Your mom told you to go to your room. And that stuck with you. But did you notice that she folded your clothes, gave you food, and dealt with all the logistical details of your life? Chances are, you didn’t notice at first for two reasons. First, your mom was so good at it that it seemed effortless. And second, you came to expect it and got used to it. However, mom blogs make it clear that a lot of thought and practice goes into being a parent. There are many, many mom blogs that provide useful ideas about parenting, cooking, health, getting through pregnancy, traveling with kiddos, and much more.
And these blogs make dough. So on top of being great moms, these amazing women are adept helping others and bringing home the bacon (forgive the conflicting food metaphors). In honor of Mother’s Day 2017, we looked at what makes the best mom blogs the best. And we found 15 premium WordPress themes with the best features to start your own mom blog!
Why WordPress Works for Mom Blogs?
The best mom blogs share some things in common, even though every one has it’s own flavor. Maternityglow.com has compiled a list of the best mom blogs for 2017, which showcases the immense diversity of niches and styles out there. Of course, the best blogs have the best content. But there are some key design elements that will make your blog look professional, and give you room to grow.
But before we get into the features, I want to take a step back and look ask, why WordPress? There are site builders out there that seem nice and easy. The thing is, we think WordPress is the best option for a profitable blog. As you grow, WordPress affords more flexibility and there are way more plugins available to expand the features of your site.
What a Profitable Mom Blog Looks Like
All the best mom blogs have great content, but the presentation can make a big difference in recruiting followers. After reviewing the top mom blogs, there are some clear similarities–qualities that readers will expect from your site. I have a collection of 15 premium WordPress themes that make great mom blogs, but before we get into it, let’s break down the elements that make a good mom blog.
Simple Design Centered on Content
Most of the best feature clean, minimal designs with bright colors and a fun brand. Take Pregnant Chicken for example. This site lets the content shine on a minimal background with eye catching photos. Not to mention the quirky name and logo. Great mom blogs consistently keep the design centered on the content. The light and happy color scheme contrasted by plenty of white space makes the site inviting and less overwhelming.
Big, Beautiful Photography
It’s all about promoting the content. That’s why featured content sliders are a big hit, as with the Honest Mum blog. Carefully chosen or shot, these photos bring you into the story of each piece. A theme that includes sliders, featured post galleries, and smaller masonry options for other categories help your content stand out. A large image or carousel front and center, featuring your best posts, is a must have. It grabs your attention right away and filters out the noise for new readers.
Useful Sidebars
Mom blogs consistently feature an “about me” widget at the top of the sidebar. Before they read your content, readers want to know a little about you. They need to identify with you as a person before they dive in and start taking your advice. Take this example from Rookie Moms, which shows their photo and a little description. It shows that there’s a real person with real experience behind the blog. Mom blogs also utilize the sidebar to suggest content, display ads, collect email subscribers, and link to social profiles.
Category Feeds
With mom blogs, there’s an infinite number of topics. Moms do so much on a daily basis and there are so many different approaches, so how do you make the variety of content accessible? Great blogs divvy up content into categories so that readers can sift through articles for their interests. Check out these category feeds that 5 Minutes for Mom uses. This helps establish your authority off the bat. You’ll show that you can handle a variety of topics in a clear, organized way.
Resources & Products
Some successful blogs provide downloadable resources or sell items through a shop. Moments a Day does a great job of putting these resources up front, on the home page of the site. So instead of seeing posts right away, the most valuable, cornerstone content is featured. If you plan to include resources like this, you’ll want a theme that has a solid homepage option and good looking blog page. Also, if you have items or books to sell, you can integrate a shop with a WooCommerce ready theme and display a feed of products on the front page.
15 Premium WordPress Themes to Start a Great Mom Blog With
1. Daisy is the number one selling blog theme on MOJO Marketplace, and it’s a great template for mom blogs. With the demo, it’s plug and play with a minimal visual style, elegant layouts and typography, and beautiful accent colors. It’s a bold platform for photos and content categories, and the about me widget looks great with social media icons. Another nice feature is the Instagram feed (see the bottom of the demo page).
Daisy
2. Birch is simple at first glance, but it’s features are robust. Create an awesome parallax effect for your featured blog posts or images, build a stylized about me container, and add attractive call to action buttons. A simple color update, add your content and structure, and you could have the perfect blog ready to go.
Birch
3. Zephyr has one of the most laid back interfaces of all these themes. The soft outlines and fonts in the demo make the content stand out and look professional. Set up a featured slider above your posts feed and put your Instagram feed in the sidebar. Choose from over 30 homepage layouts and use the visual customizer to fit your style.
Zephyr
4. Wunderful just looks great with a prominent visual grid option and cool sidebar design. The ribbon designs in the demo are elegant and make it easier to navigate the site. This is another great option for a more minimal look, and suits graphical elements well.
Wunderful
5. If you like the approach of Moments In a Day (see above), Nectar gives you a great homepage layout for listing resources and attaching calls to action (such as email sign-ups). You can also list your featured posts in a unique way with rounded thumbnails. The blog layout features a clean look and a nice sidebar for widgets and advertisements.
Nectar
6. FREYJA has 10 blog page layouts to choose from, from simple lists to diverse grids. In addition, if you want to change the experience up for different categories of content, you can customize different headers for each page. It also comes with a well-designed eCommerce demo that will give you a striking shop page.
FREYJA
7. If you don’t have a solid idea of what you want your site to look like, you have 20 options in The Core WordPress theme. It’s easy to install the demo content and customize it, and the visual builder helps you tweak things just right. You can do pretty much anything with this theme, and the Children demo suits a mom blog very well.
The Core
8. Soltice is a versatile theme with clean, spacious layouts. The blog feed looks great with large featured images and a sidebar with no borders. Customize colors, headers, and fonts easily in the visual editor. This theme also offers a custom about widget, unlimited colors, custom Google fonts, and is compatible with WooCommerce and more.
Solstice
Semplice
10. Amiable demonstrates how you can use your original content to create a stunning home page. The large image header and stylized overlays make this look like a true content site. With a library of post types and ways to customize each blog post, Amiable gives you a lot of options to configure the site to your content and style.
Amiable
11. If it’s your first time starting a blog, Blogger might be for you. It’s features are laser-focused on blogging, so you can get started quickly. And if you want to get in and customize it at some point, there are youtube tutorials specifically made for this theme.
Blogger
12. BlueBird is a great turnkey blog with a bold image-driven layout. If you use a lot of photography and want to get started right away building up your content library, try it out!
Bluebird
13. Sylph gives you 7 demos to choose from, as well as 5 homepage layouts–all of which are clean and bold. This theme looks good in any style and will make it easy to modify the look of your site as your blog grows and you add features or change your focus.
Sylph
14. New-commerce is designed for eCommerce shopping sites, and it has great features for including a shop on your blog. The blog layout is stylish and stands out among the crowd of elegant, simple themes. Try the demo to see the different ways you can configure the theme. If you don’t want to create a store on your site, try another theme.
New-commerce
15. Girly is a pretty theme that looks great with a bold, fullwidth image grid. If your content is visually driven, with posts about food or fashion, this layout works very well and the design compliments that type of content. Choose from a variety of page templates to suit your site structure.
Girly
Any of these themes is a great starting point, and is flexible enough to grow with you. If you need help with any step of the process, whether it’s your first website or you’ve used WordPress before, MOJO Marketplace has WordPress pros standing by to help. In fact, if you sign up for WP Live, you’ll get 50% off one order each month! If you don’t need the help, more power to you and thanks for reading!
