20 Great Sample WordPress Sites, Expert-Picked for 2026

Building a WordPress website from scratch isn’t the easiest thing in the world. Nor is overhauling an existing site. To make the process a little easier and give you some inspiration, we’ve pulled together 18 great sample WordPress sites to help you see what WordPress can do. 🔧

Ready to get inspired? Let’s dive in. 🤿

Get inspired with these websites that were all built with WordPress

1. The New York Times Corporate Website

The New York Times is one of the most well known news publications around the world and their corporate site is unsurprisingly designed like an online newspaper. With a very clear navigation menu (and the option to see an extended version of it), it’s very easy to get around the site.

👉 Here’s what we like:

• The section layouts are clean with lots of white space, making each page easy to scroll through to find what you’re looking for.
• A footer on each page acts as a secondary website menu so you can easily jump to somewhere else when you finish reading instead of having to scroll back to the top.
• Overall, a very inviting, professional user experience.

2. Rihanna Now

The popular Bajan-American singer, Rihanna, has a really unique website layout that keeps visitors engaged through the use of imagery and special effects. This is applied to various elements, including the main photo grid on her homepage, as well as the navigation menu.

👉 Here’s what we like:

• The photo grid on the homepage has all of the images appear black and white as the default color, but when you hover over any one of them, the image turns to color and shows a pop-up link to a post.
• When browsing the site, whichever page you’re on shows in the navigation menu as having diagonal strike-thru text applied to it, along with the font itself lightly grayed out.
• All of the layouts across the site are presented in a very visually appealing way, combining photography with short chunks of text, thus making it easy to browse.

3. NASA

As famous as the New York Times and Rihanna are, NASA needs arguably even less of an introduction. And although this entire post serves as social proof that WordPress is the internet’s best CMS, there’s something uniquely special about the people who sent humanity to the moon using it to power their official website.

👉 Here’s what we like:

• The homepage is very busy, which can normally feel distracting, but NASA has so much interesting content that it’s easy to get lost (in a good way) and learn something new.
• Despite the busy layout, there’s a search bar on the top left of the header menu that makes it easy to find specific articles or topics. It would be even better if the menu was sticky, but it does the job regardless.
• An alternating color scheme that contrasts black backgrounds with white text and vice versa makes it easy to stop and focus on a section as you scroll the page.

4. Meta Newsroom

Meta’s Newsroom (formerly Facebook’s) is the official news portal for Meta Platforms, Inc. It serves as a central hub for company announcements, product updates, research findings, and corporate communications. The site covers a wide range of topics related to Meta’s various platforms and initiatives, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and developments in AI, VR, and AR technologies.

👉 Here’s what we like:

• Minimalist design with ample white space enhances readability and puts focus on the content.
• Effective use of a grid layout with varied image sizes creates visual interest while maintaining a structured, organized appearance.
• Clear categorization and tagging of articles helps site visitors easily navigate and find relevant information across Meta’s diverse range of products and initiatives.

5. The Harvard Gazette

The Harvard Gazette is the official news website of Harvard University, one of the world’s most prestigious academic institutions. It serves as a comprehensive source of information about Harvard’s research, educational programs, campus life, and community initiatives.

👉 Here’s what we like:

• Clean grid layout with varied image sizes creates visual interest while maintaining organization.
• Subtle use of color in section headers helps categorize content without overwhelming the design.
• Integration of upcoming events directly on the homepage enhances user engagement and information accessibility.

6. Inside Gymnastics Magazine

This magazine serves as an online hub for gymnastics enthusiasts and professionals. It offers comprehensive content including news, features, photo galleries, and video interviews related to gymnastics events and athletes.

👉 Here’s what we like:

• The site uses a grid-based layout with clear sections for news, photo galleries, and featured content, making it easy to navigate and find information.
• High-quality imagery is prominently featured throughout, showcasing gymnasts and events to create visual interest.
• The color scheme, primarily using blue, white, and red (likely referencing the Paris 2024 Olympics), creates a cohesive and professional look.

