Skip to main content

25 Most Common WordPress Errors and How to Fix Them

While WordPress is really easy to use, there are some common WordPress errors that can make you panic. The good thing is that the WordPress error you are seeing on your site is most likely been reported and resolved by someone before you. At WPBeginner, we have written tutorials on how to fix several popular WordPress errors. In this article, we will cover the 25 most common WordPress errors along with showing you how to fix all of these common WordPress errors.

Important: Before trying to fix any WordPress error, make sure that you have a complete WordPress backup. You can use BackupBuddy or use this tutorial to manually create a WordPress backup.
In case you are unable to resolve your issue from the steps mentioned in this article, then please contact your WordPress hosting company.

Since this is a lengthy article, we have created a table of contents below for easy navigation.

Table of Contents

  1. How to fix internal server error
  2. How to fix syntax error in WordPress
  3. How to fix the error establishing database connection in WordPress
  4. How to fix WordPress white screen of death
  5. How to fix WordPress posts returning 404 error
  6. How to fix sidebar below content error in WordPress
  7. How to fix white text and missing buttons in WordPress visual editor
  8. How to fix WordPress memory exhausted error by increasing PHP memory limit
  9. What to do when you are locked out of WordPress admin area
  10. How to fix WordPress login page refreshing/redirecting issue
  11. How to fix image upload issue in WordPress
  12. How to fix common image issues in WordPress
  13. How to fix “Are you sure you want to do this” error in WordPress
  14. How to fix briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance error in WordPress
  15. How to fix WordPress not sending email issue
  16. How to fix WordPress RSS feed errors
  17. How to fix 403 forbidden error in WordPress
  18. How to fix error too many redirects issue in WordPress
  19. How to fix “Upload: failed to write file to disk” error in WordPress
  20. How to fix “This site ahead contains harmful programs” error in WordPress
  21. How to fix missed scheduled post error in WordPress
  22. How to fix fatal error: Maximum execution time exceeded in WordPress
  23. How to fix Facebook incorrect thumbnail issue in WordPress
  24. How to fix WordPress keeps logging out problem
  25. Troubleshooting WordPress errors on your own
Let’s take a look at how to solve the most common WordPress errors (one by one).

1. How to Fix Internal Server Error

 


Perhaps the most confusing WordPress error that a beginner may come across is “Internal Server Error”, or sometimes “500 Internal Server Error”.
This error usually appears when there is something wrong, but the server is unable to identify where the problem is. Since the error message does not indicate where you should look for the error, it is pretty much up to you to figure this out.
We have compiled a list of solutions that you can try and one of them will help you resolve it. [Fix internal server error]
[Back to top ↑]

2. How to Fix Syntax Error in WordPress

 


This error usually occurs when you are trying to add code snippets into WordPress and have accidentally missed something or the code has incorrect syntax. This will result into a PHP parse error and you will see a notice like:
Parse error- syntax error, unexpected $end in /public_html/site1/wp-content/themes/my-theme/functions.php on line 278
The error message would indicate the unexpected thing found in the code and the location of the script where the error occurred with line number. To fix this issue you will have to correct the syntax. Most of the time it is a missing bracket, or some unexpected character in the code. [Fix syntax error in WordPress]
[Back to top ↑]

3. How to Fix the Error Establishing a Database Connection in WordPress

 


This error message is clear that your website is unable to connect to the database. However solving this error can be tricky for beginners.
Usually this occurs when a user has entered or modified their database credentials (database host, database username, and database password) incorrectly. Sometimes your database server could be unresponsive, or your database may have corrupted.
However, mostly it is incorrect database login credentials. Take a look at common solutions for this problem. [Fix error establishing database connection in WordPress]
[Back to top ↑]

4. How to Fix the WordPress White Screen of Death

 


This error usually results into a plain white screen with no error message. This makes it the most puzzling because you have no clue where to look and what to fix.
Most of the time it is caused when a script exhausts PHP memory limit. It can also happen due to a configuration on the server. It is also possible that a user would only see white screen of death on certain sections of their site. [See how to fix WordPress white screen of death]
[Back to top ↑]

5. How to Fix WordPress Posts Returning 404 Error

 


The symptoms of this error is that when a user visits a single post on their site they get a 404 page – not found error.
The user can browse all other sections of their site including the admin area. The most common cause of this issue is permalink settings in WordPress. To solve this issue a user would need to reconfigure their permalinks settings or manually update their rewrite rules. [Fix WordPress posts returning 404 error]
[Back to top ↑]

6. How to Fix the Sidebar Below Content Error in WordPress

 


Another common issue beginners face is when the sidebar appears below the content when it is supposed to appear next to the content. This issue is mostly caused by WordPress themes.
Sometimes when users are adding code snippets to their site, they may accidentally forget to close an html div tag or add an extra closing div which may result into breaking the theme layout. Another common cause is using disproportionate width in CSS or not clearing float properly. [Fix sidebar appearing below content error in WordPress]
[Back to top ↑]

7. How to Fix White Text and Missing Buttons in WordPress Visual Editor

 


