How To Install WordPress Theme (Easy Guide For Beginners)

How To Install A WordPress theme (5 Easy Ways)

When you are starting a blog with WordPress for the first time, you will certainly pass through some stages such as :

1. Choosing a blog niche.
2. Picking a domain name.
3. Buying a web hosting plan.
4. Installing WordPress.
5. Installing WordPress Theme.
6. Installing WordPress Plugin.
7. Exploring basic dashboard setting.
8. Get started with you first post.

According to the list above, after you have picked a domain name, gotten web hosting and installed WordPress.

You will also need to install a WordPress theme or change the default theme.

For most hosting campanys, WordPress default theme will be automatically installed for you during WordPress installation, but you need to change it to a new one to make your blog looks beautiful and perform some custom funtion.

In this guide, i will teach you five different ways you can change and install a new WordPress theme to your blog.

[lightweight-accordion title=”What is a theme ?” schema=”faq”]A WordPress Theme is a collection of files that work together to produce a graphical interface with an underlying unifying design for a blog/website.[/lightweight-accordion]

[lightweight-accordion title=”What is the fuction of a WordPress theme ?” schema=”faq”]WordPress Theme is like a skin to your website which make it looks attractive.Theme can also provide much more control over the visual presentation of your content and other data on your WordPress site, as well as behavior of certain site’s elements while interacting with visitors. [/lightweight-accordion]

How To Install A New WordPress Theme (3 Different Ways).

1. Adding New Themes using the Administration Dashboard.

Let’s start with the easiest of the three installation ways. If you aren’t familiar with the WordPress Theme Directory, this is one of the best places to find themes for your site.

Everything listed there is free and has been thoroughly checked by a team of volunteers. From the directory, you can install a theme without leaving your WordPress dashboard.

1. Log in to the WordPress Admin Dashboard.
2. Select the Appearance screen, then click Themes.
3. Select Add New.

You’ll be presented with a searchable version of the Theme Directory. You can look through the most popular themes, or filter options based on layouts, features, and more.

If you know what theme you’re looking for, you can simply type its name into the search box. Otherwise, you can browse the directory until you find it.

Click on the your preferred theme and Preview link to preview the Theme or the Install link to install the Theme directly to your site.

Or use the Upload Theme button at the top of page to upload a zipped copy of a Theme that you have previously downloaded.

You can download any theme from WordPress Theme Directory directly to computer.

Note: Before downloading any zipped theme file outside, make sure you’ve thoroughly checked the theme which includes checking out its ratings and reviews. Also, take a look at how frequently it’s updated by the developer.

If the theme has a demo available, try it out to see if you like its appearance and features. You can also check out how it looks with your content by previewing it.

Or may be consider creating a staging site to test out the theme before adding it to your live site.

This is an important step if you’re switching themes on an already established site so you can see exactly how it will look and find out if it causes any compatibility issues or other problems.

2. Adding New Themes by using cPanel

If your host offers the cPanel control panel, you can use its Upload option to upload the Theme files to your site. For this you will need Theme files in an compressed archive (.zip or .gz).

Download the Theme .zip file to your computer.

In cPanel File Manager, navigate to your Themes folder. Depending on your hosting, path to Themes folder can differ a bit but essentially you are looking for public_html inside which you’ll find /wp-content/themes/.

Once you’re inside the Themes folder in cPanel File Manager, click on Upload and upload that .zip file you have downloaded.

Once the .zip file is uploaded, right click on the name of that file in cPanel and select Extract from the context menu.

When Theme files are successfully extracted, it’s now time to activate the new Theme.

Follow the step below:

1. Log in to your WordPress Admin Dashboard.
2. Select the Appearance screen, then Themes.
3. You should see here all themes from your /wp-content/themes/ directory and from here you can see details for each of them by clicking on Theme Details (rollover the Theme thumbnail).
4. Live Preview option will give you preview of your site with your site’s content.
5. To activate the Theme click the Activate button.
6. You selected theme will became active instantly.

