WordPress is the most popular content management system in the world. As of January 2024, WordPress powers more than 43% of all websites and 63% of all known cms. WordPress became so huge because it is free, open-source, and easy to use. The demand for WordPress websites is rising, and so is the ecosystem behind WordPress. There are more than 11,000 free themes to choose from in the WordPress repository and more than 12,000 premium themes available at Theme Forest. Needless to say, it is hard to choose between such a huge number of themes, because one simply does not have the time to check all of them. In the WordPress world, the site’s theme is extremely important, because it defines the website’s look and feel. At the same time, a huge number of these themes are dated and not adequate to modern high standards, yet the demand for modern and feature-rich themes to engage audiences effectively is higher than ever. In this article, we have carefully hand-picked for you the best free WordPress themes to choose from when starting a news or blog website.
News Portal
News Portal is a beautiful and highly customizable magazine and news theme by Mystery Themes with creative design and robust features that allow you to quickly and easily create a design that suits your needs. It is completely built with the theme customizer which allows you to customize most of the theme settings easily with live previews. It is heavily widgetized, which enables users without a technical background to manage the website with ease. Plus, it includes a user-friendly wizard that will allow you to import one-click demo content with a single click. News Portal Theme is a great choice if you want to create a beautiful news/magazine/blog website with ease.
Metro Magazine
Metro Magazine is a resourceful, highly customizable, easy-to-use, user-friendly, and reliable WordPress magazine theme. It comes with a sleek and responsive layout design fit for displaying high-quality content and visuals. This is a very versatile and highly customizable theme that is capable of adapting to various types of magazines without writing any code.
If you decide to upgrade to Metro Magazine Pro, you will get access to unlimited customization options, beautiful predefined layouts, as well as premium support and updates.
Newspiper
Newspiper is a minimalist and lightweight WordPress theme, specifically tailored to make your content stand out from the crowd. It is perfect for news, magazines, and blogs. It is highly customizable and easy to adapt to any design thanks to its generous theme options. You will be surprised by the options that this free theme provides. Users with no coding experience will not have any problems setting it up thanks to its extensive documentation and video guide. Newspiper also includes 10 pre-built block patterns for an easier start with the theme. It displays content promotion materials, e.g. affiliate programs or Google AdSense in a simple and natural way. The theme also provides smooth integration and 100% compatibility with all the plugins you may ever need to run a successful news website, e.g. put your content behind a paywall, handle subscriptions with Paid Memberships pro, or build an extensive mail list, and start a newsletter with MC4WP. Compatibility with E-commerce and popular page builders is also fully guaranteed. Adding social icons in the header or footer, advertisement banners, or promotion material, everything happens in a natural and easy-going way. Last but not least, the theme has a built-in option that allows readers to switch between light and dark theme modes, which may save energy and put less strain on your readers’ eyes during nighttime.
Ogma News
Ogma News is a highly versatile and user-friendly theme WordPress theme, specially targeted for news websites, online magazines, and blogs. It is simple to use and straightforward to set up thanks to its powerful demo import wizard tool. Users can choose between different Google fonts, and they can easily change the colors of almost all HTML elements without writing a single line of code. The theme has 8 Widget areas, including one sticky sidebar enabled from the primary header. Ogma News has all the necessary features to start a news or blog website and if you decide you want to add an online shop to your website, you are at the right place – the authors at Mystery themes guarantee 100% WooCommerce Compatibility. The theme provides RTL layout support, as well as support for Gutenberg and Elementor. A serious effort has been made to make this theme optimized for search engines like Google. Last but not least, the theme has a dark mode widget that lets users switch between day and night modes.
Editorial News Agency
The Editorial News Agency template is a theme specifically designed for news agencies, online magazines, and editorial websites. It is an excellent solution for creating a thriving editorial agency or news website. It has a sleek design and provides a robust platform for presenting news articles, opinion pieces, and various forms of journalistic content in an appealing and immersive manner.
One of the best things about this theme is its versatility. It offers multiple layout options, allowing you to select the most suitable design for your website. Whether you prefer a classic newspaper-style layout or a more contemporary grid-based approach, this theme offers options to accommodate your preferences. Additionally, the theme provides numerous customization choices, enabling you to tailor the appearance and style of your site to align with your brand.
Walker News Template
For the braver ones, who do not care about backward compatibility and want to dive into the world of WordPress Block themes, Walker News Template is a good choice. It is made for blogs, news sites, and magazines and features free block patterns, custom block styles, and different typography options. For an easier start with the theme, after you install the recommended plugins, it has an option to import demo content.
Bright News
Bright News is a user-friendly WordPress theme specially designed for news, magazines, blogs, and online publishers. The theme stands out thanks to its intuitive and flexible layout, diverse blog settings, and primary color options that allow for easy customization. It is optimized for SEO, ensuring better search engine visibility. The theme is also mobile-friendly and responsive and works well across different devices. The theme is a good choice for small and medium business owners or independent publishers with little budget who want to manage their content independently. No coding skills are needed to set up a site with Bright News.
News Press Release
News Press Release is specifically designed for news agencies, media professionals, journalists, and other specialists in the media sector. Its main purpose is to offer an organized and engaging platform for news, articles, press releases, etc., enhancing the overall user experience. The theme is perfect for those seeking timely and reliable information online. The theme exhibits a clean and professional-looking design that helps content and visuals stand out. Its layout effectively highlights breaking news, feature articles, press releases, and multimedia content. The typography and color choices are carefully hand-picked to ensure a comfortable reading experience on various devices and screen sizes. This theme is the ideal choice for a wide range of users in the news and media industry, including traditional newspapers, online news platforms, PR firms, and individual journalists. Administrators can easily customize the theme to match their brand identity while maintaining an organized and engaging presentation of the theme’s content. One of the key advantages of the News Press Release WordPress theme is its gorgeous design that puts a strong emphasis on content. In this way, the reading experience becomes a pleasant and effortless experience.
NewsVista
NewsVista is a bold WordPress theme for news and magazine websites. It features a custom homepage template, footer progress bar and has custom customizer controls for better user experience. The theme is also constantly being updated and improved, which shows the author’s determination and ensures that users are not left behind.
Valid News
Valid News is a stylish WordPress news and magazine theme. The theme has a sleek and versatile design, and it is a perfect fit for a wide range of creative online platforms, such as news portals, press journals, digital journals, and gaming magazines. The theme provides user-friendly features like pre-built templates, customizable widgets, and real-time customization via the WordPress interface, simplifying the process of setting up the theme. Even customers with little coding or programming experience will be able to set it up. The theme is also optimized for SEO, giving you an important edge, while you focus on creating high-quality content.
Conclusion: Choosing the right WordPress theme for your news website is crucial to capturing and retaining your audience’s attention in modern times. The themes mentioned above offer a blend of modern design, functionality, and customization options, making them top choices for news website creators. When choosing a theme, you always need to consider the specific needs of your business, such as content type and audience. With the right theme and compelling content, your news website can thrive and stand out in the competitive online news landscape.
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