Sometimes buttons from WordPress visual editor may disappear or start showing blank white spaces instead of buttons.
This problem may occur when concatenated JavaScript is not working. It may also caused by missing or corrupt TinyMCE files, or conflict with some other plugin that modifies or extends the TinyMCE shipped with WordPress. [Fix white text and missing buttons in WordPress visual editor]
[Back to top ↑]

8. Fix: WordPress Memory Exhausted Error – Increase PHP Memory

 


Indications of this error could be a white screen of death, or an error message like this one:
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 2348617 bytes) in /home/username/public_html/site1/wp-includes/plugin.php on line xxx
This error occurs when a WordPress script or a plugin exhausts the default allocated memory size limit. [Fix WordPress memory exhausted error]
[Back to top ↑]

9. What To Do When You Are Locked Out of WordPress Admin (wp-admin)

 


Sometimes you may find yourself locked out of the WordPress admin area. This could happen if you forgot your password and don’t have to access to password recovery email.
A plugin or code that incorrectly tries to make some changes into admin section can also lock you out. You may also lose access to admin area due to a hacked WordPress site. [Fix locked out of WordPress admin issue]
[Back to top ↑]

10. How to Fix WordPress Login Page Refreshing and Redirecting Issue

 


Symptoms of this issue are that when a user attempts to login to the WordPress dashboard, they are redirected by WordPress back to the login page.
Most of the time it happens due to incorrect values for site url and home url fields in WordPress options table. It can also be caused by poorly configured permalink settings or redirects setup in the .htaccess file. [Fix WordPress login page refreshing and redirecting issue]
[Back to top ↑]

11. How to Fix Image Upload Issue in WordPress

 


Sometimes a user would suddenly notice that all the images from their site are gone and are showing broken image placeholders. When the user tries to upload an image to a post using the media uploader, it results into an error.
All these files in the media library will appear as broken. This error occurs due to incorrect file and directory permissions in a WordPress installation. A number of factors may cause this issue. [Fix image upload issues in WordPress]
[Back to top ↑]

12. How to Fix Common Image Issues in WordPress

 


Uploading images to a WordPress site can be confusing for someone new to WordPress. A user may be unable to find out how to align images, resize or crop them, or display them in a gallery format.
This is not an error or issue in WordPress. You just need to familiarize yourself with how WordPress handles media. [Fix common image issues in WordPress]
[Back to top ↑]

13. How to Fix “Are You Sure You Want to Do This” Error in WordPress

 


Users may come across this error in WordPress admin area. The most common cause of this error is a plugin or theme failing to use Nonce properly.
Nonce are special security keys which may be appended to URLs when performing an admin action in WordPress. Sometimes a plugin or theme may use it incorrectly which may result into users seeing this error. [Fix are you sure you want to do this error in WordPress]
[Back to top ↑]

14. How to Fix Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance Error in WordPress

 


Sometimes due to an unfinished or interrupted WordPress update, you might see “Briefly Unavailable for Scheduled Maintenance” error in WordPress.
What happens there is that WordPress puts your site in maintenance mode during an update. If for some reason the update is interrupted, then WordPress does not get the chance to put your site out of the maintenance mode. This error would lock down your entire site and make it unavailable for admins as well as visitors. [Fix briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance error]
[Back to top ↑]

15. How to Fix WordPress Not Sending Email Issue

 


The most common symptom of this problem is not receiving any contact form or WordPress notification emails from your site.
This issue is usually caused because most shared hosting providers disable or limit the module used for sending emails to prevent their servers from abuse. [Fix WordPress not sending email issue]
[Back to top ↑]

16. How to Fix WordPress RSS Feed Errors

 


Most WordPress RSS feed errors are caused by poor formatting. You may see errors like these:
XML Parsing Error: XML or text declaration not at start of entity
Location: http://example.com/feed
Line Number 2, Column 1:

Depending on what browser you are using, your RSS feed error message may vary. You can also see this error message when visiting your feed in a browser.
Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/username/example.com/wp-content/themes/twentysixteen/functions.php:433) in /home/username/example.com/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 1228
WordPress outputs RSS feeds in XML which is a strict markup language. A missing line break or an extra tab can break your RSS feed. [Fix WordPress RSS feed errors]
[Back to top ↑]

17. How to Fix 403 Forbidden Error in WordPress

 


403 Forbidden error code is shown when your server permissions don’t allow access to a specific page. This is why the error is usually accompanied by the text:
403 Forbidden – You don’t have permission to access ‘/’ on this server.
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

There are different scenarios when you can see this error. Incorrect file permissions, poorly coded security plugins, or server configuration are the most common culprits. [Fix 403 Forbidden error in WordPress]
[Back to top ↑]

18. How to Fix Error Too Many Redirects Issue in WordPress

 


This error usually occurs due to a misconfigured redirection issue. As you know that WordPress has SEO friendly URL Structure which uses the redirect function. Several other popular WordPress plugins also use the redirect functionality as well.
Due to a misconfiguration in any of these redirection tools, your site may end up redirecting users to a URL that is actually redirecting them back to the referring URL. In that case the user’s browser is trapped between two pages causing a redirect loop. [Fix too many redirects issue in WordPress]
[Back to top ↑]

