20 Free 3 Column WordPress Themes

August 16th, 2008 / Blogging Tools, WordPress Themes / 42,809 views

Free 3 column wordpress themes

Is your blog too cluttered? Too much information for one sidebar? Then you should try one of these free 3 column WordPress themes. From clean and minimal to graphic and creative templates to use on personal, corporate or magazine style blogs, this selection of 20 of the best 3 column WordPress templates will definitely help you make the right choice.

Please visit their authors’ sites, available at the “Info & Download” link, to learn more about each of these themes.

This article has 53 comments

tahtimbo
August 16th, 2008

These templates are great! I just wish they worked for Blogger. Why is it that the templates for WordPress always look so clean and crisp?
Alex, Blogsessive
August 16th, 2008

I wouldn’t say that every theme is clean, these are selected from probably over 300 themes that I’ve ruled out. Every blogging platform has nice designs, it all depends on designer’s talent.
Ivan Pidov
August 17th, 2008

Really nice and clean themes. Thanks for sharing.
Vlad
August 17th, 2008

Dude, this is one of your best posts so far! I used Dark Zen for a while on my personal blog, so I knew about that one, but you really gave me a good idea on what to use for one of my future developments. Cheers!
Alex, Blogsessive
August 17th, 2008

Ivan & Vlad, thank you both for your nice words. Glad you’ve enjoyed the selection.
sushi
August 17th, 2008

simplified theme does it for me on my blog but others also cool
Paula from Affiliate Blog Online
August 17th, 2008

You’ve put together a really nice collection of themes here. I particularly like Daily Press although would be better with a white background.
Alex, Blogsessive
August 17th, 2008

@sushi: I don’t usually edit user comments but the kind of advertisement you made withing the part that was edited is not acceptable. Think twice next time. Also, I’ve checked that website before and I couldn’t actually find something really worth mentioning.

@Paula: I’m pretty sure that changing the background color is not a very hard thing to do for DailyPress.
Alina Popescu
August 18th, 2008

I’ve always been a fan of three-column themes. They indeed make everything look clear and it’s harder to clutter your blog. It’s in no way impossible though
Joel
August 18th, 2008

Very nicely sorted…! Thanks for listing them
Willy Andres
August 19th, 2008

Muy buen reporte de plantillas. Muchas gracias por compartir.

Saludos.!
AlexG
August 19th, 2008

1 word….wow!..thanks for sharing. I am amazed they do not charge for some
Andrew Houle
August 20th, 2008

I’ve been looking for just this sort of list, thanks for putting it together.
birblog
August 23rd, 2008

güzelce toplamış afferim
Byteburn
August 30th, 2008

Nice list! I also love your other articles as well.
Susan
September 3rd, 2008

I really like Simple Balance – it’s the first time I’ve seen that theme.
james
September 14th, 2008

nice collection..
thanks for posting.
taniaodziez.com.pl
September 15th, 2008

SUPER
Ahmet
September 17th, 2008

Thanks. nice themes
blogsarticle
October 7th, 2008

nice themes !
bongkeng
November 8th, 2008

thanks for the themes…

wish u all the best and success
aminhers
November 19th, 2008

thanks for the theme, u’re great !
NW Link DIrectory
November 19th, 2008

superb collection, thanks
realest
November 22nd, 2008

Why there so little left sided 3 column themes, they all made on right side :\
Alex, Blogsessive
November 23rd, 2008

realest, basically, the best 2 reasons I can think of are:

1. SEO-wise, outputting tons of menu links before content is not very helpful (although positioning can be achieved via CSS too);

2. Blogs are mostly “tall” websites with many scrolling pages. While scrolling, having the navigation close by is much helpful than having it across the screen.
Wordpress themes
December 1st, 2008

thank You
Muneeb
January 2nd, 2009

This is great

Thanks for sharing !

Cheers
latest sms
January 8th, 2009

super nice themes
maxii
January 16th, 2009

u got some awesome themes out their, i love it
murti
January 22nd, 2009

Unbound really caught my eye! Nice collection
Chris
February 26th, 2009

Thanks for putting this list together!

