If you are a new blogger, it is essential you know about wordpress website themes and how to install one on your blog. Installing a theme on a word press website is not hard at all and I will give you a detailed tutorial and guide below.
However if you are searching for a Full tutorial on how to install and start a wordpress blog then please check out his tech blog post here.
Installing a good wordpress website premuim theme can create a lot of trust in your blog audience and you are much more likely to get repeat viewers/subscribers if you back it up with good and interesting content and relevant pics on your blog.
For those who are entirely new to this:
What is a WordPress theme?
It’s essentially is a way to “skin” your blog. You could say its like a dress, you change the dress and the blog looks different. You could make your website look like a recipe blog, A photography blog just by changing its theme (design) in just a few clicks. It can also be called as a template or premade custom design.
The WordPress Theme Directory is the official site for WordPress Free themes. There are Custom designers or programmers can charge $500 and upwards for a design, while you can get pre made designs for as low as $10 for a WP design , or annual memberships that are as low as $79 for 80 + premium themes or then it can also go as high as $250 a Wp Theme.
The theme as such merely changes the look and design of the blog and not how the WordPress-CMS works.
Installing or Adding New and Paid WordPressThemes using the Admin Dashboard
You can download Themes directly to your blog by using the Add New Themes option in the Appearance sub-menu within your word-press.
1. Log in to the WordPress Administration Panels.
2. Select the Appearance panel, then Themes.
3. Select Add New.
4. Either use the Search or Filter options to locate a free or paid theme you uploaded that you would like to use.
5. Click on the Preview link to preview the Theme or the Install Now link to upload the Theme to your blog,
6. Or use the Upload link in the top links row to upload a zipped copy of a Theme that you have previously downloaded to your machine
Paid Vs Free themes
WordPress currently comes with three themes that you can install from within the blog and their default themes are Twenty Fifteen theme, and previous defaults Twenty Fourteen theme and Twenty Thirteen theme.
I recommend Three paid themes providers that I know are of value in price and quality as I have been using them for 8+ years now. They are listed below
Solostream themes – www.solostream.com
They are very robust themes that are built from the ground up using proper wp architecture and hardly need any updating , besides they have very flexible advertising options to use banners or affiliate links –which you can turn off if you don’t want to use. They look very professional and can integrate all your social media buttons
Elegant themes – www.elegantthemes.com
They are premium themes and have the best pricing on the internet for wordpress themes, you just pay $79 and you can use any of their 80+ WP premium themes on how many ever blogs you want. They have a wide range of themes from e-stores , to recipe blogs themes and much more.
Themeforest – www.themeforest.net
They not only have themes but also have a vast collection of wp plugins and scripts. They also have templates for free blogging platforms like , blogpsot , tumblr any many more. They have templates starting from $5 right upto $200+
I prefer to used paid themes, because they are updated much more regularly, specially if any security hole is found out , you get an immediate update. While free themes are not often updated and so can also break with word press updates and therefore break your blog.
Installing new themes via CPanel or then FTP
To add a paid theme to your WordPress installation via Cpanel, here are the steps:
Most webhosting companies offer a cPanel control panel, and most paid themes come in a .zip or .gz archive. This is assuming that your theme-download is a compressed (.zip) file containing a folder under which all the Theme files exist in.
1. Download the Theme .zip file to your computer.
2. In cPanel File Manager, find and go to your Themes folder. If your WordPress is installed in the root folder of your web server you would navigate to “public_html/wp-content/themes” and if you have WordPress installed in a sub-folder called wordpress or named something else , you would navigate to “public_html/wordpress or something else /wp-content/themes”.
3. Find the Themes folder in cPanel File Manager, click on Upload file(s) and upload that .zip file from step 1
4. Once the .zip file is uploaded, click on the name of that file in cPanel, then in the panel to the right, click on “Extract File Contents”, and that .zip file will be uncompressed in your wp installation and ready to use.
5. Just login to your blog via admin panel – got to appearances themes and select the theme you uploaded and click activate. Your new theme is installed on your blog and ready.
To add a paid theme to your WordPress installation via FTP, here are the steps:
1. Download the Theme archive (normally zip file) and extract the files it contains. Do not change the the directory structure in the archive when extracting these files. Check if any special installing guidelines are provided by your Theme author in this directory.
2. Using an FTP Software – login to your hosting web server. Your hosting company should have given you this ftp login details when you installed your blog and created a ftp login.
3. Upload the Theme files you extracted to the wp-content/themes directory on your host server. Your this folder will now have different theme folders Eg recipe theme, elegant tech theme under this main theme folder.
4. Once the theme is uploaded to directory, just login to your blog via admin panel – got to appearances themes and select the theme you uploaded and click activate. Your new theme is installed on your blog.
Guide – Building a wordpress blog in 3 steps and more https://t.co/nQGKpA0Mm7pic.twitter.com/SEosYW3lxa
— DigitalGrog (@undermarrest) April 20, 2016
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If you want to know more about creating wordpress themes, child themes and architecture and programming of wpthemes then visit the wordpress codex website ß here.
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