19. How to Fix “Upload: Failed to Write File to Disk” Error in WordPress

 


This error can occur due to a number of reasons. However, the most common one is incorrect folder permissions.
Each file and folder on your website has a set of permissions. Your web server controls access to the files based on these permissions. Incorrect permissions to a folder can take away your ability to write files on server. This means your web server cannot create or add new files to that particular folder. [Fix Upload: Failed to write file to disk error]
[Back to top ↑]

20. How to Fix “This site ahead contains harmful programs” Error in WordPress

 


Google marks a website with this warning if they find any suspicious code that could be a malware or trojan. Sometimes the reason for this is that your website is hacked and is now used to distribute malicious code.
Another common reason for this error is showing ads from low quality advertising networks. These networks may sometime display ads linking to websites distributing malicious code. [Fix site ahead contains harmful programs error in WordPress]
[Back to top ↑]

21. How to Fix the Missed Schedule Post Error in WordPress

 


WordPress has this wonderful feature that allows you to schedule posts to be automatically published at a specified time. Most bloggers rely on the future to manage their publishing schedule.
However, sometimes WordPress can miss scheduled posts due to a number of reasons. If this has happened to you more than a few times then you need to address this issue. [Fix missed schedule post error in WordPress]
[Back to top ↑]

22. How to Fix Fatal Error: Maximum Execution Time Exceeded in WordPress

 


WordPress is coded mainly in PHP programming language. To protect web servers from abuse, there is a time limit set for how long a PHP script can run.
Some WordPress hosting providers have set this value to a higher level while others may have set it to a lower level. When a script reaches the maximum execution time limit, it results into maximum execution time exceeded error. [Fix maximum execution time exceeded error in WordPress]
[Back to top ↑]

23. How to Fix Facebook Incorrect Thumbnail Issue in WordPress

 


There are many reasons that can prevent Facebook from correctly guessing the right thumbnail image. One of the most common reason is having multiple images set in the og:image tag where your featured image is smaller than rest of the images.
Facebook uses Open Graph (og) tags, and plugins like Yoast SEO automatically adds them to your site to prevent missing thumbnail issue. [Fix Facebook incorrect thumbnail issue in WordPress]
[Back to top ↑]

24. How to Fix WordPress Keeps Logging Out Problem

 


WordPress sets a cookie in your browser to authenticate a login session. This cookie is set for the WordPress URL stored in your settings section. If you are accessing from a URL that does not match the one in your WordPress settings, then WordPress will not be able to authenticate your session. [Fix WordPress keeps logging out problem]
[Back to top ↑]

25. Troubleshooting WordPress Errors on Your Own

 

