Bringing Your Vision to Life: Installing WordPress Themes

WordPress themes are templates and stylesheets created by web designers and developers that can be downloaded directly from your website. They eliminate the difficult parts of website design, such as coding, so you can focus on creating and publishing engaging content.

a) Install WordPress themes via theme directory 

1. Log in to WordPress, then on the menu on the left side of the dashboard, click the “Appearance” button, and then click the “Theme” button.

2. You can search for themes by style or price using the search bar or by scrolling. You can also upload a new theme by clicking the “Upload Theme” button and then clicking the “Choose File” button. After that, select and upload the downloaded theme zip folder that you purchased in the theme market or from a commercial provider, and click the “Install Now” button to proceed.

3. After selecting a theme, hover your mouse over the theme’s preview image. You can choose to click the “More Info” button to learn more about the theme features and preview the theme, or you can click the “Activate this Design” button to start the installation process.

4. Installation takes a few minutes. Once fully installed, you will receive a successful installation message, but the theme is not yet enabled on your website, so be sure to click the “Activate” button to make the theme appear on your website.

b) Install WordPress themes using FTP 

1. Go to FileZilla website and download and install the latest FileZilla version on your computer device.

2. Log in to your hosting provider account by entering the hostname, port number, username, and password in FileZilla. Typically, you have to set up your own FTP user account in your hosting dashboard; however, this is a different process for each hosting provider. Typically, when you create a new account, your hosting provider will give you with a username and password, which you will need when creating your FTP client account.

3. After downloading a theme from a theme marketplace or commercial provider, you can unzip the downloaded theme zip file by right-clicking and selecting the “Extract” button. On the remote site, search for and select the wp-content folder, and then select theme folder. After that, upload the entire downloaded, unzipped theme folder in it.

4. Once you’ve uploaded your theme folder, you should see your new theme as an option under your installed themes. Select the theme you uploaded and click the “Activate” button to make the theme live on your website. Then, add some plugins and features to your site to help you with everything from improving SEO to capturing the contact information of your page visitors.