Wordpress allows users to instantly change the look and feel of their website, without the need to adjust each post or page individually.
This is accomplished with the use of themes.
Installing Themes
Themes can be installed either from the Wordpress editor itself, downloading the files from different websites, or creating the files yourself manually if you're really adventurous.
Themes installed from the Wordpress library are instantly ready to use once you have selected it. The only downside, is that a number of these themes are either very basic, or look very similar.
When you wish to install advanced themes, or you have found one online you wish to try out, then you will need to follow the steps below.
Downloading Files
When downloading each theme, ensure you only download the one zip file.
- Multiple files can be difficult to keep a track of, and compressed/packaged/archived folders in other formats may not be supported.
Uploading Theme Files
Once you have your theme files ready, upload them to your website using the file manager.
- Open cPanel and click on File Manager
Theme files need to be saved in a specific folder within your public HTML folder.
This can vary depending on the server and how Wordpress is installed, however, it is normally:
/public_html/wp-content/themes/
Once uploaded, highlight the zip folder and click extract.
- Leave all the settings as default, and confirm the extraction.
- FTP Programs will allow you to upload the zip folder, however, they may not allow you to extract the theme files afterwards.
- If you are using an FTP client, it is normally easier to extract then upload the files, or upload the zip file then extract it using the File Manager in cPanel.
Selecting Themes
Go back to Wordpress, and your new theme should be ready to activate.
