WordPress Themes 2013: The Must-Have List

WordPress Themes are here to stay. Throughout the years, we’ve seen many different design styles and trends – some good, some not so good. With WordPress powering a colossal 1/5 of the entire Internet, WordPress Themes have become big business with many individual theme shops and developers pulling in millions every year.

Any way you slice it, WordPress is here to stay, and for that reason so are the free and premium themes we’ve all come to know and love. If you have spent any amount of time searching for the top WordPress Themes, you’ll notice that several names continue to appear at or close to the top of the list. Elegant Themes, Themeforest, and StudioPress to name some of the more popular ones.

In this article, we’d like to introduce you to some very creative and compelling WordPress Themes of 2013. Each and every one of these themes was released in 2013 so you can rest assured these are among the latest and greatest that WordPress has to offer.

Stay in the know with our list of the top overall WordPress Themes as well. Updated at least once per month, this article covers the best WordPress Themes in all the different categories including responsive, portfolio, magazine, business, and E-commerce just to name a few.

For the time being, here are a few of our absolute FAVORITE WordPress Themes for 2013.

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Top 5 Widgets to Supercharge your WordPress Theme

Widgets are always plugins but not all plugins have widgets. Do you agree? Whether you agree or not, here are some great widgets you can use to supercharge your WordPress theme.

Freelancer Widgets Bundle

Freelancers will rejoice with this bundle. It’s got 7 great widgets: advertisement, biography, buy me a beer/coffee, contact widget, contact form widget, opening hours widget, and social links widget all in one big bundle. These widgets are highly customizable & can be modified easily. Freelancers like musicians, artists, designers, developers, creative professionals,etc. will find this widget a useful addition to their website.

Posts By Author Widget Pro for WordPress

If you’d like to provide your readers with an easy way to compile posts by a favorite author on your website, this powerful widget is what you need. Posts by author allows you to: compile, sort, show post excerpts, control number of posts to display, display thumbnails, in 15 configurable ways. This widget is especially useful for multi-author websites to help readers sort posts by their favorite authors.

Smart Navigation Widgets

User experience is key to getting repeat visits and one way to ensure that is to keep your navigation user friendly. Smart Navigation Widgets is a powerful widget ideal for websites with large archives. This Ajax-powered widgets allows the user to navigate deeper only when he needs to. Scouring and clicking thru long lists can get boring and make users bored waiting for content to load. This widget allows you to control the number of links displayed and speed up websites in the process.

M7 Easy Accordion Menus Widget for WordPress

This cool widget makes adding an accordion menu to your sidebar as easy as dragging and dropping. It’s a fresh way to combine menus on your sidebar. You can define: general settings, design and layout settings, thumb settings, excerpt settings, post settings, and the read more text settings to display the widgets you want to feature. Super cool and elegant space saving feature. It’s responsive too!

Announcements!

How would you like to manage your announcements and schedule them way, way, ahead of time? If you are handling an events website, an eCommerce site, or a business site that holds regular events, keep your users informed by scheduling your announcements automatically with this handy widget. Whether it’s a big sale, an important event, a greeting or any type of announcement you need, simply set it and forget it. This widget gives you 4 options for scheduling your announcements: weekly, annual, monthly, or using custom start and end dates.

StyleShop – Elegant Theme’s 81st (And It’s an eCommerce One)

Elegant Themes has just released its 81st theme – the robust and beautiful eCommerce theme StyleShop – and it’s worth the wait. Say goodbye to the glossy mail order catalogues and get your glossy magazine fix with StyleShop Premium WordPress Theme.

StyleShop is glamorous and edgy and not your typical and functional looking eCommerce theme. You can tell the difference from the way the design elements have been seamlessly integrated into various sections of the theme. The attention to detail and the thoughtful process of making sure the user experience is pleasant and enjoyable is a trademark of Elegant Themes. The homepage is clear and easily navigable. It greets you with an impressive dynamic slider you would love to showcase your products with. It also includes a mini slider you can use to feature specials or specific product categories you want to bring attention to. You can also set up a mini gallery of your hottest, latest, most popular products as a teaser to the rest of your inventory. The great thing about this theme is the integrated WooCommerce plugin that handles the whole checkout process ensuring a seamless handling of transactions with popular payment methods.

Styleshop Premium WordPress Theme looks great on smartphones and tablets with its fully responsive design. It even has a side menu especially designed for smartphones to facilitate a faster shopping experience. This responsive theme can be easily customized with the powerful Theme ePanel that allows you to tweak and adjust design features as you please. In addition, the theme comes with lots of shortcodes you can use for more detailed control over the theme.

