In this WordPress How To post you will learn the various ways in which you can install new themes to your WordPress blog. There are several ways in which you can install a new theme onto your WordPress blog, and I will be covering them briefly in this article one at a time.

Installing a New Theme Via the Dashboard of your WordPress Blog

You have two options for installing a theme via your WordPress Dashboard. First we can search for a new theme. To do this first login to your WordPress Dashboard area, over on the left hand side in the column click on the ‘Appearance’ tab, then at the top click on the ‘Install Theme’ tab. Now you can either enter a term for the type of theme you are looking for, or enter the name of a theme that you may be aware of then click on ‘Search’, or you have the option of applying different filters to a search, for example different colours, columns, widths for what you are looking for, to do this just tick the boxes of your choice and then click ‘Find Themes’. You will then be presented with a list of themes to choose from or the actual theme if you entered a name of a theme which exits. You can now install one of the themes you like by clicking on the ‘Install’ link below your chosen theme. All you need to do now is click on the ‘Manage Themes’ tab and click on the ‘Activate’ link of the newly installed theme under the ‘Available Themes’.

Now let’s take a look at uploading a theme from your computer. If you have bought a premium theme or downloaded a theme to your computer, you will need to upload it to your blog. To do this login to your WordPress Dashboard, click on the ‘Appearance’ tab and then the ‘Install Theme’ tab. Once you arrive at the ‘Install Themes’ page you will see a row of links near the top of the page, click the ‘upload’ link, this will take you to a page where you will be able to upload a theme from your computer to your WordPress blog. Before you upload your new theme to your WordPress blog, make sure the theme folder you are uploading is a zip file otherwise WordPress won’t allow you to upload it. Once you have done this select your zip file by clicking the ‘Choose File’ button and then click ‘Install Now’. WordPress will now upload the theme for you and install it. Once WordPress has finished installing your new theme it will give you the option to either, preview, activate or return to the theme page, the choice is yours.

Using an FTP Client to Upload a New Theme

To upload your new theme to your WordPress blog, you will need an FTP client installed and setup. Filezilla is a free multi-platform FTP client, if you check out ‘Why You Need An FTP Client When Using WordPress’, this will walk you through step-by-step downloading, installing and setting up Filezilla.

Once your FTP client is all setup you are ready to upload your themes to your WordPress blog. First you need to find the directory of your WordPress blog on the right hand side of Filezilla under ‘Remote site’, then you will need to open the ‘wp-content’ folder and then the ‘themes’ folder. Now locate the theme you wish to upload from your computer in the left hand side window ‘Local site’. When uploading a theme in this way you need to make sure that the files are unzipped and you are left with a folder with the themes name. If you now click and hold on the theme in the left window – ‘Local site’ and drag it over to the right window – ‘Remote site’ and drop it in the ‘themes’ folder. Once you see that your FTP client has finished uploading your new theme you can login to the dashboard of your WordPress blog, click on the ‘Appearance’ tab on the left. You will now see any themes which you uploaded under ‘Available Themes’, to use the theme all you need to do is click the ‘Activate’ link under the Theme.

There you go – nothing to it, installing a new theme is a simple enough task to carry out and there are various ways you can do this as I have just shown you. Changing the theme of your blog is a great way to freshen up your blog and keep the visitors coming.

Thanks for reading this WordPress How To guide and I hope it will help you with installing your new themes.

Alester:-)
WordPress How To