The Best and Smartest WordPress Themes for 2017

Looking for the right WordPress theme can be a chore. One looks better than the last one; and, after a while, they all begin to look alike. If this has been your experience, look no further. To get the New Year off to a great start, we’ve listed several features you should be looking for in a theme.

To make your search even easier, we’ve compiled a listing of the best 14 WordPress themes out there. It may take a few minutes more to make the right decision, but you can’t make a bad one.

What to Insist on in a WordPress Theme?

Look for a theme that has a modern and aesthetically pleasing design. That’s important, if you want a theme that has some staying power.
Look for a theme that is SEO ready; especially if you want your website to draw significant traffic.
A customizable theme is an easy theme to work with, it gives you the flexibility you must have, and it can be a terrific time saver.
See what type of support is offered. Live chat or a quick response is better than email.
Check the reviews, to see what people say about the theme.

Be Theme – Responsive Multi-Purpose WordPress Theme

Be Theme, the biggest WordPress theme ever, is an all-purpose theme in every sense of the word. It has every important feature you need, to build any style or type of website, blog, or portfolio you’re likely to encounter from a client.

Be’s selection of 230+ pre-built websites might be the main reason for its popularity, although this multipurpose tool is packed with powerful, yet easy to access and use, features.

The pre-built websites address most of the common website types and niches, and UX styles as well. They are completely customizable, so choosing any one that especially appeals to you, will get the job done – close match or not. They can be installed with one click, after which the Muffin Builder 3 or Visual Composer, and the Muffin Options panel can take over.

There’s no shortage of layout, grid, or header options, there’s a wealth of fonts, icons, and other design elements, and the Shortcode generator, with its 200+ shortcodes. Best of all, no coding is required, and BeTheme is Responsive and Retina, SEO, and WooCommerce ready.

The Core – Multi Purpose WordPress Theme

Since The Core was designed and developed, by professionals, for professionals. It only makes sense that since this sophisticated set of tools and features are so easy to work with, The Core is an excellent choice for beginners as well. Beginner or pro, The Core will handle the technical stuff, and leave the creative design decisions up to you.

The 20+ demos address the most popular website types, styles, and niches, and can be imported with a single click. Since they are customizable, all you need to do is choose one that appeals to you, and let your ideas and creative skills take it from there. Once you purchase The Core, future demos are yours at no charge.

Frontend page builders/editors are becoming more and more popular, so you should enjoy working with the Visual Builder. The Core is well documented.

Enfold – Multi-Purpose Theme

Enfold has also proven to be popular with web designers at all levels of skill and experience. This ThemeForest best seller is packed with demos that are so cool you might be tempted to leave them untouched. They are easy to customize however, and you can select elements from several demos if you wish, as you build your website, blog, or portfolio.

There are plenty of header and menu options to give your products the look and feel they deserve. Since Enfold is so easy to work with, you shouldn’t have to worry about missing deadlines.

You could in fact surprise your clients, by providing them with quickly put together prototypes to show them where you’re heading; and requesting feedback. If designing a portfolio is a near-term objective, you’ll find Enfold’s portfolio template selection will be a valuable help.

Hestia PRO

The first one page theme on the list, Hestia Pro, is a Material Design-based theme. This theme is fully responsive, and WooCommerce, translation, RTL, and SEO ready.

If this is what you’ve been looking for, the online video tutorials are the best way to get a complete picture of what Hestia Pro offers.

Houzez – Real Estate WordPress Theme

This specialty theme will appeal to anyone accepting an assignment from a real estate agency. Houzez offers the features real estate professionals will be looking for, and are not to be found in most WP themes.

With Houzez, the first website you deliver will make you look like you’ve been working with real estate themes all your life.

Divi 3.0

Divi 3.0’s immense popularity is due in part to the Divi Builder, released as part of Divi 2.0, and in part due to the Builder’s totally redesigned and rebuilt interface which made its debut in version 3.0.

Divi is a high-performance WordPress theme that is packed with quality features. It’s one you’ll enjoy working with if real time design appeals to you. A bonus feature is Divi’s ability to produce live responsive previews during any design phase.

TheGem – Creative Multi-Purpose High-Performance WordPress Theme

TheGem is a responsive, high-performance theme with a modern creative flair. The authors intent was to design the ultimate web building toolbox, and by most accounts they appear to have succeeded.

The package contains 40+ multi-purpose design concepts, 150 cool demo pages, and a host of nav options and page layouts. If you have an interest in owning the Swiss Army Knife of WordPress themes, give TheGem a closer look.

Ultra WordPress Theme

Themify set out to build a WordPress theme that could claim to be their most powerful and flexible. The result was Ultra, a “must have” theme for web designers and developers.

New features include design skins you can use to give web pages a special look. Pre-made demo sites have also been recently added to Ultra’s package, along with 10 free Builder addons worth $100.

KLEO – Pro Community Focused, Multi-Purpose BuddyPress Theme

If creating a community website is high on your list of to dos, Kleo is the perfect solution. This specialty theme has just the right tools for listing activities and events, logging into social media, conducting profile searches, creating a forum, and so on.

Kleo’s community-oriented features are unlikely to be found in most other WP themes; so, here’s your chance.

Uncode – Creative Multiuse WordPress Theme

Uncode is another WP theme that is oriented toward creative users and agencies. Uncode’s emphasis on attention to detail, flexibility, and performance, with the intent of helping you produce pixel-perfect websites, can be seen in its web-building concepts.

Other key features are a hierarchical options system, and advanced grid system, and an adaptive images system that automatically adjusts to any screen size.

Kalium WordPress Theme

Minimalist designs are currently a hot web design trend. It’s only natural for web designers to look for the same characteristics when selecting a theme. Kalium fits into the minimalist narrative perfectly.

It’s crisp, clean, and easy to work with, and it offers unlimited web design options. As is the case with a few other themes designed for web professionals, beginners will also find Kalium fun and easy to work with.

TheFox Responsive Multi-Purpose WordPress Theme

TheFox is smart, flexible, and perfect for an e-commerce store, a business or agency, or a blog or portfolio. In short, you can create a successful web design to serve virtually any client or purpose with this WordPress theme.

It comes with 30+ stunning pre-built home pages, along with 250+ design details and Visual Composer for your customizing and editing tasks. No coding is necessary with TheFox.

XStore – Responsive WooCommerce Theme

XStore is dedicated to the web designer who is fully into e-commerce and online shop design. It’s a perfect solution to your e-commerce design needs. 40+ good to go shops offer a wealth of ideas you can borrow from to create the store of your dreams, or those of your client’s.

This specialty theme makes setting up a professional-looking store that features an engaging UX, a design activity that many consider a chore, a piece of cake.

Impreza WordPress Theme

It never hurts to take a WP theme for a test drive when one is offered. That’s the best way to learn all about Impreza; and you’re invited to do so.

Learn all about this theme’s ingenious demo selection, which includes among other useful features, Mobile App, One Page, and Minimal Shop demos. You can test for 3^rd party plugin compatibility and various theme options during your test drive.

Ending words

Whether you’re looking for a multipurpose theme, a specialty theme, or one of each, there should be something here for you.

A premium multipurpose theme, several of which are included, is always a safe choice, but if you’re looking for a one page material design theme, one devoted to real estate, e-commerce, or community affairs, you’ll find it here.