Features:

  • Responsive Design
  • Theme Options
  • Shortcodes
  • Page Templates
  • Perpetual Updates
  • Secure and Valid Code
  • Browser Compatibility
  • Complete Localization
  • Unlimited Colors
  • Unparalleled Support

StyleShop Premium WordPress Theme includes top-notch tech support provided by Elegant themes’ support staff to help you setup your site and get it running in no time.

Get StyleShop And 80 More Themes for $39

Elegant Themes Launches Lifetime Option

For business people, time is a precious commodity. The busier they are the more deliberate they are on how they spend it. Most of the time they do not want to waste their time on business decisions like necessary recurring business expenditures that can be dealt with once and for all. Why? Because they already know that these activities are necessary to their business and they know that they will repeat themselves over and over again and . So instead of spending time repeating something that can be done once they opt to get rid of this tick list item so that they could spend their time on other things that need more of their attention.

If you are a busy WordPress professional building, servicing and handling several website accounts and you want to save yourself time doing admin stuff and spend more time marketing, developing, or providing support to your clients, you might want to check out one of Elegant Themes’ licensing options – the Lifetime Access license. What’s great about it?

Aside from the affordable Personal License for the average user and the extremely Popular Developer License for experienced designers, Elegant Themes also offers Lifetime Access for a one time fee of $249 which is perfect for the busy WordPress professional who wants to maximize his working hours. What does the Lifetime Access License include?

You get:

  • Complete Access To Every Theme – around 81 beautiful and functional themes as of this writing
  • Perpetual Theme Updates
  • Premium Technical Support
  • Complete Access To Every Plugin
  • Layered Photoshop Files
  • NO YEARLY FEES

If we do the math, for $249, it will cost approximately more or less $3 (as of this writing) for each theme, plugin, not counting the psd files, updates, support, and, not including all future themes and plugins yet to be released. At the rate Elegant Themes is releasing new themes, the cost per theme will go down even more. Not only that, you don’t need to pay yearly fees ever, you lessen your admin load, and save time which you can use to do something else. Sounds like a good investment, don’t you think?
Check out Elegant Themes today.

Get Elegant Themes Lifetime

Voyage: Travel WordPress Theme 2013

We all love an adventure. Who doesn’t dream of traveling or going on that dream vacation? According to the Global Online Travel Report for 2012, some of the key findings and statistics featured in their report listed below are:

  • The trend of booking trips online is expected to grow further in 2012, especially in emerging markets such as China, India and Brazil.
  • In 2012, the “Online Travel Segment” is forecast to represent almost a third of the total global travel market value.
  • Online travel sales in the US are forecasted to increase by more than +10% in 2012 compared to 2011.
  • The UK is projected to remain the largest share of Europe’s online travel market in 2013, followed by Germany and France.
  • Gross bookings on the Asia Pacific online leisure/ unmanaged business travel market are expected to increase by more than +30% in 2012 compared to 2010.

Meanwhile, according to US Travel.org,

“Activities with the greatest level of interest among U.S. adults are, in order, visiting friends and relatives, sightseeing, beaches/waterfronts, visiting zoos/aquariums/science museums, national parks, visiting a state park, going on a cruise, theme parks, visiting a city and visiting a mountain area. Interest in the engaging in the activities varies by generation, household income, gender and most other demographic characteristics of leisure travelers.”

Based on these statistics and findings, barring local and international security issues and safety, people WILL travel. Perhaps it is also safe to say that the travel industry, at present, is definitely a viable industry. It may be also safe to say that the internet has contributed a great part to making travel reachable and accessible to a lot of people all around the globe. Access to online airline e-ticketing, booking and reservations, destination packages, hotel reviews and ratings have made people bolder in making travel decisions. Even if only a fraction of the 7 billion world population have the means to travel, travel agencies have not fully saturated this market. So, if you are considering putting up your own online travel agency, this is great news. The next step is to setup your own website and what better way to do it than through WordPress and with a theme that’s specifically tailored for travel agencies.

Voyage Travel WordPress Theme is a gorgeous feature packed premium WordPress theme built for this specific niche. The responsive theme’s highlights include an extremely powerful search and filter option that clients can use to find the travel package of their choice. The theme also includes lots of pages for showcasing a variety of holidays, special prices and latest promos, packages according to destinations, and a whole lot more. It also comes bundled with a Blog and Contact Page and tons of shortcodes you can use to customize or tweak the theme according to your needs. A lot of these powerful functionalities are based on one of Themefuse’s best and most complex theme, Homequest. Another great thing about Voyage is that you can actually play with it for 14 days, using Themefuse’s test labs feature, before you decide to purchase.

