Step 6: Installing a WordPress Theme

If you haven’t already logged in to WordPress, do so. From your dashboard, look for the the Appearance tab on the left and click the little arrow just to the right of it, this will reveal some Appearance sub-sections including the Themes section.

Now you’ll be take to the Manage Themes area and WordPress will show you the current theme you have installed. Go ahead and click on the Add New button towards the top.

Now we have a couple of options. From the Install Themes screen we can search for and find free themes that we can install. The search by color filter is a great way to find themes that match your brand colors and the other filter options let you narrow down the type of theme you want to install. However, I’m not always happy with the integrity of the design available here, so I’m going to show you how to download a quality WordPress theme from Woothemes.

Go to Woothemes and find a theme you like. You can either choose to buy one of their premium themes, or download a free theme from here.

Keeping with the theme of this guide I’m going with a free option and downloading the Mainstream theme. Click the Download link and save the theme somewhere on your computer – remembering where you saved it.

Once your theme has finished downloading, go back into your WordPress Install Themes screen (see above) and click onthe Upload link.

Click on the Choose File button and find the theme file that you just downloaded from Woothemes. In my case, I’m looking for mainstream.zip

Once you’ve found the theme on you local hard drive, click the Install Now button.

Your theme might take a couple of minutes to upload, but once it’s finished, click on the Activate link to activate your theme.

Another reason why I love Woothemes is because they give you a cool theme customization area. I’ve chosen the khaki style and uploaded my logo. It is best to upload your logo as a transparent PNG file – you may need to ask your designer for this version of your logo.

There are few other options here – different themes have different options, so have a play with the setting and keep refrshing your website front page (as in www.yourwebsite.com) to see what happens.

It’s looking better already!

The next lesson will teach show you some more tweaks we need to make to WordPress before we start loading in your content.