When it comes to eCommerce websites, the more visual the better- this is one mantra I think all online store owners should follow to dazzle customers with their website design. Especially when 94% of the user’s first impressions are design-related.

Your online store’s front end is the only interaction your customer is going to have with you. This is why today, a website’s design is not just about fonts and colors, it’s also about creating a user experience that translates into sales. This includes responsiveness across all devices, touch gestures, easy navigation, captivating interface, and more. 

So if you’re looking for a suitable theme, it’s advisable to look beyond layouts and colors. Look for templates that will maximize your user’s interaction with your website.

Since Magento is already a pretty expensive platform, it’s best to pick a template from free Magento 2 themes and customize them to fit your taste. Though limited in number, free themes will give you a prebuilt structure you can work over to create your website.

Table of Content:

1. Criteria for choosing a Magento 2 theme
   • User-friendliness
   • Overall design
   • SEO friendly
   • Customizability
   • Responsiveness
   • Cross-browser compatibility
   • Multiple languages
   • Suitability
2. Best free Magento 2 themes for 2022
   • FreeGo
   • UB trex
   • Bizkick
   • Ves Yume
   • Ves Need
   • Ketty
   • Pixtron
   • Absolute
   • Bentriz
   • Ves Fasony
   • Ves Kasitoo
3. Conclusion

Criteria for Choosing A Magento 2 Theme

Before we get started, let’s elaborate on the things you need to keep in mind while selecting a theme:

1.User-friendliness

A website’s interface needs to be easy to understand and navigate. Look for themes that allow you to add filters, touch gestures, sliders, ajax carts, back to top buttons, new arrivals, etc.

2. Overall design

It’s best not to over complicate things and invest in over-the-top designs that might affect your website’s speed and clutter your user’s mind.

eCommerce websites should have a clean and polished look, with big blocks that allow you to add images and banners. Look for grid and column layouts that are well organized

3. SEO friendly

SEO friendliness is an important factor for all eCommerce websites. The themes you’re choosing should have clean HTML and CSS codes that are not very heavy. Also, your theme needs to be fast because Google penalizes websites that take a lot of time to load.

4. Customizability

No matter what theme you choose, you’ll have to give it a makeover to give it your voice and style. Always choose a theme that can be modified to whatever extent you want it to.

Look for themes that you give you a clear insight into its code so that you don’t have to go through a lot of trouble to change it.

5. Responsiveness

Regular shoppers will prefer to have your store’s app in their phones for easy accessibility. Make sure that your theme is responsive across all devices (laptop, desktop, phone, tablets, etc) so that your design remains intact. This also important because mobile responsiveness plays a big role in SEO as well.

6. Cross-browser compatibility

Your user could be using any browser- Chrome, Safari, Bing, firefox. Cross-browser compatibility will ensure that your store theme doesn’t get distorted on other browsers.

It would be foolish to design a smashing website and lose customers because it doesn’t display properly on other browsers. So take care of this factor when choosing from free Magento 2 themes.

7. Multiple languages

Your audience could be scattered all across the globe. Choose a theme that supports multiple languages and currencies.

8. Suitability

Choose a template that best suits your business. This way, if it fits your business style and theme, you won’t have to make a lot of changes to your website.

If you’re a clothing store, then choose a theme that supports big images, if you’re a mobile store, then a theme that focuses more on product descriptions would be more suitable.

Best Free Magento 2 Themes for 2022

1. FreeGo

FreeGo is a minimalist theme by Softwin. It has a clean and simple interface and is fully responsive across all devices. You can customize it easily from the backend to give it your own spin. It has a Mega menu for more advanced navigation, and you can also add a blog page to your website using its inbuilt blog extension. 

Moreover, it has a child theme ready so that you can easily manage the updates and customizations of the theme. 

Features: 

• Sold out label extension.
• Featured product list
• Browser compatibility
• Powerful Admin Panel
• Off-Canvas Menu
• Touch-Optimized Slideshow

2. UB Trex

Another simplistic theme, UB Trex by Ubertheme offers a great design, especially for fashion eCommerce stores. It has a purely flat homepage that enables you to add important information along with product images to captivate your customer’s attention. 

