8 Desirable Digital Download WordPress Themes

If you want to run a site that sells digital downloads, you’ll need a way to present them to visitors. Despite your downloads being the main focus of your WordPress website, the theme you choose will be vital. Without something that looks great and is customisable to taste, you won’t be able to best present your downloads for maximum engagement. Choosing the right digital download WordPress theme will be a crucial step.

In fact, there are a number of themes available to pick from, as you’d expect with WordPress. However, they’re not all equal. You’ll want to look for various theme elements, such as design options, an architecture that is optimised for search engines, and integration with your favorite WordPress download plugin.

For this post, we’re going to look at a number of digital download WordPress themes, and tell you why they deserve to be on this list. First though, let’s talk about what you should look for in a suitable theme.

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What to Look for In a Digital Download WordPress Theme

Before looking at each of the themes in our list, it’s important to understand what you might want them to offer. You’ll probably want something that can achieve the following:

From here, you’ll get into subjective elements, such as the look of the theme, the number of demo templates it provides, and its overall usability. However, this is where you’ll want to take each theme for a spin if possible before you open your wallet.

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8 Desirable Digital Download WordPress Themes

Next, we’re going to look at eight different digital download WordPress themes. There’s no particular order, so read up on each one and narrow down your options.

From there, try out the demo sites (where available) for the themes on your shortlist, and keep comparing them until you have your final choice.

1. Astra

First up is Astra. This theme has full scope to create any kind of site, but it’s as near-perfect a digital download WordPress theme as you can get.

While Astra offers a lot of functionality, it’s fantastic if you want to set up a digital store:

• You have a few ways to present your products on your site. For example, you can adopt grid layouts, listed galleries, infinite scrolling, and more.
• There’s a cool “sales bubble” addition, that lets you spotlight some of your products.
• You’re able to customize the theme to your exact liking using the plethora of tools in the box. You can develop custom headers, footers, and body content using Astra’s theme panel, the native Block Editor, or your favorite page builder plugin such as Elementor.

While Astra offers a free version, it has some feature limitations, such as a lack of page styling options, full and max-width site layouts, and premium support. That’s why we’d recommend at least the premium Astra Pro. However, higher tiers give you more functionality, such as more starter templates, a selection of plugins to help boost your functionality, and much more.

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2. Shopkeeper

Next, we have Shopkeeper. This is one of many e-commerce themes from developer Get Bowtied. Much like its entire portfolio, Shopkeeper is a top-notch solution if you want to set up a store of any type, but is also great for digital downloads.

Because this theme deals with selling products, you get a lot of focused functionality to leverage:

• It gets regular updates, which means it will work with the current version of WordPress.
• Shopkeeper lets you design the site you want without code. This is thanks to its support for page builders such as WPBakery Page Builder, Elementor, and more.
• There are lots of layouts for the entire page, the header, the footer, and more.
• It has good code under the hood, which means Shopkeeper has good optimization for search engines. It’s also fast to load.

A regular license for Shopkeeper is $59, and because this is through the ThemeForest website, you get six months of support. For the price, functionality, and developer, this theme is a bargain.

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3. Blocksy

Much like many other WordPress themes, Blocksy doesn’t fixate itself on digital downloads. However, its feature set means you can use it for this purpose, and it can handle everything you throw at it without breaking a sweat.

This theme is ready to host your e-commerce site, and it comes with a bunch of great key features:

• It offers compatibility with the native Block Editor at its core. This will be ideal if you want to use what WordPress offers, without installing an extra page builder plugin.
• Blocksy offers several performance-based benefits, such as a fast live preview option, and the ability to load your JavaScript in a dynamic way. This will cut down on HTTP requests, which in turn makes your site faster.
• There’s full support for WooCommerce out of the box, if you want to sell other items besides digital downloads.
• If you don’t want to use the Block Editor, you can integrate Elementor, Beaver Builder, Brizy, and others.

There’s so much more, such as full-featured design options, a header builder, and advanced typography options, that we can’t fit it all in here. However, you can take Blocksy for a test-drive, as it’s free to download. There’s also a premium version (starting from $49 per year for a single-site license) that includes enhancements to font support, custom code snippets, support for developer “hooks,” and other features.

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4. Elementor

Almost every WordPress user knows about Elementor. It’s the number-one page builder plugin for the platform, and it leaves no stone unturned in order to provide almost everything you need to run your site.

While the Elementor plugin itself is a page builder, you can use it in conjunction with the Hello Theme to give you the same kind of experience. As for what it includes, we’re going to struggle noting it all. For starters, it offers the following:

• You have full freedom to create whatever site you imagine using the various header, footer, and content builders.
• There are template collections on hand that cover full sites, page sections, and full kits to implement site-specific pop-up templates.
• The page builder modules let you implement functionality such as product titles, descriptions, ratings, notices, and even a cart and checkout.
• There are also features such as a popup builder and signup form that means you won’t need third-party plugins to add them in.

