which includes Sticky menu, Theme panel & Advanced block system. Again, the option to power your pages by visual composer or with custom coding allows flexibility for a wide range of web dev geniuses or the less development savvy among us.
NewsMag boasts 25 custom widgets, 36 custom visual composer blocks, tagDiv’s WP Booster API system, Endless layout combinations, post views with caching plugins.
A recent example of a site we built with a highly customized NewsMag theme can be seen at GettingSmart.com.
3. Dazzling:
Dazzling is a design based on bootstrap. It features mobile friendliness with amazing responsiveness and flexibility. It features an optional full screen slider. This slider property is very efficient in creating business and creative websites. Dazzling features flat design. Colour schemes include mint green with the addition of white and possibly yellow. This theme is very effective for many different kinds of business ideas like ecommerce. What else? It includes optimization for several popular plugins like SEO, Contact form7, WordPress etc.
Dazzling boasts many key features like: infinite scrolling, SEO friendly structure, logo upload, full Screen slider, Social media icons, popular post widgets and translation ready setup. Dazzling supports JigoShop andn WooCommerce plugins. This theme is primarily built for online shopping and Ecommerce. It also supports multiple languages. It uses WPML plugin to concentrate on multiple languages support.
4. Shapely by Colorlib:
Shapely is a very simple and Free, one-page theme that is considered one of the most popular for responsive website designs. Also accessible as a WordPress theme, it is an incredible and beautiful theme that can be easily customized to give your business a great presence. Being responsive, it is compatible with all mobile devices as well as the laptop and computer devices. While there are drawbacks to using a single page theme with SEO, this is something that should be weighed. This may be the right route for some smaller businesses, businesses that gain customers primarily through word of mouth, and companies that are looking to put out a nice looking website at a minimal budget.
Some of the features include: High definition Graphics, sharp texts and icons, WooCommerce integration and support for the majority of WordPress plugins. It can be customized to work for a variety of business models however, we recommend using a multipage theme if you are building out an ecommerce site. Mainly, being a one-page design, it is considered to be ideal for professional, portfolio websites etc.
5. Lambda
Lambda is a multipurpose bootstrap theme. It is compatible with any type of website. Lambda includes 47 different demos that are ready to be installed. One click installer enables the user to install the theme they want on the go. Lambda is fully functional, responsive theme which is compatible with all devices.
There are many demos which are constantly updated regularly. Some of these demos include: Coffee shop, Product Launch, Handy man, Hotel, Charity, Yoga, Wedding, Photography and many more. Hence, Lambda is proved to be the best theme for all kinds of websites out there.
It is very easy to customize Lambda which makes creating the vision of your website a breeze and allows you to take advantage of all that mobile traffic that you are missing out on.
What do you think about responsive wordpress themes, are there any that have blown you away? Do you hate any of the themes we mentioned? Let us know in the comments below!
Also, if you have questions about which responsive web design is going to work for your businesses online goals, give us a call or contact us here.