🎨 Theme used: Bridge

💵 Price: $69 one-time fee

7. RollingStone

In 2018, Rolling Stone transitioned from an outdated CMS to WordPress to better serve their editorial team with modern publishing features. This shift provided both an improved content creation experience and a stronger technical foundation that enabled scalable growth for the brand. ¹

👉 Here’s what we like:

• Quickly take a peek at the latest articles, with either short description snippets or images to draw you in and make you want to click.
• Extremely navigable layout. The main menu is centered and complemented by a search option to the right of it and a drop-down mega menu to the left of it.
• Most of the color scheme is a simple black text on white background but there are a few elements where red is effectively used to get readers’ attention.

8. Peter Sagan

Retired professional world champion cyclist, Peter Sagan, built his personal website using a custom WordPress theme from Studio Azione. It’s a media heavy site, with lots of large images and rolling video clips of the former athlete.

👉 Here’s what we like:

• The creative sticky header navigation menu looms over the page in a good way – not distracting, but always letting you know it’s available should you want to explore another part of the site.
• A masonry grid is used on the News page to present various stories about Sagan in a visually appealing gallery.
• His logo is a work of modern art. The S with the tipped over P to form a bicycle rider shape is brilliant.

9. Bloomberg Professional Services

Bloomberg Professional Services is a division of Bloomberg L.P., a globally famous financial, software, data, and media company. This division provides financial professionals and organizations with real-time financial market data, analytics, and trading tools through its flagship product, the Bloomberg Terminal. The Bloomberg Professional Services website serves as a gateway for information about their offerings, including market data, analytics, trading solutions, and industry insights.

👉 Here’s what we like:

• Excellent use of a dark color scheme with strong color contrast for easy readability.
• Colorful CTA buttons that pop off the page and entice readers to click on them.
• The products section uses a trendy tile layout, which is en vogue in web design at the moment.

10. Diggity Marketing

Matt Diggity has been running a very successful SEO agency for many years. He also has a popular YouTube channel with over 169,000 subscribers and is considered one of the thought leaders in the SEO space. His website was built with WordPress and is designed really well for conversion.

👉 Here’s what we like:

• Color scheme was chosen very strategically with the CTA buttons being very prominent.
• Big, easy-to-read text makes scanning the pages easy.
• Showcases testimonials from clients and also well-known publications that Matt’s been featured in, both of which help increase conversions.

🎨 Theme used: Neve

💵 Price: Free version, or pro version starting from $69 per year

11. Sweden.se

The official website of the country of Sweden not only uses WordPress to run their site, but they even tell you they do! You can see it in the fourth paragraph of the screenshot above. The website serves as a bridge between Sweden and the rest of the world. It covers various topics, with the unifying factor being…well, you already know. 😅

👉 Here’s what we like:

• Very navigable layout, with neatly defined sections, and each section having a slider filled with articles about that section’s topic.
• The overall appearance feels like an online magazine and encourages visitors to stay on the website via the rabbit hole effect.
• Use of varied, high quality images that match well with the subject matter of each article.

12. Microsoft News Source

Microsoft News Source is Microsoft’s official news and storytelling platform, designed to provide in-depth coverage of the company’s initiatives, innovations, and impact. The website offers a mix of corporate news, feature stories, and multimedia content that highlights Microsoft’s products, services, and broader technological developments.

👉 Here’s what we like:

• Similar to the Sweden website, it also has an online magazine feel to it, with intuitive navigation.
• The sidebar featuring the latest news is a nice way to separate those stories from the featured ones.
• A well-placed CTA asking you to sign up to their newsletter is placed shortly after the fold and stands out with an elegant color contrast.

13. jQuery Official Website

jQuery is a popular JavaScript library that simplifies HTML document traversing, event handling, animating, and Ajax interactions. The website serves as the official hub for jQuery, offering downloads, documentation, plugins, and learning resources for developers.

👉 Here’s what we like:

• Prominent download button and version information make it easy for developers to quickly access the latest jQuery release.
• Clear, concise code examples with syntax highlighting demonstrate jQuery’s functionality, enhancing readability and understanding.
• Well-organized navigation with dropdown menus provides easy access to different sections of the site, improving user experience for developers seeking specific information.

14. cPanel

cPanel powers the backend of countless WordPress sites – possibly millions. It also runs its own website on WordPress. There’s something satisfying about that recursion: the web’s most popular hosting control panel and the web’s most popular content management system, each relying on the other.

