In this article I’m going to show how to install a WordPress Theme. There are different ways to install a WordPress theme but in this article I’ll show you the 2 most common ways to do this.
First of all, we need a theme. Using WordPress, you can choose between thousands of themes. A lot of them are even free! If you need a free theme, take a look at my previous post “100+ Stunning WordPress Themes for Free“.
Installing a theme in WordPress
With WordPress it’s possible to search, download and to install your theme from the back end of your WordPress installation:
- Go to “Appearance” > “Themes” in the left menu
- Click the “Install Themes”-tab:
- In the “Search”-tab, enter (a part of) the title of the theme you want to search and click the “Search”-button:
By clicking this button you will search in the database with all the themes that you can also download from WordPress.org!
(you can also click on the “Featured”, “Newest” or “Recently updated”-link to get a list with themes) - Now you’ll see a list with results:
- Click on the “Preview”-link to see a a preview of the theme on your screen or click the “Install”-link to install the theme!
- A popup will appear:
Just click on the “Install Now”-button to install the theme! - Now you’re almost there. The only thing left is to activate the theme:
Click the “Activate”-link to do this. - Now you can see your current theme of your blog is the theme you just uploaded:
Installing a Theme You Downloaded Elsewhere
In most cases, when you download a theme, you’ll get a .zip-file. There’s no need to unzip this file because you can upload this zip file in WordPress to install the theme!
It’s also very easy to do this:
- Search and download the .zip-file (do not extract / unzip it!)
- Click the “Install Themes”-tab:
- Now click the “Upload”-link (1), select the downloaded zip-file on your computer (2) and click the “Install”-button (3):
- After the installation is finished, the only thing left is to activate the theme:
Click the “Activate” link to do this. - Now you can see your current theme of your blog is the theme you just uploaded:
Switching between the themes you installed
When you just installed a theme, and the theme doesn’t suit your needs, it’s very easy to re-activate your previous theme or another theme you installed previously.
To do this, go to “Appearance” > “Themes” in the left menu. In the “Manage themes”-tab you can select your theme. Just click the “Activate”-link under the installed theme:
Conclusion
As you can see in this tutorial, the WordPress software makes it very easy to install themes. Especially if you need quickly a new theme, WordPress can provide a fast solution!