23 Best WordPress Newspaper Themes (2021)

Are you looking for the best WordPress newspaper themes?

For newspaper websites, you need a theme that can prominently display your latest and trending news sections. With so many WordPress themes on the market, it can be hard to find the perfect newspaper theme.

In this article, we will share some of the best WordPress newspaper themes that you can use.

Building a Newspaper Website with WordPress

WordPress is the leading and most popular website builder on the market. It makes it easier for absolute beginners to create any website in just a few minutes.

There are 2 kinds of WordPress. They are WordPress.com, which is a fully hosted solution, and WordPress.org, which is also known as self-hosted WordPress. To learn more, check out our complete guide on the difference between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org.

You should use self-hosted WordPress.org for your newspaper website. It gives you access to all features and functionality straight out of the box.

To get started, you also need a domain name and web hosting. A domain name is your site’s address on the web, like wpbeginner.com or google.com. Web hosting is the storage for all your website files.

We recommend using Bluehost. They are one of the largest hosting companies in the world and an officially recommended WordPress hosting provider.

For WPBeginner users, Bluehost offers a free domain name, free SSL certificate, and a huge discount on web hosting.

After purchasing the hosting, you need to check out our guide on how to make a website for detailed step by step set up instructions.

Now, let’s take a look at some of the best WordPress themes you can use for a newspaper website.

1. Astra

Astra is a user-friendly premium WordPress theme built for any type of website. It has lots of customization options and makes a perfect choice for news and magazine websites.

The theme supports page builders out of the box. It has full-width page templates and a simple theme options panel that helps set up your newspaper website or news aggregator website without editing any code.

Astra is also designed for good WordPress SEO (search engine optimization). This helps your site rank well in Google and other search engines.

2. Divi

Divi is a popular and feature-rich WordPress theme that lets you build your newspaper website visually. It has an advanced page builder that replaces your default WordPress block editor (Gutenberg editor) so you can easily edit your site on the frontend.

The modern Divi builder offers a great user experience and makes it easy to undo, redo, and revise your content. It also offers global styles and elements to manage your design settings easily.

3. Hestia Pro

Hestia Pro is a splendid WordPress business theme designed specifically for newspapers, magazines, and content websites. It has multiple layout options, ready-made website templates, and RTL language support.

With custom video support, you can easily add a video to your header background. Hestia Pro works great with popular WordPress page builders for customization, including Beaver Builder, Elementor, Visual Composer, and more.

Hestia Pro is also fully compatible with bbPress, letting you add a forum to your online news site.

4. Ultra

Ultra is an excellent WordPress all-purpose theme. It comes with a fully functional template for newspaper, magazine, and content-rich websites. It’s also suitable for bloggers.

The theme offers custom landing pages, premium addons, and beautiful page and post layouts. It’s easy to set up using page builders and the WordPress live customizer.

Ultra is also compatible with BuddyPress. This lets you create a social network on your news website.

5. OceanWP

OceanWP is a stylish WordPress theme that features several paid and free demo sites, including a beautiful and eye-catching template for newspapers and magazine websites.

It has color options, background choices, custom fonts, and more. OceanWP has a built-in 1-click demo content installer to import a template and get started quickly.

OceanWP is fully compatible with eCommerce plugins such as WooCommerce to start an online store.

6. News Pro

News Pro is a very professional looking WordPress theme for newspaper websites. It’s fast loading, highly customizable, and flexible.

It comes with 2 sidebars and a footer widget area where you can add widgets and shortcodes. There’s also a fully customizable header area, simple navigation menus, and beautiful typography. For theme setup, it has a custom options panel and also supports the WordPress live customizer.

StudioPress is now part of WP Engine, the most popular managed WordPress hosting company. You can get this theme and all 35+ other StudioPress themes when you sign up for WP Engine hosting to build your website.

Bonus: WPBeginner users also get an additional 20% OFF. Get started with WP Engine today!

7. Noozbeat

Noozbeat is a modern WordPress news and magazine theme. Its homepage features a masonry grid layout on top to showcase your featured content, followed by the latest articles and other sections of your website.

It has built-in ad spots to display ads on your website. It comes with custom widgets for content discovery and social media features. The theme setup is quite easy with tons of options neatly organized under the live theme customizer.

8. Responz

Responz is a lighter and elegant news WordPress theme. It displays your featured content on top in a carousel followed by a multi-column layout to showcase more content.

It comes in 4 theme skins, the choice between layout designs, header and footer slider, 2 navigation menus, and social media icons. It also includes a theme options page to set up your website and start adding content quickly.

