For bloggers, there is only one blogging platform that really stands out among the rest – WordPress. WordPress is a powerful blogging platform that offers extreme advantages and benefits to all type of bloggers. Beginners advanced and even brands and business bloggers uses WordPress to further enhance their audience reach and send out the message they wanted the public to know about.
If you are a blogger who wanted to take advantage of the benefits WordPress has to offer, you need few more things aside from the default and basic platform itself. I listed the top 2 important stuff that you really need to consider and take a good look at.
Plugins
Without the necessary plugins, WordPress benefits won’t be complete. As of this writing, there are already 24,163 listed free plugins at the WordPress plugins directory itself. That exclude the paid ones that offers more options and stuff that you might need depending on your blog niche. The free plugins that for me are essential and important for each and every WordPress users are All in One SEO Pack, WP Super Cache and Google XML Sitemaps. What ever niche your blog belongs to, the 3 mentioned plugins can surely help you out.
Themes
As of this writing, WordPress offers 1,733 free themes and still counting. Although the freely downloadable and usable themes they got are not bad at all, still, it’s nice to get your own exclusive theme. It can make your blog look professional and can make you, as the owner, to stand out among other bloggers.
With the rise of mobile and handheld gadgets, it’s important to consider a WordPress theme that can go along with desktop, laptop and handheld devices. For me, nothing is more perfect than magazine style WordPress themes. Most WordPress magazine themes offer great looking design that is lightweight and easy to load, they are compatible with almost all devices and most important of all, easy and pleasing to the eyes of its viewers. It’s a magazine style theme that most viewers really dig in.
If you already got the necessary plugins at hand for your WordPress based website or blog but still undecided about the theme, then my below list of 10 of the best WordPress magazine themes might help you decide. Check it out.
10 – Lucid By ElegantThemes.com
Lucid is a sleek and modern magazine theme that can display tons of content without making your blog looking cluttered and load slower. Lucid is designed to adapt to mobile phones and tablets for a more intuitive browsing experience.
9 – Lightly By ThemeForest.net
Lightly is an easy to use news and magazine theme that is well coded and neatly designed by expert programmers and designers. It also has StyleExtender plugin that allows you to change the theme’s style, color and fonts.
8 – Aggregate By ElegantThemes.com
Aggregate – If you write a lot or tons of words per article, this is the magazine theme for you. It has tons of content and widget based areas and displays all stuff in a well aligned and formatted manner that makes it pleasing to the eye.
7 – Magazine Explorer By WPZoom.com
Magazine Explorer is a feature rich magazine theme, with lots of content and widget areas as well. It’s pretty spacious that gives the blog a more presentable characteristic.
6 – The Gossip By ThemeForest.net
The name of this theme itself shows what kind of blog niche it is designed for. This funky magazine WordPress theme perfect for news and gossip sites is packed with unlimited layouts for you to choose from. It is ultra wide and created with high resolution that offers Retina display support.
5 – Metro Magazine By ThemeForest.net
Created with the latest HTML5 and CSS3, this one is considered as a futuristic WordPress magazine theme. It’s fully flexible and responsive packed with features that you will surely love.
4 – 80/20 By ThemeForest.net
Minimalist, simple and bold style and design is what 80/20 magazine WordPress theme can give your blog. The theme comes with its original layered PSD files that you can fully edit and customize.
3 – Supreme Magazine By ThemeForest.net
This is one of a kind Retina responsive magazine theme with futuristic and crystal clear graphics. It includes the Swift Page Builder that lets you create and manage content at your own will and way.
2 – Minimalist By MyThemeShop.com
If you are more of a content person that graphic, images and photos, Minimalist magazine WordPress theme could be the one you are looking for. With this theme’s design and style, your content is fully highlighted without creating noise or distraction to the reader or viewer’s attention.
1 – WP-Prosper By SoloStream.com
If you are looking for an ads-ready magazine theme, look no further because WP-Prosper can give that to you. The ads location this theme has is strategically place so it won’t cause any kind of clutter or distraction to its readers and visitors.
For sure you already got an idea or two on what kind of theme you will want to use. Just remember to check their information and demo site first before buying the themes. Also, look for mentions and reviews about them alongside with common problems and solutions so you will know what to expect and what to do with them.
I hope that with above 10 of the best magazine themes along side with few basic but exceptionally useful and important plugins I mentioned, you can reap the benefits of WordPress platform. Just use, install and configure them the right way and you are good to go.