How to install a WordPress theme

WordPress is a free and open-source content management system software. Mostly associated with blogging, it supports other types of web content including more traditional mailing lists and forums, media galleries, and online stores. Its features include a plugin architecture, woocommerce mix and match and a template system. WordPress sites tend to rank high for their keywords, largely because they’re constantly being updated and be because WordPress includes a variety of tools and plugins for optimizing content for SEO (search engine optimization).

A WordPress theme is a collection of templates and stylesheets used to define the appearance and display of a WordPress powered website. A theme defines where menus and widgets appear on your site, as well as the color scheme and the default layout of pages and posts.

There are over 290 themes available on WordPress, allowing users to creatively express themselves and customize the look, feel and effect of their ecommerce company. Themes have an impact on the User Experience and the developer interface. Themes may be free or purchased. The WordPress website usually indicates if the theme is free or comes at a cost. Here’s how to install a WordPress theme.

Install a Theme by using Upload Method from WordPress Admin

To install a theme on WordPress, first, log on to WordPress with your user name and password. Navigate to Appearances > Themes > Click (Add New) > Click (Upload Theme) > Select file > Click (Install Now) > Click (Activate).

Navigate to Appearances then click on Themes

Click Add New

Click Upload Theme

Choose file then Click Install Now

Click Activate

Click on the activate button, and you’ve successfully installed and activated your WordPress theme.

Install a Theme using WordPress Admin Theme Search

Navigate to Appearances then click on Themes

Click Add New

Select a range of themes from any of the following: Featured WordPress themes, Popular WordPress themes, Latest WordPress themes. You may also search for a specific theme or search for themes with specific features.

Add preferred theme by clicking Install

WordPress will now install the theme and show a message along with the link to activate or live preview.

Installing a WordPress Theme using FTP

Another way to install them on WordPress is to use a Secure File Transfer Portal. Open an SFTP such as Firezilla and connect it to your server using your credentials, protocol, and port. Unzip the WordPress theme, then click to open it and browse to wp-content/themesfolder. Upload the theme. On WordPress, navigate to Appearances > Theme > select theme > click ‘Activate’.

Use an FTP such as Firezilla:

FTP login credentials are sent to you via e-mail when you sign up for your WordPress hosting account. You can also find your FTP account information in your hosting account’s cPanel dashboard

Open FileZilla. Go to File > Site Manager.

Click New Site and provide a title for your website. Enter your domain name as Host. FTP as protocol, Normal as logon type, and the enter your FTP user name and password.

If it is your first time connecting to your website from this computer, then FileZilla may show you a certificate popup. Choose to ‘Aways trust certificate for future sessions’

FileZilla will login to your website using the credentials you entered. Once connected, you will see the list of files and folders on your website under the ‘Remote site’ column.

Browse Local site to locate the files on your computer that you want to upload to your website. Next, you need to right click the file and select upload from the menu.

FileZilla will now transfer the file from your computer to your WordPress site.

Please note that WordPress needs certain files and folders in specific locations to work properly. First, download the plugin to your computer. Unzip the plugin file. Inside the zip file, you will find the plugin folder. WordPress looks for plugins in the /wp-content/plugins/ folder. You will first need to go to /wp-content/plugins/ folder in the Remote site column. After that, you can upload the plugin folder from your computer to your website.

Visit the plugins page inside your WordPress admin area to activate the plugin.

If you wanted to upload a premium theme to your website, you will first download and unzip the theme folder on your computer. After that, you can upload it to /wp-content/themes/ folder on your website.

There are a couple of things to take note of when installing a WordPress theme.

Know the features you want ahead of time. That way, when searching for a theme, you can search with the features you want, streamlining your search. A feature-rich theme might be nice, but it can severely affect site performance. Choose only what is relevant. Look for features that have been optimized for mobile, and provide features like a fluid site grid and flexible images that can translate to non-desktop devices. Be careful about font and colours. Choose a font that is easy to read. If you will have a logo, choose themes that blend with the colours on the logo. Preview the theme before saving to be sure it fits and has a great layout.

If you have purchased a theme that you want to install on your WordPress website, it is essential to have downloaded the “Installable WordPress file” theme. You cannot install a regular folder in WordPress, so make sure that you adjust for this if your system automatically unzips downloaded files.

The memory of your server may also be too low, resulting in the ‘white screen’ that is sometimes experienced when installing a theme. You have to (or contact your server administrator) to increase the memory size of your server.

You may choose to customize your theme using any of the customizer options built-in, page plug-ins or custom CSS. You can change the colors, header media, menu, widgets and text

You can also make use of demos. Each theme from a developer has a supporting document that explains how best to make use of the demo content and preview their website before going live. Users can also create a static home page, so that visitors will see the same content every time, alongside posted articles.

You may also want to make code changes to your website. If you are doing so, you will need to make code changes on the child theme, rather than directly on the existing theme. The use of a child theme ensures that when a parent theme is updated (usually by a developer), you do not lose any of your changes. If the developer has not made available a child theme, then use the Childify Me plugin to create a child theme. Upon installation and activation of the Childify Me plug-in, go to Appearances > Customize > Click (Childify Me) > Create. Preview and activate. When a developer updates a theme, a red number appears besides Update on the WordPress dashboard. WordPress offers a monthly maintenance service to help make tweaks for WordPress development.

Depending on the level of work, a user may sometimes want a woocommerce coupon of their website.

WordPress SEO

Now you have setup your wordpress theme. Now its time to get your SEO done to invite your visitors. Please follow https://www.isitwp.com/complete-wordpress-seo-guide-beginners/ for complete guide regarding wordpress SEO.