The way your website looks can have a significant impact on its success. A strong design helps you build an online presence, attract customers, and maintain a professional image. However, custom designs can be tricky and expensive to implement.
Fortunately, if you’re using Drupal, you have access to a host of ready-made website themes. These tools can enable you to craft an aesthetically-pleasing Drupal website in a matter of minutes. Themes are also far more budget-friendly than working with a designer, so you’ll be able to save some money as well.
In this post, we’ll explain why using a professional Drupal theme is so important. We’ll then highlight some of the best places to find top-quality options. Let’s get to it!
Why Your Drupal Theme Matters
When it’s time to design your website, you have a few options. You can craft it by hand, for example, or work with a professional designer. Alternately, you can shortcut the process by using a few tools that provide you with a solid foundation.
Drupal is an excellent start – this open-source Content Management System (CMS) is both powerful and flexible. Yet a brand-new Drupal site is something of a blank slate. That’s where themes come into the picture. These add-ons can be installed on your site to completely overhaul its look and design.
In other words, a theme gives you a starting point for designing your site. The right one will offer a professional look that’s appropriate to your niche, as well as a host of optimizations for performance, security, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and so on. All you’ll need to do is add in your own content and branding, and make whatever tweaks you like to the theme’s basic setup.
3 (More) Places to Purchase the Best Drupal Themes
Of course, there are a lot of Drupal themes out there to choose from. It can be hard to know exactly where to start. Not too long ago, we published a list of some of the best places to look – we’d highly recommend giving it a read.
Since the right theme can make or break your site, however, you may want more than just a few options. With that in mind, here are three more excellent places to find quality Drupal themes!
1. Sooperthemes
If you’re building a business or e-commerce site, it can be worth investing in a high-quality premium theme. This may cost you a little more, but can provide the professional foundation you’re looking for.
Sooperthemes is a premium developer, which offers a handful of themes for both Drupal 7 and 8. They come in a range of styles, from minimalist to image-heavy, and focus on providing for the needs of small to mid-sized businesses. There are general purpose themes, along with niche-specific options for those in construction, app development, photography, marketing, and more.
The signature theme is Glazed, which is an open-ended framework featuring a ton of demo content and customization potential:
What’s more, all of this developer’s themes include the custom Glazed Builder, which is a drag-and-drop editing tool. This user-friendly solution makes it simple to tweak your chosen theme and demo content, without the need for a lot of technical know-how. Sooperthemes also offers a few handy modules that integrate smoothly with any of its themes, and give you more design options.
All in all, Sooperthemes is an excellent resource for anyone needing to put together a professional-looking website quickly. With the combination of theme and page builder, you’ll have the tool set you need to get your site off the ground. For $78, you can get access to all of this developer’s themes and modules (along with the Glazed Builder).
2. WeebPal
What if you’re looking for a broader selection of Drupal themes to pick from? If that’s the case, WeebPal is a solid go-to resource. It offers both free and premium theme options, as well as the choice to either pick up a single theme, or subscribe to a membership encompassing everything on the site.
There are a handful of free themes on offer, each one serving a specific niche and function – education, e-commerce, blogging, business, and so on. These can be easily downloaded from the site, enabling you to use them without any fuss:
The premium theme selection is more diverse, covering a range of styles and purposes. No matter what type of theme you're in the market for, there’s a good chance you’ll find something relevant here:
It’s also worth noting that a generous selection of these themes were built specifically for Drupal 8, the latest version of the platform. There’s a filter that lets you easily sort out those themes, making it simple to choose something that will work smoothly with the platform’s most recent updates.
WeebPal strikes a balance between maintaining a consistent level of high quality, and offering a diverse selection of options. Most of the premium themes are priced between $49 and $68, and you can also get a membership with access to all themes for $249 per year.
3. ArrowThemes
ArrowThemes is another premium-only theme developer. That means you’ll need room in your budget to pay for a theme – yearly, if you want continued access to support. At the same time, it also affords you with access to more features, demo content, and customization options.
The selection at ArrowThemes isn’t particularly large, but it is diverse. There are e also two categories of themes to choose from. First, there is a handful of themes sold on ThemeForest, which you can buy individually:
You’ll also find a selection of themes that come bundled together with an ArrowThemes membership:
There’s a strong focus here on ‘art’ themes, designed for sites that require a strong visual style and lots of room for large images and other media. Most come with an impressive range of layout options, demo content, and other useful features (such as e-commerce integration).
ArrowThemes is worth a look for any Drupal user, but it’s particularly relevant for artists, photographers, musicians, and anyone looking to showcase a portfolio. The ThemeForest themes range from $48 to $58, while membership access starts at $59 per year.
Conclusion
In the past, designing a website was a difficult and long-winded process. Today, CMSs like Drupal offer a wide variety of themes that can make the job a lot easier. By installing a theme from one of the services we’ve featured in this post, you can ensure that your site both looks professional and runs like a well-oiled machine.
In addition to our previous picks, here are some of the best places to pick up Drupal themes.
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Sooperthemes: A premium-only developer catering to small and mid-sized businesses.
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WeebPal: Offers a well-rounded selection of both free and premium theme options.
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ArrowTheme: A great place to find art-focused themes for showing off your portfolio.
Image credit: Pixabay.
