The Best WordPress Magazine Themes

The New York Times, CNN, Reuters. 

What do all these reputable online news agencies have in common?

They all use WordPress as their platform of choice. 

If you’re planning on running an online magazine and/or news blog, you’ll undoubtedly need a variety of layouts that can help you showcase a large amount of content on one screen. At the same time, this content needs to be accessible and aesthetically-pleasing to attract users/readers.

No easy feat, right? 

Luckily, WordPress magazine themes are designed to do just that. And to make this selection process a little easier for you, we’ve rounded up some of the best ones that will help make your content shine a little brighter. 

Before You Get Started 

First things first. 

If you want to create your magazine or news website with WordPress, you’ll need two things: 1) a domain name and 2) web hosting. 

Traditionally, regular WordPress is installed by downloading the software from WordPress, re-uploading to your web hosting provider of choice, and going through a series of technical steps. This can take up to several hours and even in the best-case scenarios for seasoned web pros, this can often become a time-consuming task.

Since magazine and news websites are quite content-heavy (e.g. lots of images and videos), you’ll definitely need a WordPress hosting provider that gives you enough space to upload all your files while also being able to efficiently handle any spikes in incoming traffic. 

That’s why we recommend EasyWP, Namecheap’s Managed WordPress Hosting, which takes care of all those back-end technicalities, allowing you to focus on more important things such as growing your business and curating the best news content. 

Once you’ve got your domain name and web hosting provider, don’t forget to keep these three things in mind when choosing your WordPress magazine theme: 

• Your content should be easy to read across all devices, aka fully-responsive. A responsive WordPress theme automatically adjusts to the user’s screen size. You should assume that approximately half of your users will access your website using a mobile phone or tablet. If your magazine website doesn’t fit their screen or looks distorted, they will likely bounce and may never come to your site again.
• Your content should be presented in a visually-appealing way with high-quality imagery to draw users in. 
• Your design should feel clean and organized, never messy and overcrowded.

Ready to see our top picks? Let’s go. 

Zeen

Dubbed the “next generation” magazine theme, Zeen is sleek and stylish, featuring over 30 unique demos to help you get started. Developed by the folks over at Codetipi in 2018, Zeen covers a vast array of different niches to suit your magazine (think food, travel, and technology). 

And, unlike other themes where the whole demo gets imported, Zeen lets you pick and choose which parts you’d like to import. Other benefits? It’s SEO-optimized, comes with built-in social sharing buttons as well as email subscription forms.

Perhaps the best part of Zeen, however, is the Tipi Builder. Super easy to use, this front-end page builder is included with Zeen, giving you complete control over how your website layouts look. Not only are you able to see a live preview of what you’re customizing, this instant visibility also gives you the opportunity to play around and explore every last possibility until you’re completely satisfied.

The cost? $59 for a license. 

Tribune 

Known for its fluid, responsive layout across mobile and tablet devices, Tribune takes online news articles to a whole new level (pardon the pun).  

Featuring posts at the top of the page and a carousel slider at the bottom of the page, here images and galleries scale seamlessly when a browser window is resized. On the homepage, you can also choose to display featured articles and categories, depending on what’s most relevant and/or newsworthy. 

With multiple layout options, social media integration, video widgets, and custom widgets (yes, this can be used as advertising space!), you’re looking at a pretty powerful theme to publish any local, national or international news.

The cost? $69 for a license. 

Wonderwall 

Looking to run an online magazine with banner ads and an email list? 

Look no further than the fully-responsive Wonderwall. Built on the native WordPress Customizer, this means you can edit and adjust your website without knowing a line of code. You’ll notice how every time you make a change, you’ll be able to see a preview of your website update in real-time.

With Wonderwall, you can choose from one of their 9 pre-built impressive demos and use the included YellowPencil visual style editor to customize every component of your website. Yep, we’re talking everything from layouts to fonts, typography to colors. 

Thanks to the theme’s newsletter subscription widget, it’s also easy to build and generate a larger user following. Dedicated areas on the homepage let you display banner ads to start monetizing your website, if you’re so inclined. Social media integration is included, which helps to boost social shares and display your number of active followers. 

The cost? $59 for a license. 

Metz

Dreaming of starting an online fashion magazine? Metz will take you there in style.  

Purposely designed with an editorial-like feel, Metz features 7 sophisticated layouts that appeal to fashion-focused users. 

Besides it working across every device and being WooCommerce-friendly, this theme features a sleek slider that can be used in three different positions (full width, cover, or among selected blog posts). 

Just like Wonderwall, Metz is built on the native WordPress Customizer, meaning you’re free to edit and adjust your website – no coding necessary. 

The cost? $39 for a license. 

Bitz

If your goal is to create a website that relies on publishing the most up-to-date news, make Bitz your go-to theme. Thanks to its custom-timing function, your readers will be kept in the loop over what news you post is the most recent. 

Bitz also comes with the drag-and-drop Visual Composer plugin for both front-end and back-end functionality, as well as a header builder. This lets you customize every aspect of your website and see the changes in real time. 

Another benefit? Bitz includes Slider Revolution, the #1 WordPress slider plugin that lets you display social media feeds directly on your website, whether that’s streaming Twitter feeds, the best stories from Facebook, or the most popular YouTube videos. 

WooCommerce and SEO-friendly, Bitz is all about advertising. With sidebars and widget areas designed to offer unlimited advertisement space, you’re looking at an easy avenue to start monetizing your website. 

The cost? $59 for a license. 

The Wrap Up

It should come as no big surprise that online magazines and news websites are increasingly popular these days. By visualizing content in a clean and easy-to-navigate way, readers are able to get the news they want, when they want it. 

Now that 42% of 30-to-49-year olds are getting their news from websites and news apps, this is all the more reason to get your own online magazine up and running. And WordPress is your ticket to getting there. 

In order to simplify things with your WordPress website and focus on your chosen theme, why not try Managed WordPress? With Namecheap’s EasyWP hosting, it’s easy, fast, and affordable (yep, plans start at just $1/month). 

Hosted on Namecheap’s powerful built-in cloud platform, EasyWP features free PositiveSSL to keep your website secure and free Supersonic CDN to deliver your magazine website content at 68% faster speeds. 

Now that’s news worth sharing!