If you combine this with a plugin such as Download Manager, you’ll have a full-featured, well-rounded digital download WordPress theme that can scale to your needs. You can find a free version of the Elementor plugin, but we think the premium edition is such good value. A one-site license is $49 per year, and comes with the full Elementor experience, which is refreshing given the limitations in other solutions.

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5. Neve

Many online shoppers will use a mobile device as their primary web access. As such, you might want to consider a theme that caters to this crowd, such as Neve.

This theme uses a mobile-first approach, so it can be of value to site owners in a few ways:

• It will load fast, due to its lightweight infrastructure.
• You get compatibility with mobile-centric technologies such as Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP).
• You can customize a number of site elements, such as the header and footer, along with your overall layout.
• There is support for a huge number of page builder plugins, such as Elementor, Beaver Builder, the Divi Builder, and even Thrive Architect.

What’s more, Neve offers a plethora of starter templates, which makes it easy to choose one that suits your digital downloads site, integrate your choice of download management plugin, and develop further.

The Personal license will set you back around $75 per year, which seems like a lot when you compare this with the competition. However, you’ll get to use Neve on as many sites as you need. What’s more, the Personal license contains almost every feature available. It’s going to be enough to build your digital download site, and practically any other site you need too.

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6. Mayosis

This next theme is an outlier, but one that impressed us enough to include. Mayosis focuses on digital marketplaces, and it could suit you down to the ground.

There are a number of standout elements that we think makes this digital download WordPress theme a real contender:

• You have a number of niche starter templates to choose from, all based on creative industries.
• There’s support for a few different page builder plugins, but you can also use the Block Editor and Mayosis’ header builder.
• You’re able to set up multi-vendor marketplaces using the built-in tools.
• There are all sorts of additions that can make or break a digital downloads store. For example, you can play audio clips if you sell music, display galleries if you offer digital images or video, and get the option to customize your product templates in full.

You’ll even find two premium plugins in the box: WPBakery Page Builder and Advanced Custom Fields Pro. These will give you almost all the scope you need to create the perfect digital downloads website.

Mayosis is $67 for a single-site license from ThemeForest. This gives you six months of support and updates during the lifespan of that license.

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7. GeneratePress

We’re back to popular WordPress themes again, this time with GeneratePress. It’s a perennial frontrunner when it comes to any niche. However as a digital download WordPress theme, it takes some beating.

The draw for this theme is that it has full compatibility with the Block Editor. So much so, it feels like that editor is part of GeneratePress, rather than the other way around. However, it’s got plenty in the box to get excited about:

• The theme is tiny. In its default state, it’s 7.4KB, which is practically nothing in comparison to the majority of websites. As such, you’ll nail your performance to the wall.
• It offers lots of accessibility, which is important if you have customers with visual impairments. This might be the case if you sell music or audiobooks, or host podcasts, for example.
• There are lots of templates available for all types of sites — even more so with a premium upgrade.

Speaking of which, you’ll pay $59 per year for a license that lets you use GeneratePress on up to 500 sites. If you couple this with Download Monitor and the GenerateBlocks option, you’ll have one of the most powerful systems around to help you build your site.

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8. Digital Download Pro

It’s hard to mistake what Digital Download Pro’s focus is. It’s a theme that will help you set up, design, and run a digital downloads store. It offers a lot of relevant functionality.

The theme gives you seven different page layouts, which doesn’t seem like much, but each one will focus on a digital download site — so they will all suit your needs. What’s more, there are plenty of other aspects we like:

• You get a bunch of design options at the ready, for all aspects of your site.
• You’re able to include Call To Action (CTA) elements, such as banner headers, with ease.
• There’s a “featured download” section that slots into your existing design.
• Also, there’s a dedicated page that hosts your downloads. This lets you display recent downloads with links to product pages if desired.
• There are other implementations that will help you run a digital downloads store too, such as pricing tables, features sections, and more.

You’ll also find Digital Download Pro includes aspects such as Schema integration, that you won’t find in every option on this list. Regardless, you’ll pay $59 per year for a license, but that’s not the most valuable option. Instead, we recommend a lifetime license that starts from $99. This will also give you priority support when you need it.

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How to Choose the Right Digital Download WordPress Theme For You

At this point, you still might not know which theme is right for you. Consider the following questions and use them to pick from the list above:

• Does the theme let you integrate a download management tool such as Download Monitor?
• Can you sell downloads using the theme without further integration?
• Does the theme meet your requirements with regards to its core functionality?
• Will you be able to design the look of your site without fuss, using intuitive customization panels?
• Does the digital download WordPress theme suit your budget?

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Wrapping Up

Choosing a theme is a tough gig regardless of the niche you work in. However, for a digital download WordPress theme, you have much more to consider. For instance, you’ll want to think about how internal team members and external end users can get the most out of your site. There’s definitely lots of boxes to tick and requirements to meet.

In our opinion, you’ll want a theme with design flexibility, good SEO, and compatibility with the plugins you need. However, you’ll also need full compatibility with your download management plugin of choice. From there, you can get to work and build a digital download site to be proud of.