How To Install WordPress themes

Build a website with WordPress

Building a new website can be a pretty difficult and technical task. However, WordPress have made this pretty simple!

WordPress is a pre-built framework that uses themes to create off-the-shelf design options. You can customise every aspect of your website with just a few button clicks. Whilst learning these button clicks can be time-consuming, it is far easier than older methods. Before WordPress, you would have to understand HTML, CSS and Javascript coding to create a website.

Code purists will vehemently argue against using this, or any other CMS for website creation. However, whilst it does have its drawbacks, WordPress’ ease of use and available options have made it the most popular choice worldwide.

As of 2022, there are about 1.4 billion total websites on the web. More than 455 million sites use WordPress. And, with over 2 million downloads every year, WordPress usage continues to rise steadily. This means that around 43% of all websites are built with WordPress…a pretty impressive number!

Here are the best selling WordPress themes on Themeforest

Buy or find the theme that you want to use. I recommend buying from Themeforest. Free themes can be found in Appearance > Themes > Add New

Follow the steps to install your theme. These will be different depending on where you got your theme from.

Activate your theme. This will then be the active theme on your website.

Free & Premium Website Themes

On a very tight budget, but want to improve the look of your WordPress website? A free theme might be good enough for you. It is worth doing a Google search for ‘free WordPress theme designs’. Hopefully, you’ll find one with the look you would like to achieve.

It is quite common for free themes to be a stripped down, or ‘light’, version of a premium theme. If the free version is working out for you, you may decide to purchase the premium option in the future. Free themes tend to come without some of the better features. They will also usually include a link and attribution to the theme author. To get access to the best features of the theme, or remove the link, you will have to purchase the premium version.

In my experience, a premium theme is worth the price. This is especially when you compare it to the time and effort required when designing a site using a free theme.

WordPress makes it really simple to find and install free themes, right within the admin section of your WordPress website.

The hardest part will be navigating through the huge range of options and free themes available.

To install a free theme, go to Appearance > Themes > Add new. Here, you will see hundreds of free themes that you can click on and install onto your website.

If you have researched themes previously, it will put you in a better position to search for the theme you are looking for.

Once you have found the theme you want to use, just click on the theme and click ‘install’. You will then need to ‘activate’ the theme to start using it. Then you will be able to start designing your site using the new options. It is impossible to go into any detail as to what you will now be able to do using your new theme. This is because the options available in each theme will be very different.

Premium themes are created by a third party company. They are then released for people to buy on websites such as Themeforest. Premium themes often come pre-packaged with a lot of additional functionality. This comes in the form of premium plugins such as sliders. These plugins would usually incur an additional fee to allow you to add them into the website separately.

Installing a premium theme is also quite straightforward. However, the process is different to installing the free themes mentioned earlier.

When you purchase a premium theme, you download files onto your computer. These will contain the ‘theme.zip’ file that you will then need to upload to your website.

There will usually be an ‘instructions’ or ‘help’ file that you will also download. It’s definitely worth reading this file. It should offer you guidance on installation, as well as all the various aspects of the theme and its associated features.

How to upload a premium WordPress theme

Once you have found the ‘theme.zip’ file, you need to go to Appearance > Themes > Add New > Upload Theme. Then, simply select the ‘.zip’ file and upload it. The process after this is the same as the free theme. So, you will still need to activate the theme in order to use it.

Depending on the features of the theme you have bought, there may be endless options to try out. Some themes even provide design demos. This means you can make your website look just like the example you liked when you bought the theme. To do this, you may need to install some premium plugins that give the website certain functions that were available in the demo.

Whilst installing a theme is usually simple, the available options can be a bit much to get your head around. Digital Pixels have over 10 years experience dealing with hundreds of different themes. We will be happy to help you install, configure and understand any theme that you choose.

Please get in touch with us for any help installing a WordPress theme. We can also help you with any aspect of web design or digital marketing services. Simply fill in the form below for a swift response.