9. Hive

Hive is a modern newspaper and magazine WordPress theme with a clean and minimalist design. Its homepage displays your articles in a grid layout. It automatically handles featured images in both portrait and landscape sizes to create a beautiful masonry layout.

Designed for improved readability, Hive uses beautiful fonts for paragraphs and headings. The beautiful typography combination makes it perfect for newspaper websites and news portals. It’s also a great choice for blogging.

10. Public Opinion

Public Opinion is designed specifically for WordPress powered newspaper websites and online magazines. This clean and modern theme comes with a homepage layout, beautiful content layout, dedicated ad spots, mega menu support, and content discovery features.

Public Opinion has different layouts for category pages and the homepage featured area. It has 2 navigation menus, a contact form, and you can also use it to add an online store to your website.

11. Indigo

Indigo is a multi-purpose WordPress theme suitable for newspaper and magazine websites as well as for personal blogs. Its homepage features a slideshow, a grid of your recent articles, and a 2-column block. It has a navigation menu on top.

Indigo has multiple widget-ready areas, an easy to set up homepage, full-width page template, multiple homepage templates, and a floating social sharing bar.

Indigo has full compatibility with WooCommerce so you can create an online store for your newspaper site.

12. Weston

Weston is a powerful and flexible WordPress multipurpose theme suitable for all kind of websites. It comes with a page builder plugin that you can use to create almost any layout you need. For quicker setup, it also includes a 1-click demo installer.

Some of Weston’s other features include video backgrounds, a premium slider plugin, Google Fonts, pricing tables, a contact form, and more. It’s super easy to customize and can be used to create truly unique design combinations.

13. Feltmag

Feltmag is a stunning WordPress news and magazine theme with tons of cool features. Its homepage layout comes with an optional fullscreen header, followed by your articles as users scroll down.

Other features included are 2 navigation menus on the top, immersive featured images, multiple layouts, header styles, social media icons, and more. It’s super easy to set up. Most options work straight away when you activate the theme.

14. Doberman

Doberman is a stylish WordPress magazine and news theme suitable for lifestyle, viral content, and entertainment related news sites. It includes multiple color schemes and multiple views like popular, trending, and fresh.

It comes with social media integration, multiple navigation menu locations, beautiful images, a latest news ticker, an Instagram widget, and an ad placement widget. It also works with all popular WordPress plugins and page builders.

15. Domino Magazine

Domino is a spacious and well-designed multi-functional WordPress news theme for a news magazine website. It’s available in different color schemes and has a dynamic visual page builder.

Domino’s other notable features include a news ticker, custom widgets for featured categories, ads, tabbed widgets, and weather. It has a custom theme settings page and tons of options under the customizer.

Plus, Domino uses responsive design and is retina ready. This means your website will look great on computers and mobile devices.

16. Wonderwall

Wonderwall is another excellent news or magazine style WordPress theme for content-rich websites. It comes with 9 ready-made homepage designs with an article grid, featured content, list view, and more.

Wonder Wall has custom widgets for social profiles and content discovery, dedicated banner ad spots, beautiful typography, and more. Setting up your website is easy as you will find all the options under the live customizer.

17. Metro Pro

Metro Pro is another professional WordPress theme for online newspapers and magazine websites. Its homepage features a large custom background and prominently displayed featured images. The homepage is also divided into sections for featured articles, recent news, and more.

It’s also built for the Genesis Framework and inherits the powerful qualities of its parent theme. Metro strives for simplicity both in terms of presentation as well as ease of use.

18. Magazine

Magazine is a WordPress newspaper and magazine theme designed to give your users quick access to the latest content. Its homepage comes with 3-column, 2-column, and full-width layouts. You can also create your own layout combinations with the integrated drag and drop page builder.

Magazine also includes dedicated ad spots to include Google AdSense ads on your website. Other notable features include unlimited sidebars, custom widgets, social media integration, a news ticker, and more.

19. ColorMag

ColorMag is a free WordPress theme that works perfectly for a news website. This magazine-style WordPress theme comes with some serious premium-like features with a beautiful design.

ColorMag also includes multiple widget-ready areas, custom widgets, featured posts widget, boxed and full-width layouts, a sticky navigation menu, and more. It’s translation ready and you can use it to create multilingual websites with WPML as well.

20. Prologue

Prologue is another excellent option for a magazine WordPress newspaper theme. It comes with a 2-column layout for the homepage with a video-enabled slider on top.

