Every year thousands of new free WordPress themes are developed and marketed. It is therefore difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff and choose the right theme for your digital goals. To make things a little easier for you, we have listed the best free WordPress themes for you (which are all compatible with the Gutenberg editor). So you can get the year 2021 start off well.
What makes or breaks a WordPress theme in 2021?
Gutenberg editor
It has been a while since Gutenberg became the standard editor of WordPress. And by now most of its users have discovered that the user-friendliness, the block system and the ‘customizability’ of the blocks makes editing your website even easier.
Because Gutenberg is probably the inevitable future of WordPress, it is wise to choose a WordPress theme that is compatible with Gutenberg. That’s why we have taken two things into account in this Gutenberg WordPress theme overview: they are free and fully compatible with the new block editor .
SEO: Mobile first
Since September 2020 Google uses mobile-first indexing when crawling websites. This means that Google’s search engine mainly uses the mobile version of a website when evaluating a page. In other words: search engines like Google attach a lot of value when your website loads at light speed on the mobile phone.
If you’re looking for a good free WordPress theme that is compatible with Gutenberg, it’s a good idea to also check how it looks on the mobile and whether the theme loads quickly.
If you’ve chosen and installed a free WordPress theme, you should also keep an eye on whether your pages work properly on the mobile phone when developing your pages. The Gutenberg editor is also very handy for this; you can switch to the mobile version of the website while editing!
New ranking factors 2021:
From May 2021, Google will rank websites more strongly based on user experience factors based on ‘Core Web Vital statistics’. This includes factors such as page speed, responsiveness and stability of content during loading.
The upcoming Google update combines these factors with previously announced UX-related signals for mobile friendliness, safe browsing, HTTPS security and intrusive interstitials (intermediate pages or web elements that appear before or on the mobile web page you actually want to visit, for example ads, banners or pop-ups).
So in the best WordPress themes of 2021 we also took these new ranking factors into account as they are likely to have a big effect on the ranking system.
30 best free WordPress themes 2021
Generate Press
Ocean WP
Getwid Base
Storefront
Responsive
Zakra
Twenty Twenty
Neve
Astra
Hestia
Page Builder Framework
Go
Potter
Digital Agency Life
Blover
Miyazaki
Quna
Hamilton
Elementare
Loose
Portfolio Lite
Enliven
Munk
Axiohost
Store Commerce
Lighthouse
Astrid
Music Lite
Businessx
Block Lite