We have covered some of the most common WordPress errors in this article. However, the real power of WordPress comes from thousands of plugins and themes that you can use on your site. Any plugin or theme installed on your site can cause errors.
It could become really hard for beginners to find out what is causing the problem on their site and how they can fix it.
We have compiled complete step by step guide on troubleshooting WordPress errors for beginners. It will help you learn how to diagnose WordPress issues and how to fix them like a pro.
[Back to top ↑]
That’s all, we hope that this guide helped you find and fix the WordPress error that you were encountering.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Theme shops have changed the game, lifting the standard of themes you’ll find in the free repository with free versions of their products. And these free versions come complete with features you would have previously only found in premium themes like WooCommerce support and responsive design. Gone are the days when downloading a free theme meant settling for a subpar theme. Now you can – and should – expect a well-coded theme that’s completely customizable using the Theme Customizer. Here’s our list of the some of the best free WordPress themes you’ll find in the WordPress Theme Directory that have been developed by premium theme shops, plus a few released by independent theme developers. Flash Flash is a good-looking multipurpose theme with a minimalist aesthetic – ideal for business and corporate sites. It features multiple pre-built demos, which you can import in seconds using the ThemeGrill Demo Importer plugin. The theme also integrates with the Flash Toolkit plugin (available to download for free from the WordPress Plugin Directory) and SiteOrigin’s Page Builder plugin (which you can also download and use for free), making this theme user-friendly to set up and use. Other features of this theme include a responsive design, multiple blog layouts, Woocommerce support, multiple header styles, multiple color options, boxed and wide layout, 6+ widget areas and 11+ custom widgets, product filters, plus it’s optimized for speed and SEO. And if you want even more features, there’s a pro version of this theme available for $69. Interested in Flash? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Shapely If looks are deceiving, as the saying goes, then Shapely is a perfect example. On the surface, this free WordPress theme appears simplistic and, I hate to say it, doesn’t seem to have much going on in terms of features. But when you look beneath the surface, this versatile one page WordPress theme comes with a bunch of customization options, not to mention multiple homepage widgets that can be used to add portfolio, testimonials, parallax sections, product and service information, call to action button and much more. Related Posts WordPress Development for Intermediate Users: Theme Development in Detail WordPress Development for Beginners: Building Themes 10 Hottest Web Design Trends You Gotta Know for 2017 Shapely also supports most free and premium WordPress plugins, including like WooCommerce, Jetpack, Gravity Forms and Contact Form 7 – reassuring when you’re setting up a site that relies on some of these popular plugins. It’s obviously a multipurpose theme and with the right content and images is ideal for business, magazines, blogs and personal sites. Other features worth noting include that fact it’s responsive and SEO optimized, and mobile-friendly. Interested in Shapely? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Sydney Sydney is a slick business theme with a gorgeous fullscreen sliding (or static) header and nice touches like subtle animated text slide-ins and hover animations. This theme is a great option for businesses and offers plenty of customization options, including Google Fonts, unlimited color combinations, and sticky navigation. It’s super easy to set everything up using the WordPress Theme Customizer. The homepage uses “blocks,” which you can drag and drop and rearrange how you want it to look. You can also set parallax background images for any row of blocks, which is pretty cool. Like other contemporary themes, it’s responsive and translation-ready. Interested in Sydney? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Spirit Spirit is a high-end professional profile theme that features stunning imagery, clean typography and custom-built touches. Its ideals for personal trainers, yoga studios, wellness clinics, in fact, any business that focuses on healthy living. Spirit’s logical design helps you highlight your products and services with customizable CTAs, testimonials and pre-built pages. It also comes with lots of pre-built custom elements, like galleries and contact forms. It has a wonderful “coastal” color palette that is stunning, but you can change this up with your own collection of colors. It goes without saying that this theme is responsive and translation-ready (aren’t all themes these days?), and can be completely customized thanks to the Upfront theme platform the theme has been built on. Interested in Spirit? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Scribe Scribe is a beautiful artisanal theme for WordPress that is sophisticated and stylish. With Scribe, it’s all in the detail. Everything about this theme is custom from the stylish gallery to the font pairings, page templates, bold imagery, list layouts and textured backgrounds. This theme is ideal for small businesses that have an edge and want their online presence to match. Think Etsy-style shops that sell handcrafted jewelry, bookbinders, made-to-order leather bags and personalized stationary. Interested in Scribe? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Fixer From its colorful one-page layout to its wall-to-wall mega header slider and rainbow of colors, Fixer demands your attention – and is exactly the kind of bold online presence you need. This theme comes with all the standard features you need for your business and then some, including eye-catching CTAs, sliders, a sortable gallery, and custom page templates for your portfolio, blog, about and contact pages. But what I love most, though, is the easy to set up “Get a Quote” custom-built form – it looks really slick Other awesome features include the fact it’s translation-ready and responsive, and if you want to change up how this theme looks, it’s easy to add in full-width video, more sliders, fewer galleries, lots of images… This is a truly customizable theme only limited by your imagination. Interested in Fixer? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Zerif Lite With more than 100,000 active installs, Zerif Lite is one of the most popular free themes available for WordPress. And it’s easy to see why. Thanks to its minimalist design, versatile layout and plethora of customizations, this theme is easy to mould into whatever site you want. Built on BootStrap, it features a fullscreen header and support parallax backgrounds. It’s also compatible with WooCommerce, WPML for translation support, RTL (right to left). It also comes with the standard “must-haves” you would expect from any contemporary theme: it’s SEO-friendly, retina-ready and responsive. Interested in Zerif Lite? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Kale Whether you like this theme’s hipster namesake or not, there’s no denying this theme’s charm. Aesthetically, it’s gorgeous. The homepage features plenty of space to display posts but isn’t at all cluttered, making it perfect for bloggers, and in particular food bloggers (in case the demo images didn’t give it away!). Want to set up an online shop? Kale is a great choice. It supports WooCommerce, a super popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress, making it easy to sell your product (maybe a collection of recipes?) in no time. It’s responsive, of course, and when you look under the hood, it supports other important stuff, like SEO and RTL. Other cool features: built-in menus for displaying your social presence, multiple blog feed layouts, text and image logo options, sidebar size options (compact and default), banner/slider color overlay options, and more. Interested in Kale? