Certain variations of this search are Googled so often. What’s the best WordPress theme for niche sites, best WordPress theme for affiliate marketing, best WordPress theme for Adsense, best WordPress theme for blogging, and so on.
What frustrates me is that if you search any of these you get a bunch of results with titles like “Top 101 themes for WordPress” or “Best 68 WordPress affiliate marketing themes”.
Basically you are overloaded with too many choices which leaves you more lost than you were when you started your search for the best WordPress theme for niche sites. So I’m not going to give you a bunch of options here, I’m simply going to tell you my favorite theme that I use for every single niche website that I build.
First, my name is Jesse. I am a WordPress designer/developer, niche site builder, marketer, and blogger. I’ve been working with WordPress for a long time and I’ve tried many, many different themes. So the theme I’m going to recommend is not one that I picked out of a hat. I am currently using it on about a dozen sites.
The best WordPress theme for niche sites
I’m not saying this is the only theme you should ever use for the rest of your days, different themes are good for different types of sites. In my opinion though, when it comes to niche websites there is only one choice for me. Let me explain why.
For most people, a niche website is built as a platform to pump out SEO content in order to gain traffic that can be monetized and ultimately converted into sales so you can generate income. Because of the nature of niche sites, you want to look for a few key things in your theme.
- Loads fast and isn’t bloated with unneeded features
- Easy to customize
- Has great support and documentation
- Gets regular updates
- Simple, clean, and minimal
That’s where GeneratePress Premium comes in.
GeneratePress Premium
GeneratePress is actually a free theme. Only through the use of the premium plugin do you get all of the features. The free version is a fully functioning theme, but it’s really more of a demo because all of the good features are missing.
I recommend GeneratePress as the best WordPress theme for niche sites because it checks all of the boxes in the list above. The customizer settings are very neatly organized so everything is dead simple to find, there’s no searching around forever looking for settings.
Everything is easily accessible, and if you need something a little bit custom you can go to their support forum and likely get help from the creator of the theme himself or one of his helpful staff. In addition, the documentation for GeneratePress is very in-depth and always being updated.
With GeneratePress Premium you’ll get the following features added to the base theme:
- Access to the elements module (great for creating custom headers and more)
- Access to the site library so you can import fully built demos
- Access to the section module (kind of like GP’s own built-in page builder)
- All other premium modules (see screenshot below)
- Unlimited licenses (great for developers or people with multiple sites)
- A year of updates and 40% off your renewal at the end of the first year
Now many of you like the idea of importing a pre-made demo, then adding your own branding to it. I don’t really do that myself, but GeneratePress does offer it. Once you activate the premium plugin you have access to the Site Library. The site library give you access to dozens of different pre-made layouts and designs, with and without the use of page builders. This way you can start with a fully designed and polished website.
GeneratePress is really fast
The way I set up my niche sites using my preferred plugins, I consistently get a score of 95-100 in Google Pagespeed Insights with this theme. Honestly you shouldn’t focus too much on getting a perfect score here, but it is a good guideline to go by.
GP is a lightweight theme that has just the things you need built in and leaves all of the bloat behind. As you can see from the screenshot above, you are even able to deactivate modules that you don’t need. Most themes that you’d buy from somewhere like Themeforest have tons of WooCommerce code built in that can’t be easily turned off.
Things like this will slow your site down. If you are running a niche site like we are discussing in this article, you have no need for WooCommerce scripts to be running and slowing your site down. With GeneratePress use only what you need.
Even though GP is lightweight and very minimal when it comes to premium themes, it is actually packed full of features. Features that can be disabled if you don’t need them. Features that I am still discovering to this day after more than a year of using this theme exclusively for all of my new niche websites. I’ve only recently discovered the power of the elements and sections modules, which have by themselves changed the way I build my sites.
So I’m not giving you a million options for the best WordPress theme for niche sites. I’m not going to make you figure out for yourself which is actually the best WordPress theme for niche sites. I’m just telling you the one that I think is the best, from my own experience. That theme is GeneratePress.
- It’s very inexpensive at just $49 for the first year
- And 40% off each additional year
- You get to use it on unlimited sites
- It’s blazing fast and simple to use
- It’s great for niche websites monetized with Amazon Affiliates or display ads
What to avoid in WordPress themes for niche sites
When it comes to niche websites I’ve touched on how important it is to keep things simple. It’s easy to be mesmerized by all of the options on the theme landing pages.
Whoa! 192 different layout options for this theme! Awesome!
No. This is not what you are looking for. These types of themes are great in some instances, I use certain ones sometimes for clients sites. Especially when your turnaround-time is shorter than you’d like it to be.
But not for niche websites. With a niche website you are focusing only on the content, especially at the beginning. So avoid the themes that have way too many customization options and have these in your face landing pages that are a mile long.
Say simple. Stay clean. Stay minimal.
That’s what you want in a niche blog theme.