It includes multiple widget ready areas, a widgetized homepage, a full-width page template, and more. Prologue is also translation ready.

21. Alpha

Alpha is a specifically designed WordPress theme for newspaper and magazine websites. It comes in 2 skins, and both of them look great.

With Alpha, you also get a breaking news ticker, custom slider, multiple widget areas, custom widgets, custom logo upload, and more. It’s easy to use even for WordPress beginners, with most features working straight away upon activation.

22. Editorial

Editorial is an excellent free WordPress theme designed specifically for news websites. It has a widgetized layout that lets you drag and drop items to build your website.

It comes with multiple sidebars and widget-ready areas, unlimited colors, and easy customization with live previews. Editorial is translation ready and can also be used to create multilingual websites.

23. Neuton

Neuton is another excellent WordPress theme for newspapers. It’s designed to engage users by offering a content-rich layout that makes it easier to discover new content and explore trending news.

It includes different category layouts, social media widgets, content discovery widgets, multiple color schemes, and more. It works beautifully with any of the top page builder plugins to create your own layouts if needed.

We hope this article helped you find the best WordPress themes for newspaper websites. You may also want to take a look at the best email marketing services to connect with your readers and grow your audience.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post 23 Best WordPress Newspaper Themes (2021) appeared first on WPBeginner.

October 22, 2021 at 03:00PM

How to Fix The Critical Error in WordPress (Step by Step)

Are you seeing the critical error on your WordPress site?

WordPress may sometimes show you a message that ‘There has been a critical error on this website. Please check your site admin email inbox for instructions’. It will also include a link to debugging in the WordPress guide.

In this guide, we will show you how to easily fix the critical error in WordPress. We will also talk about what causes this error and how to avoid it.

What is Critical Error in WordPress?

The critical error in WordPress is an error that stops WordPress from loading all the scripts it needs to work properly.

Previously, this WordPress error resulted in a white screen of death or a fatal error message on screen. Most beginners didn’t find it very helpful and struggled to resolve the issue on their own.

Since WordPress 5.2, users will now see a generic error message ‘There has been a critical error on this website. Please check your site admin email inbox for instructions’ with a link to the WordPress debugging guide.

It will also send an email message to your WordPress site’s admin email address with more details about the error and a link to access your WordPress dashboard in the recovery mode.

What Causes the Critical Error in WordPress?

The critical error in WordPress is generally caused by a malfunctioning plugin, script, or code that prevents WordPress from functioning properly.

WordPress is unable to load the rest of the files it needs unless you resolve this issue.

If you have recently copied and pasted code snippets from some tutorial to your website, then it might trigger the critical error.

All top WordPress plugins are thoroughly tested, so they are less likely to cause a critical error on their own. However, a conflict with another WordPress plugin or some custom code may trigger the error.

That being said, let’s take a look at how to easily fix the critical error in WordPress and get your website back.

Fixing The Critical Error in WordPress (2 Methods)

The critical error message itself is not very useful in finding the cause of the issue and fix it. Luckily, WordPress also sends an email to the admin email address of your website.

Now, many WordPress sites have issues sending emails, so you might not get this crucial email notification. If you are among those users, don’t worry. We will show you how to fix the critical error even without the email.

On the other hand, if you did receive the WordPress technical issue email notification, then we’ll show you how to make sense of it and use it to bring your website back.

Simply click the links below to skip straight to the section you need:

• Method 1: Fixing Critical Error with WordPress Debugging Email
• Method 2: Fixing Critical Error in WordPress Manually (No Email)

Fixing Critical Error with WordPress Debugging Email

First, you need to go visit the inbox for the email address you use as the WordPress administration email on your website.

Not sure which email address you used as the admin email? It is the email address you provide when installing WordPress.

If you are on Bluehost or used a WordPress auto-installer, then your admin email address will likely be the same address that you have used for your WordPress hosting account.

In your inbox, you’ll see an email with the subject line ‘Your Site is Experiencing a Technical Issue’. Inside it, you will find a lot more helpful information about what caused the critical error on your WordPress website.

For instance, in the following screenshot, you can see that the critical error was caused by the WordPress theme on our test site.

The email also includes a special link that will allow you to login to your WordPress website in recovery mode to fix and investigate the issue.

At the bottom of the email, you will see even more detailed information about the error, including the specific file and code that triggered it.

In this example below, some code at line 614 in our theme’s functions.php file is responsible for triggering the error.

