As you have undoubtedly heard by now, and likely from multiple sources on multiple occasions, Google is now placing a much greater emphasis on having a mobile friendly website. You may have even noticed in the search engine results page that webpages that are mobile-friendly get a designation indicating as such.
You could use a solution like the WP Touch plugin to power a mobile-friendly version of your WordPress site, but perhaps a better idea is to use a responsive WordPress theme in the first place. These are themes that have been designed such that they can “respond” to the screen size of the device (or size of the browser window) to provide the best possible user experience.
If you’ve been looking for a free responsive theme for WordPress sites, here are ten great ones to get you started in the right direction. And as with all WordPress themes, these can (and should) be further customized to give your blog or website the unique look it deserves.
ColorMag
The push toward more magazine-style layouts in WordPress is hardly anything new and ColorMag continues that tradition with its mostly image-focused layout. You get prominent titles overlaid on the main featured images, plus the option to show the number of comments and other pertinent information.
Customizr
If you’re the kind of person who would prefer to start with a robust framework so you can truly make your site your own, then the Customizr WordPress theme could be for you. Use the Customize function inside the admin dashboard to live preview your changes. More advanced developers will appreciate the modular code for ease of editing.
MH Magazine lite
Another magazine style WordPress theme, MH Magazine lite is a good choice for news and lifestyle blogs that have multiple categories they would like to feature. The dynamic design comes with custom widgets, the ability to use a custom background image and plenty of more options.
Oblique
You’ll notice that the majority of responsive WordPress themes align everything to a neat and tidy grid. Everything is in horizontal rows and vertical columns. Such is not the case with Oblique, giving your site a different angle thanks to a parallax header image and parallelogram-like text blocks.
Responsive
A clean and simple foundation on which you can build your own great theme, Responsive comes with no fewer than 9 different page templates, 11 widget areas, 6 template layouts, and 4 menu positions. Tinkerers will like this choice.
Responsive Brix
Billed as a “Retina ready” responsive theme, Responsive Brix combines a great dose of style with efficient code for a fast-loading site that looks great. You get image sliders, color options, and hundreds of font icons, making it great for blogs and businesses alike.
Spacious
As its name leads you to believe, Spacious is a free responsive WordPress theme that puts a little more emphasis on the white space. Nothing feels too crowded here, even when you start restricting the space onto the smaller screen of a smartphone. With multiple blog display types and your choice of custom widgets, Spacious gives you room to breathe.
Storefront
Many people assume that WordPress is only useful for blogging, but the content management system can handle just about any kind of site. If you want to run an online store, then the Storefront theme for e-commerce is a good choice. It integrates with the WooCommerce plugin from WooThemes for this purpose.
Sundance
For bloggers who want to focus on video content, Sundance could be a deceptively simple option with a minimalist design. The objective was to provide “clean, elegant typography” to marry with your video posts. Custom options include the background, header, menus and more.
Virtue
Do you like clean design with tons of options? Virtue completes the effective theme of this list by providing exactly that. You get a versatile theme with room for you to customize the particulars as you see fit in a relatively intuitive package. If you want to use it for an online store, Virtue is optimized for WooCommerce as well.