3. Adding New Themes Manually (FTP).

To add a new Theme to your WordPress installation via FTP protocol, you’ll need FTP client and extracted Theme files.

Download the Theme archive (.zip) and extract the files it contains. You should have a folder named as theme itself, containing theme files.

Using an FTP client to access your host web server and navigate to /wp-content/themes/ directory.

Upload the Theme folder to this directory on your host server.

Now that new Theme is in /wp-content/themes/ directory (whether you used Admin dashboard, cPanel or FTP method), this new Theme is ready to be activated.

All themes in /wp-content/themes/ directory are available for Activation and Update (when update is provided by theme author), but only one theme from this directory can be Active.

Follow the instructions below for activating the new Theme.

1. Log in to your WordPress Admin Dashboard.
2. Select the Appearance screen, then Themes.
3. You should see here all themes from your /wp-content/themes/ directory and from here you can see details for each of them by clicking on Theme Details (rollover the Theme thumbnail).
4. Live Preview option will give you preview of your site with your site’s content.
5. To activate the Theme click the Activate button.
6. You selected theme will became active instantly.

When theme is Activated it means that this theme’s style and functionality (look and behavior) will be applied on your site.

Top 5 Free WordPress Themes You Can Use.

No 1: HITMAG

HitMag is a stylish and powerful theme crafted for magazines, newspapers or personal blogs. HitMag comes with a handful of options to customize your site the way you want.

Free version has included a magazine homepage layout, 4 different style blog listing layouts and main color options.

Not only that it comes with so many handful of features like author details box, Related posts after articles and control post metadata.

All those features and options ensures that HitMag is not just another free WordPress theme but a powerful theme that fulfills all of the basic needs.

No 2: KADENCE

Kadence Theme is a lightweight yet full featured WordPress theme for creating beautiful fast loading and accessible websites, easier than ever.

It features an easy to use drag and drop header and footer builder to build any type of header in minutes.

It features a full library of gorgeous starter templates that are easy to modify with our intelligent global font and color controls.

With extensive integration with the most popular 3rd party plugins, you can quickly build impressive ecommerce websites, course websites, business websites, and more.

No 3: EDUCATION HUB

Education Hub is a clean and elegant WordPress education theme with simplistic but unique look and feel.

This theme is best suited for college, school, university and other educational websites. But this theme is not binded to be fit for educational websites only.

This is also flexible enough to be used for business and corporate websites.

Theme is highly customizable with layout settings and several other theme options which can be customized by using Theme Options panel based on powerful Customizer API.

Education Hub helps you to easily and intuitively create professional and appealing educational websites.

No 4: ASTRA

Astra is a fully customizable and free WordPress blog theme. It includes starter sites that are suitable for personal blogs, portfolios, business blogs, and even eCommerce websites.

It’s responsive and works perfectly with all the best page builders out there.

It comes with built-in support for WooCommerce to easily add an online store to your blog if needed. It’s also translation-ready and can be used to make blogs in any language.

Astra is a lightweight theme with tons of colors options. It has all Google fonts built-in.

No 5: HESTIA

Hestia is a highly flexible and responsive theme for all types of websites. It comes with an easy setup wizard and a companion plugin which adds testimonials and services sections to your website.

It can be used with popular page builder plugins and is ready for WooCommerce out of the box.

The homepage can be easily set up using the live theme customizer. You can just add sections and rearrange them with drag and drop.

Final Thoughts

In this tutorial on how to install a WordPress theme, I have shown you the installation process using three different ways.

Most of themes in WordPress Theme Directory come with installation instructions and documentation, especially the ones that may require more steps than the usual theme installation.

In this case, study the information in the documentation, as authors can specify specific instructions for their theme.

Be sure to read through and follow those instructions for the successful installation of the theme. If your theme does not work after following any provided instructions, please contact the theme author for help.

In case of questions, you can always contact the author for any help if anytime you encounter any issues during setup.

Happy theme installation!