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In this lesson, we cover some of the key points that are important to understand about how your site and themes work. While we can’t cover all the possibilities themes provide, we do share how to explore them.
A theme in WordPress sets the overall design parameters of your website. It’s responsible for the visual style, encompassing elements like color palettes, font styles, and the initial layout. While a theme governs how your content is presented to viewers, it’s different from a template which directly controls the arrangement of content on individual pages. Themes ensure a consistent and harmonious appearance across your entire site, providing a cohesive look and feel.
Using a theme offers a foundational basis for your site’s appearance, enabling you to quickly establish a professional look without starting from scratch. This way, once you’ve chosen a theme that aligns with your vision, you can focus more on content creation and less on intricate design decisions. Remember, themes are about the overall aesthetic and functional framework of your site, while templates handle the specific layout of content within that framework.
A well-crafted theme simplifies the entire creation process for you!
Note:
Themes and templates serve two different functions of your website. We highly recommend reviewing the Templates Explained lesson as well.
While there are thousands of WordPress themes available, WordPress.com offers a dedicated theme showcase that provides themes created by our in-house theme developers. The WordPress.com themes are fully supported by our Happiness Engineers and are tiered based on your hosting plan. No special installation is required, you simply activate your theme of choice based on availability for your hosting plan.
Within the WordPress.com theme showcase you’ll also find our Partner themes (who are theme developers that we collaborate with and help to support), and the full range of Community themes from the WordPress.org showcase↗︎. It’s also possible to install third-party themes from external sources. Installing Partner, Community, or third party themes requires a plugin enabled WordPress.com hosting plan. Support for Community or third party themes comes solely from the theme developers.
It’s worth noting that many Community and external third party themes are more complicated to work with and have a bigger learning curve than the themes provided by WordPress.com. Learning how to use a third party theme requires reviewing the documentation provided by the theme developer.
Regardless of where you get a theme from, all themes fall into one of two categories: Classic or Block.
As mentioned above, the primary purpose of a theme is to provide the overall aesthetic and functional framework of your site. But this means slightly different things between a Classic and Block theme.
Classic themes are more of an out-of-the-box experience. What you see is what you get. They have very specific features, some have special functionality built-in to them, and they provide a predefined set of theme options. The only ways to customize Classic themes beyond the settings they provide is with custom coding or the addition of plugins. Each Classic theme is unique and some aspects may be limited, and the theme fully controls both the aesthetics and the templates used as the infrastructure for your site. It’s a complex process to try to modify one Classic theme to be similar to a different one, and often isn’t entirely possible.
For example, a Classic theme might offer a sidebar area only on the right and you can’t move it to the left (without custom coding). If one Classic theme offers a header widget area and you switch to a different Classic theme that doesn’t have this header widget area, you’ll have to move your widgets to a different location. Whatever structural layout a Classic theme offers for your pages template is the structure you have to work with, you can’t easily rearrange components such as the pieces in your header. Even hiding page or post titles often requires custom CSS.
Block themes split the aesthetics and templates into separate components, giving you greater control over the infrastructure of your site. Block themes come with variety, but that variety is more focused on the aesthetics — the colors, fonts, spacing, and defaults. When a Block theme is activated it introduces a new section called the Site Editor. This is where you’re able to access the templates and fully control the infrastructure of your site. The Site Editor also offers more options and control over the aesthetic styles and defaults than what Classic themes offer. See our Site Editor lesson to learn more.
Instead of limited widget areas, Block themes allow you to use blocks anywhere at all within the site. You create sidebars using the Columns block. The page or post title is a block you can add or remove as desired. Your header area can be set up with any layout you want.
While custom coding and plugins can be used to enhance Block themes, they are often not necessary due to the extensive customization options already available. It is possible to fully customize any Block theme to replicate the look of any other Block theme without any coding.
Though Classic themes sometimes have more unique features built-in to them, Block themes offer more customization controls overall.
The bolded terms used above are further defined in the accordion blocks below.
Where to find themes:
Custom themes
Often these are themes you’ve contracted a web developer to build for you. They may fall into one of the categories below as well, but they’re often unique in various aspects. All support for a custom theme will come directly from the developer who built it and WordPress.com can’t fix bugs or errors that occur within these themes. They also require a WordPress.com plan upgrade that will allow you to install themes.
Third party themes
This is a term often used within the WordPress.com ecosystem. Third-party themes are any themes that aren’t built by Automattic. They include our Partner themes, the WordPress.org Community themes, and any theme acquired from an external source.
Third party themes also require a WordPress.com plan upgrade that will allow you to install themes, and the support comes from the developers who create them. This includes free or paid themes that are downloaded from external websites, the WordPress.org Community themes↗︎, and WordPress.com Partner themes.
It’s a good idea to view the theme’s info page for details on where the support for any given theme comes from. If a theme is made by “Automattic” then our Happiness Engineers can help. If it’s a partner theme or lists another designer then you would want to reach out to them directly.
WordPress.com themes
These are the themes that you’ll find in the WordPress.com showcase found under Appearance > Themes↗︎ in the left sidebar of your admin Dashboard and that have the author of “Automattic”. These are themes that our in-house developers are continually working on, and we’re able to provide support for these themes if there is a bug or problem with them.
Two categories of themes:
Block themes (aka Full Site Editing (FSE) themes)
- Fully compatible with the Block Editor and the Site Editor.
- Under Appearance there is a link to “Editor”.
- Are best used when the Site Editor is being fully embraced.
- Provide full control over the templates separate from the aesthetics.
- Are configured to use the Default Homepage (not a Custom Homepage).
- Do not require use of the Customizer.
- Installed plugins may still utilize the Customizer for configurations and settings.
- Do not have (or need) access to widgets.