Here is another example which is showing error details caused by a malfunctioning WordPress plugin.

Now you just need to click on the link to WordPress recovery mode, which will take you to your WordPress admin area.

You’ll be asked to log in to continue.

Once you are logged in, you will see a notification informing you about the critical error, what caused the error, and a link to the place where you can go to fix it.

For instance, in the following screenshot, it is informing us about the critical error caused by the plugin with a link to the plugins page.

Now, if you click on the link, then it will show you the misbehaving plugin. It will also show you exactly which line of code caused the error.

You can go ahead and deactivate the plugin for now.

Then you can simply find an alternative WordPress plugin, or see if you can get support from the plugin developers.

Similarly, if the issue is with your theme, then you will see a link to the Themes page. At the bottom of the page, you can see the theme causing the issue.

You can simply change your WordPress theme, or delete the broken theme and reinstall a fresh copy of the same theme from the official source to see if that resolves the issue.

Once you have addressed the issue, you can simply go ahead and click on the Exit Recovery Mode button at the top.

In most cases, your WordPress website would now start working normally.

However, if you are still seeing the critical error in WordPress, then you can try the troubleshooting steps in the next step.

Fixing Critical Error in WordPress Manually

If you are didn’t receive the WordPress critical issue notification email, then here is how you can troubleshoot and fix the critical error in WordPress.

If the error was caused by a recent action you took, then you can simply undo that action to fix the issue.

For instance, if you installed a new plugin and activating it caused the critical error, then you need to deactivate that plugin (we’ll show you how to do that in the first step below).

On the other hand, if you are unsure, then you can simply follow these steps.

1. Deactivate All WordPress Plugins

The easiest way to disable a faulty WordPress plugin is by deactivating it. However, due to the critical error, you don’t have access to the admin area and you don’t know which plugin to deactivate.

To address this we will deactivate all WordPress plugins. Don’t worry, you can easily reactivate them once you get access to your WordPress admin area.

Simply connect to your WordPress website using an FTP client or the File Manager app in your WordPress hosting control panel.

Once connected, you need to navigate to the /wp-content/ folder.

Inside the wp-content folder, you will see a folder called ‘plugins’. You need to right-click on it and then select ‘Rename’ option.

Next, change the name of the plugins folder to anything that you like. In our example, we’ll call it ‘plugins.deactivate’.

Once you do this, all of your plugins will be deactivated.

Basically, WordPress looks for the plugins folder to load the activated plugins on your website. When it cannot find the plugins folder, it simply cannot activate the plugins and automatically sets them as deactivated.

You can now visit your website to see if the critical error message has disappeared.

Important: Whether the critical error issue is resolved or not, don’t forget to rename the plugins.deactivated folder back to ‘plugins’. WordPress will then recognize the folder, and you’ll be able to reactivate them one by one from the WordPress dashboard so you can identify which one caused the critical error.

2. Switch to Default Theme

The next step in troubleshooting the critical error is to switch your WordPress theme to a default theme. This would fix the critical error issue if it is caused by some code in your current WordPress theme.

Simply go to WordPress.org themes directory and download a fresh copy of the TwentyTwenty or Twenty Twenty-One WordPress theme.

Next, you need to unzip the theme file to your computer. This will create a folder with the theme name on your computer.

Now you need to connect to your WordPress site using an FTP client or the file manager app in your hosting control panel. Once connected, navigate to the /wp-content/themes folder and you will see a list of all themes installed on your website.

Go ahead and download all of them to your computer as a backup. After that, you need to delete all theme folders from your website.

Your WordPress site now has no theme installed. To fix this, go ahead and upload the default theme folder you downloaded earlier.

Once finished, you can try visiting your website.

If the critical error was caused by your WordPress theme, then it should disappear now and you’ll be able to access your website.

3. Reinstall WordPress

A corrupt WordPress core file or malware could also trigger the critical error in WordPress. The easiest way to fix this is by reinstalling WordPress.

Simply go to WordPress.org and download a fresh copy of WordPress to your computer. After downloading the file, you need to unzip it to your computer. This will create a folder called ‘wordpress’ which contains all the files you need for the reinstall.

Next, you need to connect to your WordPress site using an FTP client or the file manager app in your hosting control panel.

Once connected, you need to navigate to the root folder of your website. The root folder is the one that contains wp-admin, wp-content, wp-includes, and wp-admin folders inside it.

Now select the files inside the wordpress folder on your computer and upload them to your website. Your FTP client will ask if you want to overwrite these files or skip them. You need to select ‘Overwrite’ and check the box next to ‘Always use this action’ option.

