If you’re looking for a widely flexible theme that is easy to customize then Suffusion is the perfect theme for you. Many of the features found in Suffusion are usually found in paid, premium themes but the developers have brought many of those great features and made them available in this free wordpress theme. The theme features 19 widget areas and gives you the option of using 1, 2, and even 3 columns. As if that wasn’t enough it also features 10 predefined page/post templates and 17 different color schemes that you can choose from. The bottom line is that with this theme you’ll never be out of options for the look and feel of your blog and if you’re struggling to find a theme that would be a perfect fit for your website then this is probably the theme for you. Spend a few minutes to play around with its settings and options and we can guarantee that you’ll find something that you’ll absolutely love.

Desk mess theme is one of our favorites because it makes readers feel as if they were really reading a personal letter from you at their desk. The theme is very unique and is sure to set your blog apart from the rest. It uses a light and dark brown coloring scheme with black text which makes it easy to read and your pages appear as sticky notes in the header to complete the whole “messy desk” feel. If you run a blog that features your random thoughts and opinion or a mom & pop operation that wants to connect with your readers then this is the perfect theme for you.

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If you run a tech based site then iTech is the theme for you, this is one of the most downloaded themes and is widely popular thanks to its simple yet elegant design and fast rendering. The theme features a tabbed sidebar that showcases your most recent posts and comments which drives up the rate of interaction from your readers. It also has threaded comments, custom rss feed URL for services such as feedburner, and the ability to easily modify the header logo with it’s built in control panel.

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zBench is a classic theme with a very simple layout and a solid gray color scheme. There are 2 available columns which are centered and fixed width, combined with it’s easy to read contrasting colors and fonts this theme is very easy on the eyes. The theme also has native support for many features of wordpress that would normally require a plugin such as page navigation, related posts, and simple tags so it’s very easy to setup and begin using within a matter of minutes.

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Lightword theme is a simple and clean theme that has the option of either using 2 or 3 columns for it’s layout. The the features a dark background with a white content area which provides a great contrast. This theme is great for people who want something simple yet elegant.

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News theme is a simple yet robust theme that allows both you and your visitors to focus on whats really important about your blog, your content. The theme is simple, clearn, and very easy to navigate. Its red and white contrast makes it easy to read and it’s wide post column allows you to feature all of your content without having it get chopped or cutoff like other 3 column themes.

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So what does that mean for you? Very simply it means that if you have a slow loading site, caused by something such as oh let’s say a bloated and sloppily coded wordpress theme, that it could negatively affect your rankings in the search results. Another factor to consider is of course your visitors, one thing Ive noticed among many webmasters is that they assume everyone has a broadband or high speed connection. While there have been great advancements in the past decade for bandwidth, many would be surprised just how many dialup and 128k ISDN/DSL lines are still out there and the last thing anyone wants is to wait 30 seconds for a page to load when all the other sites around you load much faster. In fact I saw an interesting case study that showed slow loading ecommerce sites suffered a shopping cart abandonment rate that was 28% higher than competing ecommerce sites with faster loading times so a bloated theme can not only waste time, but make you lose out on new/repeat customers as well.

A quick look through a popular “warez” forum, warez-bb.org shows that out of 20 random themes tested, 7 of them had some sort of malicious or encrypted code inside of the theme. But what can you expect from thieves? If you really want a theme then the best thing to do is to go out and buy it, if you value your website, your visitors, and your reputation the money shouldn’t even be an issue.

I already know some readers will gripe that its not a “real magazine theme” but hear me out for a second, if your goal is to run a magazine type site then whats your number one asset and the single thing that you should be focusing on? CONTENT, if your readers can’t get to your content because your jquery boxes aren’t loading or the css isn’t displayed right in internet explorer then whats the point? Sure, those flashy jquery boxes might get you honorable mentions from some random blogger for your design, but your readers could care less and probably won’t return after you’ve damaged their retinas.