- Manage menus through the Site Editor using the Navigation block.
- Have a “Preview & Customize” option that opens the Site Editor.
- Can be searched for with the filter of “Full Site Editing↗︎” (which will include Universal* themes near the bottom of the search results).
- Block themes are becoming the standard theme type and the majority of the materials provided in our learning hub focus on these themes.
*Version 1 of the Block themes are called Universal themes, while mostly similar to regular Block themes, the primary difference is that they still offer access for some menu management in the Customizer. (Note: these menus only partially communicate with the Site Editor and Navigation block and it’s best to default to using the Navigation block in the Site Editor for these themes.) These themes are also configured to use a Custom Homepage instead of the Default Homepage. These themes are gradually being phased out.
Classic themes
- Use the Customizer for most site-wide visual changes.
- Provide more options in the Customizer than other types of themes.
- Are adapted to work with the Block Editor, but might have some feature gaps for various Blocks.
- Are not compatible with the Site Editor.
- Under Appearance there is no link to “Editor”.
- Have access to widgets and may include sidebar and/or footer widget areas.
- Often include unique features and options that are specific to the particular theme.
- Control both the aesthetics and the templates of your site.
- Manage menus through the Customizer.
- Have a “Try & Customize” option that opens the Customizer.
- Can be searched for with the filter of “Classic Theme↗︎”
- Classic themes are gradually being phased out in favor of the more versatile Block themes.
Hybrid themes
- These are a type of Classic theme, but with a few less features.
- Differences include:
- Have access to widgets but only include a footer widget area.
- Are the simplest of themes to work with, and have minimal features beyond what is possible with the Block Editor (which is still a fair bit).
- Do not have a “Try & Customize” option.
- Can be searched for with the filter of “Hybrid Themes↗︎”
At WordPress.com we are working on streamlining our available themes for simplicity and continuity. As such, some themes may get retired or delisted. Please note that though you can still use retired or delisted themes if desired, and that they will continue to work, we do encourage getting a newer or block theme as soon as you can. In the case of extremely old Classic themes that have been retired, it is possible that some features may no longer work as expected.
Take a moment to search your site for the different types of themes, and get familiar with the names of some of the different themes. You can use these direct links for convenience:
Can you identify the themes below? Click the “Flip Card” link below each image to flip the card for the answer.
Not compatible with Site Editor.
Footer widget area only.
Hybrid themes
Not compatible with Site Editor.
Footer widget area only.
Built for the Site Editor.
Do not have access to widgets.
Block themes
Built for the Site Editor.
Do not have access to widgets.
Not compatible with Site Editor.
Full access to widgets.
Classic themes
Not compatible with Site Editor.
Full access to widgets.
Theme setup
Since there are thousands of themes (hundreds within WordPress.com alone), we can’t dig into the what and how of all of them. However, there are a few areas that you can investigate to learn more about your specific theme and how to set it up.
Info page
All WordPress.com themes provide an Info page that will give you some details about the particular theme. When you explore these Info pages, you’ll notice that different themes have different features and configuration options for setting them up on your website.
Some themes offer more information than others, but they should give you a good idea of what is unique to the specific theme and how to use it. It’s really important to spend the time reading these info pages and to work through any instructions provided within this page when you’re setting up a theme.
To access a theme’s Info page, head to the themes section of your site found under Appearance > Themes↗︎ click the 3 dots in the bottom right corner of any theme thumbnail, and then click on the Info link. Explore these pages for themes from each of the different types of themes covered above to really see the differences.
Each Info page will also provide an option to view the Demo Site for the theme.
To exit the theme’s Info page and get back to your main dashboard click the Back to themes link in the top left corner.
Site Editor
If your theme includes a menu item for Appearance > Editor it means that it is a Block theme and utilizes the new Site Editor. Even if you have access to the Customizer, theme customizations are going to take place within the Site Editor by editing templates (see the lessons on Site Editor and Templates Explained for more information).
Customizer
If your theme doesn’t include an option for Editor under Appearance then it is a Classic theme and doesn’t have access to the Site Editor. It will instead include Appearance > Customize and the Customizer is where the majority of your theme set up options are going to be located. These options will also vary from one theme to another, so it’s worth exploring all of the options available in order to understand what features your theme has to offer.
In the event of a Classic theme, where there may be many options in the Customizer, the Info page is going to be even more important for learning how to use these features, and is where you’ll want to start when setting up one of these themes.
Note:
If you happen to have the Sensei LMS plugin installed while using a Classic theme, you will have access to the Site Editor as it’s needed for the Sensei templates. But you won’t use the Site Editor for any other theme customizations.
Learning Action
- Go to Appearance > Themes↗︎ and search for different types of themes (or use the search links in the previous exercise above).
- Explore an Info page for each of the different types of themes.
- From the main dashboard, hover over Appearance. If you see a link for Editor, click that to explore the Site Editor. Next, go back to the Dashboard by clicking the Site Icon image in the top left corner twice.
- When you hover over Appearance, if you don’t see a link for Editor but you see a link for Customize, click it to explore the Customizer. After, you can go back to the Dashboard by clicking the X in the top left corner.
If you’re missing either the Editor link or the Customize link, don’t worry about it. They appear based on your active theme so one of these links might be missing.
Performing these steps will help you become more comfortable with navigating your WordPress.com site. Feel free to go back and forth as many times as you like!
When you browse through themes, you’ll see some very distinct visual styles. Combining the visual style of a theme with the voice of your content is what sets the stage for the unique personality of your site. Ideally, it’s best to start with a theme that you like the overall visual of, mostly as is, since it will require less customization work. But every aspect of a Block theme is fully customizable from top to bottom, if desired. For further guidance on how to choose a theme we recommend our Choose a Theme lesson.
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