WordPress is the World’s most popular CMS, and thus users get the benefit of having thousands of themes available at the click of a button.  Not only are there tons of gorgeous paid options, but you can do very well with free themes too.

Before you check out my highest recommended premium WordPress themes, you should take a closer look at some of the best free WordPress themes around for blogs.

Best Free WordPress Themes

#1 Platform

Platform is a great theme for a new blog.  The first thing you will notice is that it has a very simple look.  The theme is similar to the Thesis framework in that it can be easily customized to meet your own needs for your blog.

Platform is a flexible and simple free WordPress theme

The reason I like Platform so much is that it gives you the opportunity to try out different layouts.  Testing is important and under-utilized by most bloggers.  You should try different layouts and use what works best to make you the most money.

This theme makes for a good base so you can make it look really sharp with some extra design work.

#2 Blogolife

Blogolife is a simple yet sharp WordPress theme.  You could install this on your blog and have it looking ready for the lime-light in a few minutes.

Blogolife is a great looking theme for a blog

The only thing I don’t like about this free theme is that there is a lot of space before the content begins.  Ideally, I would want more of the content to appear before the fold i.e. more of the most recent post without scrolling down at all.

#3 Busby

Busby is a nice looking theme.  The default settings look great and are well optimized for readability and performance.

Busby is a functional and attractive blog theme

This theme has an image slider on the homepage which can be a good thing or a bad thing.  Personally, I hate finding new images for blog posts yet alone large and crisp ones.  If getting sharp new images isn’t a problem for you then having an image slider might work very well for you, but otherwise it could prove to be a real pain and waste of time.

#4 Gridly

This one is a bit different, but could still make for an effective and cool blog layout.  The fact that it’s so different would make it easy to standout from other blogs.

Gridly will make your WordPress blog stand out

I have seen a similar look at my favorite copywriting blog conversionxl.com and the blog there does very well.

#5 Typominima

This is another theme that will make your blog standout.  With Typominima it’s really all about the content.

Typominima is a plain and elegant theme for WordPress

The cool part about this theme is that the absence of the sidebars will help visitors concentrate on your content.  If you write product reviews or have links within the content you want them to click on then this could be very beneficial.

The only problem is that this theme might be a bit too light for some bloggers.  I also personally don’t like the amount of space that the header takes up.  Overall, it’s a very elegant theme and it might be just right for your blog.

#6 Mentor

Mentor is a good theme for a blog because it puts the content as the main focus.

Mentor is a great candidate for your blog theme

This theme has a very short header and most of the space is simply excerpts to recent and popular posts.  As a blogger, this is great because your content is the only reason people show up in the first place.

Each of these themes really bring it and you can’t beat the price

If you’re ready to invest in your blog then you should check out what I consider the overall Best WordPress Themes available to date.