Over the years, I’ve built a wide range of WordPress websites and worked with some of the top WordPress themes throughout the process. Typically, I begin by creating custom mock-ups (using Figma) during the design phase to ensure the site reflects the client’s branding and goals perfectly. When it comes to development, using the right WordPress theme often makes the most sense, as it provides a strong foundation while also allowing clients to easily update content and manage pages themselves moving forward – unless they have contracted me to do this for them.
When choosing between the many great WordPress themes available today, I find that a lot of people choose based on aesthetics, but in reality, it impacts far more than just appearance. The right theme can improve loading speeds, enhance SEO performance, create a smoother user experience and make your website far easier to manage long-term. The right theme also depends on the type of website you are planning on launching; for example, I currently co-run Seen in the City with Natasha (who writes a lot of the content for our clients and does their professional photography), and we built that using the Newspaper Theme, whereas one of our clients’ restaurants is based on the Avada theme.
In other words, more often than not, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. The best theme depends on your goals, the functionality you need and how much flexibility you want moving forward. But as a whole, I do find myself using a few different WordPress themes more than others.
Below, I’ve put together some of the top WordPress themes to consider for your next website.
Avada
Avada is probably one of the top WordPress themes I’ve worked with the most over the years, particularly for business websites. One of the biggest reasons I continue to use it is its flexibility. Whether I’m creating a restaurant website, a professional services site or something more visually driven, Avada gives me a huge amount of control over the final design without needing to completely custom-build everything from scratch – Mash Vision is built using Avada.
It comes with a wide range of layout and styling options, making it easy to create websites that feel bespoke and aligned with my client’s branding. I also find it particularly useful for clients who want the ability to make edits and update sections of the site themselves after launch, as the backend is relatively user-friendly once set up correctly.
Another reason Avada remains popular is the sheer amount of functionality included within the theme itself. Features such as sliders, galleries, forms and layout builders are often built in, which can reduce the need for excessive third-party plugins and help simplify website management. That said, because Avada is such a feature-rich theme, it’s important to ensure it’s properly optimised during development. When built correctly, however, it can be an excellent long-term solution for businesses wanting a professional, scalable and highly customisable website.
Newspaper
Newspaper is the theme I chose for Seen in the City, and for content-heavy websites, online magazines or personal blogs, it’s a really nice theme to work with and has a lot of functionality in it. When building a website that regularly publishes articles, interviews, travel features or lifestyle content, organisation and readability become incredibly important. Newspaper is specifically designed with publishers in mind, making it far easier to structure large volumes of content while still maintaining a polished, modern look.
One of the things I particularly like about the theme is how flexible it is from a design perspective. It allows you to create visually engaging category pages, featured article sections and homepage layouts without everything feeling too rigid or templated. This is especially useful for brands wanting an editorial-style website that still feels unique to them.
From a practical point of view, it also performs well when handling large amounts of content and media, which is essential for websites like Seen in the City where photography and regular publishing are a huge part of the site.
Elementor
Elementor is less of a traditional WordPress theme and more of a website builder, but it’s something I use regularly across a lot of projects because of the level of flexibility it offers. In many cases, I’ll pair Elementor with lightweight themes such as Hello Elementor or Astra to create highly customised websites without needing to code every section from scratch. I’ve recently been updating some of the Caribbean.co.uk website, which is using Elementor.
One of the biggest advantages of Elementor is how visual and intuitive it is to work with. It allows me to design pages almost exactly as they were originally mocked up, which is incredibly useful as I often go through a design phase before moving to website build. From custom landing pages and service sections to animations and mobile responsiveness, Elementor gives a huge amount of creative control.
It’s also extremely useful for clients who want to make their own updates after launch. Once the site has been properly set up, editing text, images and layouts becomes relatively straightforward, even for users without technical experience.
That said, like many page builders, Elementor needs to be used correctly. If too many plugins or unnecessary features are added, websites can become bloated and slower over time. But when optimised properly, Elementor can be an excellent solution for businesses wanting a modern, visually polished and flexible website.
Divi
Divi is another WordPress theme and builder combination I’ve worked with on a number of projects over the years. It’s particularly popular with businesses wanting a highly customised website without going fully custom-coded, as it offers a huge amount of flexibility from both a design and functionality perspective.
Recently, they’ve upgraded to Divi 5, which has focused heavily on improving performance, scalability and the overall editing experience. One of the criticisms of older versions of Divi was that websites could sometimes feel slightly bloated if not built correctly, but Divi 5 appears to be addressing a lot of those concerns with a much cleaner and faster framework.
One of the things I like most about Divi is the visual builder. It allows pages to be designed and edited directly on the front end of the website, making it much easier to experiment with layouts, spacing and design elements in real time. For brands wanting something visually unique, this can be a major advantage. Divi also comes with a large library of pre-built templates and modules, which can help speed up development while still allowing the final website to feel bespoke.
Astra
Astra is one of the top WordPress themes for businesses wanting a lightweight, fast-loading and highly flexible website. One of the biggest advantages of Astra is how lightweight it is compared to some larger multi-purpose themes. This helps improve loading speeds and overall website performance, which is incredibly important for both user experience and search engine rankings.
It also works particularly well alongside builders such as Elementor (which I mentioned above), making it a great option for creating custom-designed websites without sacrificing speed or flexibility. From service-based businesses and ecommerce stores to portfolios and blogs, Astra is versatile enough to work across a wide range of industries.
Another reason Astra remains one of the great WordPress themes is its ease of use. Clients are able to update pages, images and content relatively easily once the website is complete, which is ideal for businesses wanting more control over their site moving forward.
BeTheme
BeTheme market themselves as the ultimate website builder for WordPress & WooCommerce, and in many ways I agree, as the theme is extremely powerful. It has its own builder called the BeBuilder, which allows you to do a lot of customisation to your website – I find clients generally find it easy to use
Another thing I think a lot of people like about BeTheme is the fact it’s got a lot of pre-built websites and layouts that you can use, which, if you aren’t experienced in design, can be very useful. You can create a restaurant site, a business website, a health and beauty website, a magazine, a products-based business and more. If you are planning to scale your business (which I imagine is one of your goals), it’s perfect for that as well – mainly because, as a theme, it is very feature-rich, which is why it’s known as one of the top WordPress themes by a lot of people.
The WordPress theme is currently $60, which I actually think offers good value considering the amount of functionality, layouts and customisation options included within the theme. It’s a fairly similar price to Avada, both of which you can purchase from Themeforest.
Final Thoughts
There are countless WordPress themes available today, but finding the right one ultimately depends on the type of website you are building, the functionality you need and your long-term goals for the business. Over the years, I’ve worked with a range of great WordPress themes, and each offers different strengths depending on the project.
At the end of the day, a website should do more than simply look good. The right WordPress theme can improve loading speeds, support SEO performance, enhance user experience and make your website far easier to manage as your business grows.
Looking for someone to create you a website?
If you’re planning on launching a new website or redesigning an existing one, I’d love to hear more about your plans. You can see more of my WordPress websites and feel free to get in touch if you have any questions at all.