Features:

• Customers can switch between grid and list layout for a more personalized user experience. 
• A handy mini cart widget for a disruption-less shopping experience. 
• Easily customizable
• Fully responsive

UB trex’s features seem to be focused on enhancing the user experience of customers, which is a quality that can’t be overlooked when choosing a theme for your store.

3. BizKick

Bizkick is a clean-coded theme, fully optimized according to Magento’s coding standard. It follows a beautiful block design and is perfect for a fashion store, accessory store, shoe store, and apparel store. 

Features:

• Search engine optimized for a better Google ranking
• Fully documented so that you can find everything about its code for easier customization.
• Cross-browser compatibility
• Easy installation
• Mobile responsive

4. Ves Yume

If big, bold and beautiful is your style then Ves Yume is for you. Go all out and play with colorful image backgrounds to bring out the boldness of this theme. 

Features:

• Ajax cart
• Off-canvas menu and header link
• Image gallery in product details
• Font Awesome integration
• Dedicated customization services

5. Ves Need

Another slick design by Venus theme, Ves Need has an elegant layout with disproportionate blocks. It is fully responsive and optimized for mobile devices, and has a powerful admin panel. 

Features:

• Fast load page.
• Based on Magento blank theme
• Touch-optimized slider 
• Product list carousel so you can show new arrivals on the home page. 
• Dropdown menu
• Includes PSD

6. Ketty

Ketty is a polished theme with a light-looking design. It comes with a slider that customers can flip through to see the latest deals and offers. It has a very modern look with changeable fonts. 

Features:

• Color filters 
• Product zoom
• Checkout improvements 
• SEO friendly 
• Compatible across all browsers

7. Pixtron

Pixtron is specially designed for an electronics store, mobile store, or a digital store. It’s compatible with all Magento 2 versions. It has a sleek design that can be customized and used for any type of store. 

Features:

• Compare products functionality
• Well documented
• Clean coded
• SEO friendly

Interesting read: Magento SEO Guide: Everything You Need to Know

8. Absolute

Absolute is the most popular free Magento 2 theme based on a two-column layout. It’s a more professional template with a formal look and might be best suited for mobile stores. Its latest version comes with search autocomplete, mega menus and dropdown styles. 

Features:

• Mobile responsive
• Theme editor
• Quick product overview features
• Compare products feature
• Product and image slider 

9. Bentriz

Bentriz is a very visual and classy template that you can easily customize to give your store a  posh look. It is specially designed for auto stores, auto spare parts, cars & bikes, and tools store. It has been hand-coded to keep in line with the current Magento 2 guidelines. 

Features:

• Fully Responsive.
• Featured Product List
• AutoInstall Demo Content
• Easy Use and Easy Customize

10. Ves Fasony

Ves Fasony‘s template fit for an apparel store. It’s built with Bootstrap 3.x, tailored for a good customer experience. You can add customer testimonials and new arrivals on the homepage. 

Features:

• Touch-optimized slideshow
• Brand owl carousel so your customers can find products by brands. 
• User-friendly admin panel
• Compatible with Magento marketplace extensions

11. Ves Kasitoo

Kasitoo is specially designed for furniture stores and is one of the fastest Magento themes out there. It has a neat design and you can display featured products on the home page.

 Features:

• Retina ready and fully responsive
• Touch-optimized products carousel
• Off-canvas menu
• You can show product tabs such as the latest, most viewed, bestseller, etc. 
• Fast page load time. 

Lastly 

All the above free Magento 2 themes are highly customizable and should be fit for all kinds of eCommerce businesses. Some of them might provide additional functionality and support, but only on payment.

If you feel like I might have missed a theme or have any other valuable suggestion, do leave us a comment!

Also, if you’re new to the world of Magento and would like to know what kind of hosting services, extensions, etc you’ll require for your store, talk to our experts now.