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Spacious Minimalist multipurpose themes are a dime a dozen these days, but what I like about Spacious is that it sticks to the basics: it’s responsive, supports eCommerce (WooCommerce in particular), it’s translation-ready, and has a lovely sliding header. Spacious comes with a heap of customizations you can play around with, including four page layouts, two page templates, four blog display types, 13 widget areas, five custom widgets tailored for business websites, color options to match your branding, boxed and wide layouts, and light and dark skins. With the right images and content, this theme would be a great option for any business website. Interested in Spacious? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Writee Writee is a blogging theme, yes, but it makes its own rules. Borrowing from multipurpose themes, it features a large hero (slider, if you want) header, but also allows for a sidebar, which you don’t see all that often in themes these days. It comes with a heap of options for rich customizations, like a fullwidth or boxed header. It’s also translation-ready, which is super handy when most WordPress users speak English as a second language. There are also nice touches like custom widgets and, of course, you can use the Theme Customizer in the backend of WordPress to further customize the look and feel of your site. Other features: responsive and mobile-friendly. Oh, and check out the typography – it really helps make this theme stand out. Interested in Writee? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Illdy What I love about this BootStrap theme is the use of color. There isn’t a lot of color – a splash of yellow here, some purple there – but it’s used effectively to give this minimalist (there’s that word again!) theme some personality. Thanks to the Theme Customizer in WordPress, it’s super easy to customize this theme however you like – colors, hero images, tweaking sections, you name it. And also thanks to its one page layouts, it’s perfect for businesses, agencies and even personal websites. Like a lot of the free WordPress themes in this list, Illdy is compatible with WooCommerce and Font Awesome, and also supports popular plugins including Contact Form 7, Jetpack, and W3 Total Cache. Interested in Illdy? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Fluida Fluida is a modern and grid-based WordPress theme that is pretty darn nice! It’s a HTML5/CSS theme, it’s responsive and, thanks to its framework, comes with more than 100 Theme Customizer settings. Yep, that’s a lot of settings! The theme’s images have all been created using HTML5, CSS3 and icon fonts so it’s extremely fast to load. It’s also SEO, RTL and translation-ready, using microformats and Google readable Schema.org microdata. There are also 100+ social icons, three menus, six widget areas, eight page templates, and all post formats. For developers who want to further customize Fluida using a child theme, there’s clean code, either hookable or pluggable functions with clear descriptions and more than 25 action hooks. Interested in Fluida? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Parrot Parrot is a flexible tech-inspired business theme that’s perfect for helping you showcase your new product. Whether you’re preparing to release a new app, launching a new online service, or you just want to tell the world about a new WordPress plugin you’ve built, this themes includes everything you need to sell your stuff, including bold CTAs that are front-and-centre to help direct your visitors. Parrot’s clean navigation will ensure no visitor to your site is ever left scratching their head wondering where to find your products or services. Other fantastic features include pre-built pages for features and downloads, galleries, clean typography and full-width video. Interested in Parrot? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Panino Panino is a vibrant and colorful one-pager theme aimed at cafes and restaurants. It features a custom-built hand-crafted tabulated menu, which you can modify to suit your branding. If you have a constantly changing menu, making updates is a breeze – it only takes a minute to update your food and drinks. This theme comes with a custom-built image gallery and a cool lightbox for showing off your latest dishes or even photos of the inside of your restaurant – why not show off customers enjoying your food? The theme’s header is fully customizable, which is vital, of course, because first impressions count! Whether you want to set a single header image, a slider or even a video, you can do all of that with Panino. It’s also translation-ready and looks fantastic on mobile. Interested in Panino? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Edge Smart typography choices can really make a theme, and Edge is no exception. This gorgeous theme makes the most of free Google Fonts, in particular Lato and Playfair Display, a great sans serif/serif combination. Edge is easily customizable from the aptly named Theme Customizer in WordPress and is ideal for bloggers (with the sidebar) and businesses (without the sidebar and some homepage tweaking). It’s also responsive, mobile-friendly, and optimized for speed. Interested in Edge? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Anissa Another gorgeous WordPress theme that’s completely free. Seriously, the standard of themes in the WordPress.org repository has really lifted over the past couple of years! Anissa is a theme for bloggers, and particularly female bloggers with its (cliche, I hate to say it!) feminine styling and elegant typography. It features a customer image header with text and you can upload your own logo to match. This theme also has a featured post carousel, which allows you to choose the category you want to use and the number of posts to display. Other nice touches include an “About Me” widget that allows you to add a photo and social media link, and you can add social links to the header. Other important features worth noting: responsive design, mobile-friendly, WooCommerce compatible Interested in Anissa? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Brilliant This beautiful magazine and blogging theme for WordPress sure has style. Brilliant features a fixed width homepage where you can feature your latest blog posts. There’s also a customizable sidebar for displaying comments, categories, and recent posts. In fact, everything is customizable in this theme (as it should be!) thanks to the Theme Customizer in the WordPress admin, so you can change colors, the header, widgets in the footer and more to suit your branding and style. Yes, it’s a pretty simple theme, but if you’re looking for a no-nonsense theme to show off your words, and you’re not planning on opening an online store, then you can’t go wrong with this theme. Interested in Brilliant? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Optimizer I must admit, I got distracted looking at the preset templates for this theme. Dang, they’re gorgeous! But I digress… Optimizer is a fantastic multipurpose theme that comes with a whole lotta powerful features, including the ability to create a full blown site with drag and drop widgets, enabling you to add any type of content anywhere on your site without touching code. Customizations include: fullwidth and boxed layout options, image slider, easy logo upload, 600+ fonts, the ability to add custom CSS, and unlimited color options. It’s responsive, SEO-friendly, optimized for mobile, retina and translation-ready. This theme also supports WooCommerce, bbPress, MailChimp, and Contact Form 7. Interested in Optimizer? