Build-A-Blog Workshop Day 7: Purchasing and Installing Your Theme

1 May 2009

Build-A-Blog Workshop Day 7: Purchasing and Installing Your Theme

Author: Jim | Filed under: 30-Day Blogging

Hopefully you’ve done your homework, and have been checking out WordPress themes left and right. We had a productive day yesterday in looking around for a solution to skin our new WordPress blog, and it is high time we put it into use! Finalize your decision on which theme you are going to buy… and let’s put some money down!

Buying Your First WordPress Theme

First things first, if you went with a free premium theme (which is perfectly fine), you can skip past this paragraph. If, however, you are going to pay for it out of pocket to own your own license… here is a quick tip: be your own affiliate! Most theme resellers nowadays have links around their website to encourage affiliates to broker their themes so that they get more exposure. Usually, you will get anywhere from 30% to 65% of the proceeds… which may be a considerable amount of money depending on how pricey the theme is. While I won’t flat out promote you doing this, as many affiliates would rather have you pay sticker price for their theme, you can knock off a good amount of your bill ($10-$40) buy selling the theme to yourself, effectively, through your own affiliate link. Remember to always search for the best deal!

After some due diligence, I have decided to use a theme called “Transgravita” from my good friend ChiQ at MP Theme Designer for Jimvesting.com.

How to Install a WordPress Theme

We’ve spoken to the FTP uploading technique on the day that we installed WordPress, so check out that tutorial if you are a bit fuzzy on the details. For a WordPress theme, this process is very simple. All you need to do is upload the entire folder containing your theme to /wp-content/themes/ in your website. If you have and problems with doing it, check out this great tutorial for a more in-depth look.

Once the folder is uploaded, WordPress will begin to recognize it in your system. Log into your WordPress backend (e.g. “/wp-admin/”), and go to the “Appearance” tab. It is very self explanitory from here, and you just need to get to the “Themes” section and activate the theme that you like best. For me, I simply went and found “Transgravita” in the Themes section, activated it, and now my blog looks like a legitimate website! It really is that easy.

-Jimvesting

NOTE: You can also use a plugin called “One Click” to install themes for you on the fly!