Click on the OK button to continue. Your FTP client will now replace all your core WordPress files with fresh copies from your computer.

Once finished, you can try visiting your website to see if this resolved the error.

If the critical was caused by a corrupt WordPress core file or malware, then the error should disappear now.

We hope this article helped you troubleshoot and fix the critical error in WordPress. You may also want to see our guide on how to get a free SSL certificate for your WordPress site, or our expert comparison of the best business phone services for small business.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Fix The Critical Error in WordPress (Step by Step) appeared first on WPBeginner.

October 21, 2021 at 04:30PM

How to Build Customer Loyalty in WordPress with Gamification

Do you want to build customer loyalty in WordPress with gamification?

Gamification lets you reward your loyal customers and users with points and other incentives. This can help to build customer loyalty and increase engagement and conversions on your website.

In this article, we’ll show you how you can build customer loyalty in WordPress with gamification.

Why Build Customer Loyalty with Gamification in WordPress?

Adding gamification to WordPress lets you reward visitors with different incentives when they take certain actions on your website, like leaving a review, commenting, or buying a product.

This can help to improve customer loyalty, since your customers will feel more engaged with your WordPress website when they’re rewarded with discounts, redeemable points, and more.

Using gamification to reward customer loyalty can be a great way to get more sales in your online store or increase conversions on any type of website.

With that said, let’s show you two different ways you can build customer loyalty with gamification in WordPress. Simply use the quick links below to jump straight to the method you want to use.

• Add a gamified customer loyalty program to your online store
• Add a gamified popup to your online store or website

Method 1. Add a Gamified Customer Loyalty Program to Your Online Store in WordPress

Before getting started, you need to have a functioning WooCommerce store already set up. If you’re still building your store, then check out our step by step guide on how to start an online store.

You’ll also want to make sure you choose high quality WooCommerce hosting and a professional WooCommerce theme.

After that, you can add a gamified customer loyalty program to your store.

The easiest way to do this is by using the Advanced Coupons plugin. It’s the best coupon code plugin for WordPress used by over 10,000 online stores.

Note: You can purchase the Advanced Coupons and Loyalty Program plugins together by getting the ‘All-In-One Bundle’. At the very least, you need to get the Loyalty Program plugin to create your own loyalty program.

First thing you need to do is install and activate the plugin. For more details, see our beginner’s guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once you’ve done that, you need to go to Coupons » Loyalty Program in your WordPress admin dashboard and then click on the ‘Settings’ menu option.

This brings you to a screen where you can change how much your rewards points are worth.

You can set the ‘Price to points earned ratio’ where a user will earn 5 points for every dollar spent. The ‘Points to price redeemed ratio’ is how many points it takes to reach a dollar. In this case, 10 points will equal one dollar.

You can also change the name if you want points to be called something else in your store.

Next, click on the ‘Points Earning’ menu option. Here you can choose the settings for how your points will be earned.

If you scroll down to the ‘Points Amounts’ section, then you can choose the actions that will earn points.

Simply click the toggle for any action you want to earn points.

You can also set the amount of points a user can earn per action on this page as well.

After that, click the ‘Redemption & Expiry’ menu option.

We’ll leave the default settings, but you can customize the minimum number of points before redemption, the expiry time for points, and more.

As you make changes to your rewards program, it’ll save automatically, so you don’t have to worry about saving your changes.

Now your users can earn points whenever they purchase items, leave a review, complete their first order, and more.

Method 2. Build Loyalty with Gamified Popups in WordPress

Another way you can add gamification to your WordPress site and reward your loyal customers is with a spin to win popup. You can use this kind of popup to share discounts, special offers, and other perks as a reward.

Here’s how it can look to your visitors:

This type of popup can encourage your visitors to take action in your online store or website by enticing customers with an exclusive discount code or deal.

The easiest way to add spin to win and gamified popups to WordPress is with OptinMonster. It’s the best lead generation plugin for WordPress used by over 1.2 million websites.

For more details, see our guide on how to add spin to win optins in WordPress and WooCommerce.

After you activate and setup the plugin you can fully customize what your gamified popups will look like, and who they will display for.

We hope this article helped you learn how to build customer loyalty in WordPress with gamification. You may also want to see our expert picks of the best domain name registrars, and our step by step guide on how to start your own podcast.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Build Customer Loyalty in WordPress with Gamification appeared first on WPBeginner.

October 20, 2021 at 05:30PM