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Shop Isle With its stunning fullscreen header, Shop Isle is a bold eCommerce/BootStrap theme designed for WooCommerce stores. It’s pretty flexible, too – you can use it as a one page business site, and make customizations to take advantage of features like parallax. This theme also provides support for WPML for language translation, Photo Gallery grid, Contact Form 7, Meta Slider, SiteOrigin Page Builder and Jetpack. It’s also SEO friendly and responsive. Shop Isle is also easy to tweak using the Theme Customizer in WordPress, so you can update fonts, colors, logos, social links and the theme layout. Interested in Shop Isle? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Olsen Light Olsen is a straight up blogging theme for WordPress and features a traditional blog posts on the left and sidebar on the right design. It features all the usual trimmings you’ll find in contemporary themes: custom widgets, social networking icons, and translation support and SEO support. It’s also completely customizable from the Theme Customizer in WordPress, so you can update the header, menus, layout, footer, and colors. Interested in Olsen Light? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Teletype Teletype is a minimalist blogging theme built on BootStrap. It comes with a lovely masonry post layout and you can drag and drop to re-order sections on the homepage, which is pretty cool. Features includes the ability to completely customize the homepage, including fonts (Google Fonts), colors, the header image, background colors, logo, social media icons and more. You can also turn the sidebar on and off, depending on your design preference. This theme is also translation ready. Interested in Teletype? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Sensible WP Sensible WP is yet another responsive multipurpose theme. It’s pretty basic as far as multipurpose themes go and doesn’t offer WooCommerce support, so this theme is better suited to agencies and small businesses that don’t have plans to sell online. As far as customizations go, you can control all the usual tweaks in the Theme Customizer, including colors, fonts, logo, and more. This theme also comes with XML demo content, which is handy for those who don’t like setting up a skeleton website. It’s also SEO and translation-friendly. Interested in Sensible WP? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Eleganto Despite its name, Eleganto is neither graceful or stylish, but it does have a slick design suited for businesses. The homepage is easily customizable and features cool animations and a assymetrical parallax effects, which you don’t see very often. This theme is built on BootStrap and is responsive, SEO-friendly and translation-ready. Customizations include: unlimited color options, social links, parallax background effects, five portfolio animations, more than 100 theme options, custom background, sticky menu, left or/and right sidebars with five size options, slider, section carousel, testimonials carousel, blog section, and contact section with Contact Form 7 support. Eleganto is also WooCommerce compatible. Interested in Eleganto? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Luke + Sara Whether you’re a wedding photographer, an artist or just love getting creative, share your work and sell your services with Luke + Sara’s modern design, full-width videos (including video header), and stunning image galleries. This theme’s huge images steal the focus, thanks to Luke + Sara’s boxy image layouts, masonry portfolio, and mega sliders – all designed to show off your best work. If you’re a business owner and looking to sell your wares, don’t miss this theme’s pre-built pricing page and table that will give visitors your site a quick overview of your services and prices. Luke + Sara is also responsive and translation-ready. Interested in Luke + Sara? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Astrid This elegant WordPress theme is a delight to use thanks to its easy customization on the backend and stylish design on the front-end. Astrid features all the standard trimmings you would expect from any theme: customizable header, theme options via the Theme Customizer, and support for translations. The theme is also responsive, which is fairly standards for all new themes these days. Astrid features a lovely hard header and clear CTA on the homepage, which is ideal for business websites. It’s also WooCommerce compatible if you’re looking for a simple, minimalist store theme. Other nice touches: smooth scrolling and subtle animations. Interested in Astrid? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Hemingway I’m a big fan of Anders Norén’s themes minimalist WordPress themes and Hemingway is no exception. This simple theme is perfect for bloggers with its fullwidth header and standard blog posts on the left and sidebar on the right design. What I like about this theme is that, like Ernest Hemingway it’s namesake, it’s not trying to be flashy or over the top – the design shines through its economical design. Features include: responsive design, parallax scrolling, custom accent colors, custom logo, and widgets for Video, Flickr and Dribbble. there are also some nice page templates, and the code is translation-ready. Interested in Hemingway? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Hoffman Another Anders Norén design, Hoffman is a beautifully minimal one page WordPress theme for bloggers. It has a thoughtful responsive design and the use of icon fonts makes sure that Hoffman looks great on devices of all sizes – big and small. This theme supports the gallery, quote and video post formats, all presented in unique and impactful ways. Standard run-of-the-mill posts look great as well. It comes with built-in support for the Jetpack plugin’s infinite scroll function and tiled gallery. Hoffman includes five custom widgets for recent posts with thumbnails, recent comments with avatars, Flickr, Dribbble and video. You can also customize it further by changing the accent color, switching the background color or adding a background image. It also includes two page templates, support for post editor styles and support for theme translation. Included translations: Swedish/svenska. Interested in Hoffman? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Lovecraft And another Anders Norén-designed WordPress theme! Lovecraft is a beautiful two-column WordPress theme for bloggers. It features a two-column design with considered typography choices – it really is a joy to read. The big header image makes a striking first impression and is replaced with the post thumbnail on single posts and pages. Lovecraft has built-in support for Jetpacks Infinite Scroll function, which means that new posts will be loaded as soon as you reach the bottom of the page. You can also use the Jetpack Tiled Galleries function to display posts in a beautiful masonry grid. This theme is built to scale gracefully to any and all screen sizes – from a 27″ desktop display to a 3.5″ smartphone. The navigation and search form is hidden behind easy-to-access toggles on mobile. It also features editor styles, a full-width page template, three custom widgets and translation-ready code. Interested in Lovecraft? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Fukasawa Okay, one last Anders Norén-designed WordPress theme. Fukasawa is a minimal masonry blog theme for photographers and collectors. Fukasawa features a beautifully minimal layout that displays your posts, images and videos in a Pinterest-style grid. It’s perfect for sharing your content and, in particular, your images. There’s support for the image, video and gallery formats, and presents your galleries in a beautiful slideshow above your posts. Regular old posts look great as well. Like other Anders Norén themes, Fukasawa enables you to load new posts without reloading the page using Jetpack’s Infinite Scroll feature, and display your images in a beautiful grid with Jetpack Tiles Galleries. You can also change the accent color, upload your own logo and use the sidebar widget area (including five custom widgets) to give Fukasawa a personal touch. Interested in Fukasawa? