Best Free Tumblr Themes for Business

I’ve used Wordpress.com, Wordpress.org, Blogger, Posterous, and even Weebly to create simple, modern, easy to use (and update) websites for small business and startup clients. But lately my hands-down favorite is Tumblr.

Tumblr is best known as a micro-blogging service that quickly and easily lets you post links, videos, quotes, audio files, and pictures. And while it’s not quite as community focused as Wordpress.com, Tumblr makes is very easy to re-blog content from other Tumblr sites.

But I like Tumblr for startups and small businesses because of the support for multiple users, the simplicity of configuring your Tumblr URL to a custom domain (costs $0), and it’s very easy and intuitive to write and submit posts (even for people who haven’t spent much time on a computer).

There are thousands of themes that you can use to give your blog or website a professional look but here are few of my favorite free ones. Note that all of the themes below have asynchronous Google Analytics tracking built into the theme, allowing the user to simply add their site ID to turn on analytics; this is especially important for users who aren’t comfortable editing the CSS.

1. Stationary: A clean, simple two-column theme by Thijs Jacobs. If you’re comfortable editing the CSS then you can customize it to make your own (check out Shauna Mei’s Tumblr). If not, you still have a beautiful website / blog that looks professional and has support for group blogging (you can turn on or off the display of group post authors). It also has Disqus Site Shortname support to quickly enable comments for your site.

2. Lightweight: A one-column theme by Artur Kim. It’s simple and customizable in terms of look (change the background color, border color, link color) and widgets (About, Stuff I Like, Latest Tweets, People I Follow). It also has Disqus Site Shortname support to quickly enable comments for your site.

3. Effector: A highly-customizable theme by Carlo Franco. Not only can you choose all the colors, fonts, and images/logos used in this theme, but you can change dozens of other features. Want your Blog Title in Page Header, Side Bar, or Top Bar? Centered or left-justified blog? Top Menu Aligned Left or Right? Content width 500px, 600px, or 700px? Fixed Top Bar? Left or Right Side Bar? It also allows you to easily type in your Copyright Text and add links to all your social media pages (Facebook, Flicker, Foursquare, Digg, Gowalla, Vimeo, etc). And like the others it has easy Disqus integration for comments.

4. Mainstreet: A business-optimized theme by Addwater Agency. This easily customizable theme (and the others by Addwater Agency) were all designed for small business use. (Hence, the Contact Us and Hours widgets in the right column.) It also allows for easy social media integration, which has become increasingly important for startups and small businesses.

5. Headline. A highly customizable three-column theme by Airspace Workshop. Like the Effector Theme, you can change all the colors and fonts used in this theme. It also has easy Disqus integration for comments and has support for group blogs. Check out MashableHQ’s Tumblr and AlphaBetaCloud.com to see what you can do with this theme.