👉 Here’s what we like:

• Great use of orange to highlight the CTA buttons, and the additional on-hover effect to increase the click-through rate.
• Scrolling social proof banner that shows the various brands using cPanel, which includes some of the biggest names in web hosting.
• Extensive mega footer with dark background color to offset it from the rest of the website and signal to the visitor that they’ve reached the end.

15. The TED Blog

The TED Blog is an extension of the renowned TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) platform, offering written content that complements TED Talks and events. It features articles, behind-the-scenes insights, and updates on TED’s various initiatives and conferences.

👉 Here’s what we like:

• Clean, grid-based layout with a mix of text and images creates an engaging visual hierarchy, making it easy to browse multiple stories.
• Prominent featured article with a large image draws attention to the most current or important content, guiding users’ focus.
• Consistent use of the iconic TED red color in headers and logos maintains brand identity while keeping the overall design clean and readable.

16. Futurism

Futurism is a news website that publishes interesting stories about AI, technology, science, space exploration, and anything that’s at the forefront of innovation. They also occasionally publish interviews and opinion pieces.

👉 Here’s what we like:

• Another simplistic layout with lots of white space that combines the best of the New York Times and RollingStone to make its own unique look.
• Excellent font contrast between headings, subheadings, and body text.
• Good use of rectangular 4×4 grid showing readers additional stories within the same topic to keep them on the site.

17. Green Day

For anyone who grew up in the 90s or is a fan of 90s-era music, the punk rock band Green Day needs no introduction. With a solid fan base that has lasted decades, the three rockers from California are still very active, and so is their website, which happens to use a headless WordPress setup.

👉 Here’s what we like:

• Dark grey and bright pink are the dominant color aesthetic and they are effective at quickly grabbing visitors’ attention.
• The homepage layout is five stacked hero sections with call to action buttons, which funnels visitors to their desired locations with no friction.
• Interesting use of the main menu. Rather than a traditional navigation menu for the site itself, it primarily acts as a link tree composed of external links that point to where the band hosts its music and to their other business ventures.

18. Tiger Woods

Tiger Woods uses WordPress in a very creative way with various interactive elements like his use of on-hover effects to transform black and white images into their full color counterparts. This helps to reduce bounce rates by keeping visitors interested and engaged with the page.

👉 Here’s what we like:

• Great use of subdomains to separate his main page from his golf course design firm, restaurant, non-profit foundation, and his events page.
• There is a thin line running across the very top of the site on desktop. At the far right is a drop-down menu that leads to all the subdomains mentioned in the previous point. It makes for a clean navigation experience.
• The shameless, awkwardly placed Rolex affiliate link on the homepage is somehow so terrible that it becomes humorously enjoyable, and it only works because it’s specifically on his website.

🎨 Theme used: underscores

💵 Price: Free

19. be-beau

be-beau is a French brand design agency that uses a very interesting color scheme. The background is mostly a light tan color with the font being grey-approaching-black, but then their portfolio section jumps off the screen with bright colors to grab your attention.

👉 Here’s what we like:

• Similar to Rafal Bojar, also uses a unique mouse cursor to replace the standard arrow.
• Very effective use of colors and layout that keeps things organized.
• Footer section with links to social media profiles and a contact button.

20. New England Cord Blood Bank

New England Cord Blood Bank is a scientific business that preserves newborn blood and tissue from the umbilical cord with the scope of using them in the event of any diseases that may occur in a family. In short, this site is about banking stem cells for possible future use.

👉 Here’s what we like:

• The animations that show up on almost every page keep you engaged.
• The color scheme makes the design look stylish and yet professional.
• The content and pages on this site are overall structured and presented in an intuitive, visual way so the average user can understand the process of collecting and preserving stem cells.

🎨 Theme Used: Neve

💵 Price: Free version, or pro version starting from $69 per year

Final Word 🏁

By the way, if you’re ever curious what theme a WordPress site is using because you want to try it out for yourself, we have a free tool on our sister site that will give you the answer. Simply put in the URL of the site you’re wondering about. Then, wait a few seconds and the “what theme is that” tool will give you the answer. It’ll also provide a link to where you can learn more about it, along with some other related information. Happy analyzing!

Do you know of any other great sample WordPress sites? Share them in the comments so everyone can check them out!

💡 For even more website inspiration, check out our roundup of ten great Wix examples.

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