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Gillie Gillie is an elegant business theme designed for YouTuber who want to grow their following. It includes all the key elements you need to share tutorials, course materials and make your passion a fully-fledged business. Build your user base with slider CTA overlays, testimonials, eye-catching imagery, free downloads and easy access to your channel. Scattered image placement, testimonials, and promotional text make your home page feel more like an invitation than a sales pitch. Expand your reach and create a new stream of income with a dedicated site for building your user base. There are pre-styled MarketPress and WooCommerce page layouts that enabled you to get a shop up and running without any customization, so you can start selling everything from downloadable sheet music to physical copies of your latest album. Interested in Gillie? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Issue This magazine-style design is ideal for taking your print publication to a digital audience. Issue will make it easy for your subscribers to find articles that match their interests thanks to its strong use of typography, image buttons and simple search, giving readers quick access to blog posts and articles. Issue includes space for advertisement strategically placed throughout the site. Run a special, promote a local business and generate additional income. The included contact page provides a simple way for users to get in touch. The big interactive Google map, built-in contact form and stylish social icons are both visually appealing and functional. Interested in Issue? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Make Make is a free open source builder theme that – according to its developers – has been refined over 5,198 times. Okay, that’s a lot of development time, but what makes it special? Its biggest feature is its intuitive Make Layout Engine, which is basically a page builder for WordPress. It’s designed to work like a native component of the WordPress page editor, so if you feel comfortable writing a post, it won’t be much of a learning curve getting used to building pages. You can take care of all customizations using the Theme Customizer in WordPress. Every detail, big or small, is yours to customize, including fonts, line height, spacing, even word spacing. Make is WooCommerce compatible, so if your plan is to build an online shop you won’t have any trouble selling physical products. If you want to sell digital goods, Make is compatible with Easy Digital Downloads. And if you want to add forms to your site, simply drop in Gravity Forms. This theme is also responsive, SEO-friendly and retina-ready. Interested in Make? DETAILSDEMODOWNLOAD Seriously, when did the standard of free themes in the WordPress Theme Directory suddenly get so good? This list is a collection of our favorites. If you have a favorite that we missed, share the link below in the comments! Raelene Morey: View a list of posts by this author. Rae is the managing editor at WPMU DEV. When she’s not picking apart other people’s words or working on websites, she enjoys brunch, biking and bushwalking. Fancy some more reading? READ ARTICLE WORDPRESS DEVELOPMENT FOR INTERMEDIATE USERS: THEME DEVELOPMENT IN DETAIL READ ARTICLE WORDPRESS DEVELOPMENT FOR BEGINNERS: BUILDING THEMES READ ARTICLE 10 HOTTEST WEB DESIGN TRENDS YOU GOTTA KNOW FOR 2017 Or how about trying out our plugins and themes for free? Try (and keep) all WPMU DEV plugins, themes, services and full 24/7 support, free for an entire month - no catch! SPIRIT A professionally crafted, high-end portfolio theme with a fresh, natur LEARN MORE FIXER A flat and vibrant business theme for selling your services and standi LEARN MORE PANINO A friendly one-pager theme inspired by the delicious coffee, tasty foo LEARN MORE LUKE + SARA Let your images speak for themselves with Luke + Sara, a contemporary LEARN MORE 4 Responses Youri Regular Joe: Earn your WPMU DEV membership 51 pts: Hero points 7 pts: Rep. points LEVEL 0 Very useful post but I think you miss one of the best free themes with a pro version; GeneratePress. It’s super fast, clean code and for just $ 39,95 you can use it on unlimited sites with almost customizing every pixel. I use it on 45+ websites now :-) May 15, 2017, 5:19 pmMay 15, 2017, 5:19 pm: Link to comment Log in to Reply Click to visit Google Plus profile Click to visit Twitter profile Raelene Morey Author: Earn your WPMU DEV membership 9 pts: Hero points 644 pts: Rep. points LEVEL 6 Cool, I’ll check it out :) May 16, 2017, 2:36 amMay 16, 2017, 2:36 am: Link to comment Log in to Reply Tony Site Builder, Child of Zeus: Earn your WPMU DEV membership 242 pts: Hero points 233 pts: Rep. points LEVEL 4 I’ve recently had to look through themes for three completely different types of businesses. One site is for a café, another for custom jewelry, another for software. There are themes slightly targeted to these “vertical” applications. (Note the awesome evolution of WP here where blogging is now just a feature, not the primary application.) The more time I spend looking at themes the more I’m able to differentiate them based on immediate suitability for the application, ease of use, customizability without getting into code, and basic functionality. Some free themes are really just a tease for an up-sell. Others are so good that I feel like paying the developer, even for their free theme, just so they don’t lose interest in their work. My approach is to install a theme, spend about 30 minutes in the Customizer, and see what it takes to modify the home page, a single post page, and the various widgets and menus. If it’s not feeling good in 30 minutes then it gets uninstalled. And for me that’s really at the heart of all of this. I no longer look for great themes. I look for themes that serve the immediate purpose adequately. Theme developers get bored. They move on to the next fun project. They don’t want to look back and maintain what they’ve already created. WP changes frequently and developers are looking to create new themes, not to retrofit existing ones. So, as much fun as it is to look for great themes, the reality is that “good enough” is acceptable. We shouldn’t spend too much time looking for “great”, because we’re going to have to do this at least once per year if we’re going to keep a site fresh and functional. There is a never-ending stream of “high quality themes for 2014/15/16/17/+..”. It does help to look for consistent developers who produce a new good theme with each new WP update. In business terms, getting a completely new theme from a new developer is going to cost time=money. Developers come and go so (unfortunately) if you’re doing this for a living it probably makes good sense to align yourself with a single theme publisher where there is more than one developer. This helps to get the consistency of the vendor, not the individual. I’m really sorry WPMU DEV, but I recently spent a lot of time with Upfront/Parrot and was not impressed. This is at least the third time that I’ve given this parent theme an opportunity for a new site. It failed in many ways when editing individual pages, and was frustrating and inadequate to create a common multi-page site. I absolutely will not install Upfront or related child themes for at least another year. Perhaps by then you’ll have worked out the multitude of usability issues and overall inadequacies. Please don’t ask what the problems were. I started to document the issues in my 30 minute re-review but after spending 2+ hours with more note taking about problems than progress on a web page I decided my time needed to be redirected to current efforts rather than doing QA for someone else’s theme. And that’s precisely my point about theme selection and these frequent reviews of current themes. If you spend too much time fighting with a theme, chuck it and go for something else. Our task is to create websites, not to debug other people’s software. There are plenty of themes to choose from. Don’t waste time=money on themes that might look great and have a lot of nice features, but they’re a pain to use. Add that to your criteria for choosing a theme for your next project.