Features:

  • Responsive
  • One click auto install
  • Best for a travel agency website
  • Powerful search and filter options
  • Dynamic Sidebar Widget Creation
  • jQuery Image / Video Light box

Voyage Premium WordPress Theme includes video tutorials, theme documentation, and access to an AfterCare Forum for theme issues, questions, and support.

Voyage: $49 | Demo & Download

Cool WordPress Themes for Churches: 2013 Edition

Churches and other religious or advocacy centered organizations have very specific website needs. Most of them require a combination of magazine, events, multimedia, and community features rolled into one theme. Here are some great WordPress themes that have great features and functionalities that can address those needs:

The Good News

The Good News Premium WordPress Theme is a theme specifically designed for churches but it is flexible enough to fit other uses. This premium theme includes: custom posts (Events, Sermons, Media), custom templates (Events, Sermons, Media), custom widgets, a contact form, 11 PSD files, and a complete HTML version, everything you need to set up your church’s website. The Good News is also responsive.

Evolution

Evolution Premium WordPress Theme from Elegant Themes is a simple, clean, responsive multi purpose theme that can be used for any type of website but it can also work well for advocacy groups or church and religious blog sites. Pastors or church leaders can use this theme to publish regular preachings or inspirational articles to inspire their readers beyond the Sunday sermon. This theme includes several useful page templates such as an image gallery, portfolio, a blog feed, and a member login template, among others.

Peacemaker – The WordPress Theme for Churches

Peacemaker Premium WordPress Theme is an excellent church theme that incorporates all the elements of church related activities into one theme. A notable feature is its events countdown feature which is a helpful events management tool to inform people about upcoming events. This responsive premium theme also includes: four custom post types (Events, Videos, Audio & Galleries), custom widgets, a unique homepage slider builder with the Slider custom post type, layered PSDs for detailed customization, and extensive documentation for easy setup.

Genesis

Reaching your audience has never been simpler with Genesis Premium WordPress theme, a church theme that’s designed to help you create a dynamic and responsive church website easily. This premium WordPress theme includes a simple custom solution for events that other events plugins complicate. This responsive theme also includes an unbranded theme options panel, unlimited photo galleries (masonry style), video, MP3 streaming, PDF download capabilities, and other useful features to enhance your website.

Spurgeon

Sunday preaching time too short to say all you have to say? Not a preacher but inspired to write all your thoughts and insights from your personal devotionals? Write about it and take all the time you need in your very own website. Spurgeon Premium WordPress Theme is a great way to compile all your thoughts and share them to as many as you can on your website. This responsive premium theme is equipped with features to help you easily publish your messages to inspire people and encourage them in their faith.

Saving Grace

Saving Grace Premium WordPress Theme is a theme geared towards charities and non-profit organizations. What’s unique about this theme aside from its outstanding layout and typography is the built in donation facility, via PayPal, using its donation page template and donation button and progress bar. This functionality takes advantage of impulse donation and gives visitors the option to donate straight away. This theme also includes 5 alternative color styles for you to choose from.

Malachi

Today’s church generation is so much different from before. Technology has changed a lot of the traditional methods of reaching people and replaced it with multimedia and audio-visual systems. Malachi Premium WordPress Theme integrates these modern tools and gives you a theme that is in step with today’s demands giving you technical functionalities that include podcasts, streaming music, and music videos. These modern communication tools are seamlessly integrated within the theme so you can create a website that can effectively reach today’s tech savvy generation.

Check out the WordPress themes above to see which ones will match your needs.

Fusion Theme from Elegant Themes is HERE!

Elegant Themes’ recently released Fusion Premium WordPress Theme is a theme designed to bring pizzazz into business websites by fusing fun and professionalism together in one awesome theme. Who says business themes have to boring and sterile when you can jazz it up and make it more interesting? This theme is intended for startups, tech companies, and design firms but it can easily be tweaked and adapted to whatever website you have in mind.

What’s hot? Fusion’s generous homepage slider dominates the theme’s layout even beyond the fold giving you maximum room to showcase your very best products or services with a bang. You have a choice of 5 gorgeous backgrounds to wow your audience with and the animated slideshow is smooth and sleek. The font choices used add that overall subtle elegance to the whole theme while still maintaining readability.

