How to Install WordPress Themes

April 9, 2009 by Spencer Spellman · Leave a Comment

Let’s be honest, the free WordPress themes users get after installation are equal to or lesser then the ringtones that come on new cell phones. Very rarely do users like the classic WordPress themes they are given, and even in those rare cases that they do, they’re probably going to want to switch it out before too long. Below I’m going to walk through installing and uploading new themes to your WordPress blog or website.

Fortunately, putting a new WordPress theme on your blog is not too different then putting new plugins on it. So if you’re familiar with installing WordPress plugins, then this process will be easier. Nonetheless, even if you don’t know how to install WordPress plugins, then this tutorial can get you started.

First, you’ll begin by finding a WordPress theme that you like. WordPress.org has a lot of free themes. Find the theme you like and download its zip folder on your computer. We’ll come back to this in a little bit.

Next, you’ll want to login to your host’s cPanel and go to the file manager.

file-manager

Once you get into your web site’s file manager, you’ll go to the “public html” folder and go to wp-content/themes. This is where you’ll be uploading the theme’s zip folder.

Once you click on “themes”, you’ll click to upload the zip folder that contains the theme you downloaded earlier. You’ll be asked which file to download and make sure to choose the theme’s zip folder. Next, you’ll go back to the “themes” folder, which should now show the file that you just uploaded.

Since the file is still a zip file, you have to unzip it. You’ll look for the “extract” button on your cPanel and extract the file, which is basically unpacking the file.

Now that you’ve extracted the file, go to the administration section of your blog, go to themes, and click on the theme you’ve just extracted to activate it as your WordPress theme. If the theme doesn’t show up, check to make sure you extracted it to the correct folder. You can now immediately go to your blog to see the new face lift.