Theme shops have changed the game, lifting the standard of themes you’ll find in the free repository with free versions of their products. And these free versions come complete with features you would have previously only found in premium themes like WooCommerce support and responsive design. Gone are the days when downloading a free theme meant settling for a subpar theme. Now you can – and should – expect a well-coded theme that’s completely customizable using the Theme Customizer. Here’s our list of the some of the best free WordPress themes you’ll find in the WordPress Theme Directory that have been developed by premium theme shops, plus a few released by independent theme developers. Flash Flash is a good-looking multipurpose theme with a minimalist aesthetic – ideal for business and corporate sites. It features multiple pre-built demos, which you can import in seconds using the ThemeGrill Demo Importer plugin. The theme also integrates with the Flash Toolkit ...

10 Quickie Tips and Tricks To Massively Increase Your Blog Traffic

Blogging is not hard, keeping up is. You can write anything, it’s your blog but when it comes to traffic, the ball moves to your audience’s court. If you want your blog to be flooded with traffic, you need to get into action now. Here are some of the best actionable tips and tricks to drive huge traffic to your blog. If you think writing awesome content alone is important to get readers glued, let me tell you, your content will be called “ awesome ” only when people read it and that is why this post on how to get those people to read your blog is crucial. So read mindfully. When it comes to increasing blog traffic there are millions of creative ways to increase blog traffic . And I am here to show you some sure shot methods to get the ball rolling. At the end of each point, I will point out some awesome actionable tips which will help you double or triple your traffic. 1) Let Alexa bring you traffic: We all bloggers are well aware of Alexa. Alexa ranking is measured...

30 Best Blogging Tips

30 Best Blogging Tips – Take Your Blog from Zero to Hero Incredible Blogging Tips – Take Your Blog from Zero to Hero You are new to Blogging. Or you already have a blog, but not sure how to make money out of it. Or maybe you are making decent money online but want to take your blog to the next level. I could help you! If you want to take your blog from Zero to Hero, I have some incredible blogging tips for you. All the blogging tips mentioned here come from 7 years of my blogging experience so make sure to read carefully and implement them for best results. I have divided this guide into 3 sections: Beginners, Intermediate and Advanced bloggers. You can read this guide according to your needs. Shall we begin? Beginners Intermediate Advanced Before starting out, think about how to monetize your blog Stand out from the crowd Write in-depth articles Write lots of posts… for others Build some authority It’...