Personally I’m really feeling the first and last theme
Azam
February 26th, 2009

Love your selection. I’ve downloaded a few and will try it out on which suites me the best.
Thanks. Great post.
Frumusete
March 4th, 2009

Thanks for sharing.
Thales
March 5th, 2009

Finally! I’ve been looking on wordpress website for a free three column wordpress theme, but their search engine is broke, it was showing up 2 columns as well.. so I googled, and googled, and came across your website where I finally found a clean and neat theme! Thanks!
Ableblogger
March 14th, 2009

I am downloading few themes and will upload them on my server as soon as possible. Cant wait to see them live on my blog. Pretty kool collection
Terry
March 19th, 2009

I’ve been looking for some decent 3-column themes to replace my current theme. I think I’ve found some winners here. But you never know until you actually get them live. Keep ‘em coming.
Me
March 20th, 2009

Thanks for the info
okta
March 24th, 2009

It’s cool template.. Thanks
alanya
March 27th, 2009

cool and very nice template..thank you
had
April 2nd, 2009

nice list!
air beds
April 7th, 2009

Have just downloaded The Birds theme to help fit with the new blog im launching, Thanks
zygrax.com
April 9th, 2009

Agneka Simple is really simple… its colors reminds me of Flickr.
DC
April 27th, 2009

Nice Themes!
CJ
May 11th, 2009

Wow! There are a lot of awesome Wordpress themes here. I might have to convert my site to wordpress after seeing this. Judging that they’re all free.
Dee
May 20th, 2009

I love the Unbound, thanks for sharing…
Alexs
May 20th, 2009

Simple Balance 2.0 is awesome and easy to use. Thank you very much.
yamaha guitars fan
May 26th, 2009

Great web templates. I was actually looking for one to replace my current web template which is so rigid. Can’t see any of my adsenses. I’m going to try out one of templates shown here and see if they work. See you soon!
Ghillie Suit
May 30th, 2009

thanks for the great templates. i can’t find this one: The Story Wordpress Theme??? well i can’t find the preview.
Nick Garnett
June 3rd, 2009

In answer to an earlier comment – my understanding is that the eye travels from left to right when first encountering visual stimulus; you want visitors to see your content first so put nav on the right – I was taught this at art school – next time you look at something for the first time try and conciously track where your eye goes first and the trajectory it follows. This way too serious but try it you’ll be suprised.
Alex, Blogsessive
June 3rd, 2009

Nick,

We’re used to reading from left to right, unlike people in the arab countries. That’s why we focus on the top left corner first and continue scanning pages to bottom right in a quick zig-zag method.

In terms of what you want your visitors to see first, I will disagree with your statement. Why? Because most times, the content stands out on his own. We use large titles, images inside our articles, boxes around them, a larger area to display and so on.

Users don’t usually have a hard time identifying the content. The big problem with content is making it reader accessible through styling, paragraphs, sub-headings etc.

What users have a hard time identifying on websites is the navigation and when the navigation is not relevant, they go for the search form, assuming its placement is good and visible.

From statistics, about a third of the most accessed websites nowadays have an “inverted L” navigation type: items across the top, and items across the left side.

Usually, the ones across the top link to large areas of the website, while the left side ones are used to guide the user through sub-level items.

From where I stand, navigation should be consistent, meaning, you should have all your navigation items that relate to you website structure on one side (top or left) and additional navigation, like featured items, off site links etc on the other (left or right).

If you should decide between left or right hand navigation, there’s really no difference from a users point of view. No test managed to determine for sure that users prefer one over the other, and everyone adjusted really quick to the navigation if placed on the other side.

It’s all in the consistency and unity of your navigation items.
technoseries
June 6th, 2009

which one from those templates having the best choice for SEO
tedicik
June 12th, 2009

its really good themes . i liked all of them and iuse my blog choseone.. good blogs..
Ghillie Suit
June 21st, 2009

these are amazing themes thanks for the share