Choosing a theme
You’ll need to know what theme you’ll be using for your WP site. There are a selection of free themes in the WordPress.org themes directory (searchable from the Themes tab in the WP backend). Or, you can obtain a paid / subscription package theme.
These can be:
- Betheme – we have a multi-use download of this. It has 80+ prebuilt websites that can be installed quickly. It uses it’s own page builder, “muffinbuilder”, which is ideal for web devs and designers to use, but not the most client friendly in the back end.
- Envato Elements themes – we have a subscription to Envato Elements, which allows us unlimited downloads from their creative suite, and this includes some WordPress themes. There are a few thousand of pre-built themes, but you do have to be careful and selective when choosing these, in terms of what page builder they use, how up to date they are, and the theme authors’ reputation.
- Envato Elements Template Kits – also in the Envato Elements subscription are template kits for the page builder Elementor. These are templates that go over the standard Hello Elementor theme. These templates with Elementor are really user friendly for clients, though sometimes optimising the pages for SEO can be harder to do with Elementor.
- Avada – this is another pre-built website theme, and there are around 70+ prebuilt websites. It uses it’s own page builder, and works well for both studio team and clients. Performance also seems to be doing well, though customisation can sometimes be trickier.
- Themeforest Themes – these themes require individual purchase, though tend to have a better reputation and can be more niche to what you’re looking to build.
Once you have downloaded your theme, go to Appearance > Themes in your WP admin area, and click Add New at the top. This will take you to the Add Themes page showing featured free themes. Click Upload Theme button.
You can now click on ‘Choose file’ and select the .zip file that you downloaded earlier.
Then simply click on the Install Now button.
Once your theme is installed, you will see a ‘Theme installed successfully’ message.
You’ll also see links to preview or activate your theme. To start using this theme on your WordPress website click on Activate.
If you visit your website you should now see your new theme in action.
Some themes add extra settings that you may need to configure. Depending on your theme, you may need to make these changes in the WordPress customizer or through a separate theme options panel.