This premium WordPress theme also includes several page templates like: a contact form with built in Captcha, a portfolio section with 5 layout options, a sitemap, an image gallery, an advanced search page, and a not your usual WordPress login page. You can also assign content like quotes, article excerpts, client logos or icons to specific widgetized sections for that professional feel.

Overall, Fusion’s theme layout, color styling, font choices, and built-in features and functionalities are great as is but if you want to customize certain features to make it more custom you can do so via its powerful Theme Options Panel. You can also enhance other functionalities with the use of the theme’s shortcodes. This premium WordPress theme is responsive so you can be assured that you the same pizazz is there no matter what screen size you view it in.

Features:

  • Perpetual Updates
  • Secure and Valid Code
  • Browser Compatibility
  • Complete Localization
  • Unlimited Colors
  • Unparalleled Support

Fusion Premium WordPress Theme includes top-notch tech support provided by Elegant themes’ support staff to help you setup your site and get it running in no time.

Get Fusion from Elegant Themes Now!

Fusion Theme from Elegant Themes Coming Soon

Elegant Themes recently announced their new and upcoming theme: Fusion – a theme designed to “fuse” professionalism and pizzazz to create that perfect solution for technology companies and blogs alike. If you run a tech blog or an app development company and you need a really cool looking theme that’s hip and modern then Fusion is probably the theme for you.

The general design of this theme is similar to Elegant’s recent themes, Nimble and Harmony, taking off from that single page design while adding the modern, graphic flavor to it. One of the many benefits of a “one page” design is that you get a quick and easy, concise at a glance look, quite handy for mobile devices, with options for details in sub pages.

Similar to Nimble and Harmony, Fusion has large sections clearly delineated from each other. Fusion has a section allocated for a logo, navigation menu and other corporate brand or social networking icons all prominently located above and seamlessly flows into a generously spaced section for a slider. This slider section can be used to showcase featured images or products, attention grabbing spiels, and other important announcements useful to your visitors. This can be followed by a section where static text boxes or placeholders can be used to feature select products or services. You also have an area to feature the latest blog post headlines that link to the full posts on the and there is also provision for sponsor links or ad banners. A widgetized footer area can also be setup to add more features and functionalities useful to the site.

So far we we’ve seen that Elegant Themes has been consistent as far as quality is concerned and so far, each product released remains true to its reputation for great design. This commitment can be experienced and has been experienced by so many customers in every Elegant Themes subscription. This latest theme offering is something to look forward to and no doubt it will be something that will surely be according to Elegant Themes’ strict standards.

Get 77 Premium Themes For $39

Specialty: Clean Business WordPress Theme

The main purpose of a business theme is to create awareness, generate interest, and convert casual visitors to engaged followers/clients/customers. For a business theme to be effective, it has to have the following elements:

  • Great SEO capabilities.
  • Great design recall.
  • Readable, well organized text and multimedia content.
  • Effective interactive feedback system.

WP Business Bundle just released Specialty, a responsive premium WordPress theme designed to present your business or your company in a clear and concise manner. Overall, the theme is clean, modern and generous with whitespace. It has a great, sizeable slider that can really grab attention of casual visitors. Visitors are given control over slider transitions which gives each slide the appropriate airtime based on visitor preference.

Content is definitely readable on this theme. Font size and spacing between text boxes are great, giving visitors an uncluttered, relaxed reading experience. Images are displayed in a clean, well organized portfolio grid style which can also be sorted according to category. There’s also the option to use a jQuery masonry layout for those who want that Pinterest look. Thumbnails are slightly bigger that typical portfolio pages giving visitors a better overview of the work. Pages containing detailed narratives include large images of the work. This theme can also handle video and it includes a large section where you can showcase a special video or image right on the homepage.

Specialty does have a responsive design giving visitors the chance to appreciate the site’s content on smartphones and tablets. Specialty includes a basic contact form, custom post types, an easy to use custom panel, and just the right amount of widgets and features to get your site up and running without much fuss.

More Features:

  • Import/Export Functionality for Theme Options
  • Seven Pre-Defined Color Schemes
  • Breadcrumb Navigation
  • Adjustable Footer Widget Area (1-4 Columns)
  • Custom Post Types: Slider | Portfolio |Testimonial
  • Engaging Portfolio Layout with jQuery Masonry
  • HTML5 Markup | CSS3 Effects

Specialty Premium WordPress Theme is part of a bundle of themes and business-tailored plugins at WP Business Bundle available starting from $79. This theme includes documentation, future updates. For an additional $9 per month, you also get the PSD files, XML files, and access to the theme’s support forum.

Join WP Business Bundle Now