Once you have installed your Wordpress blog, you would normally do not want to use the defaulted themes that comes with the installation as they are rather bland and simple as compared to those themes that are readily available on the internet.
Below are the steps to set up your Wordpress theme:
Step 1: Download your favourite theme(s)/plugins that you would like from the internet and unzip the relevant folders.
Step 2: To install your WP theme/plugins on your blog, you would require a FTP program by going to http://filezilla-project.org/download.php?type=client. While on the site, select “FileZilla 3.2.0 win32-setup.exe” (if your computer is running on Windows) for downloading. Unzip the file and install the FTP program on your desktop.
Step 3: Transfer your unzipped Wordpress theme folder/plugins to your hosting server. Open the File Zilla FTP program and enter your site name (e.g. example.com) on the “Host” box. your user name (the user name that you use to access your cpanel and not your Wordpress admin) and password. If the required information is correctly typed in, the FTP screen should look like this:
The left side of the FTP program screen is the file listing as appearing on your computer while the right side are the files on your hosting server. Click open the “public_html” folder to display the wp-content sub-folder. Inside this sub-folder will be the themes and plugins sub-folders.
To transfer the Wordpress theme to your hosting server, locate the theme folder (e.g. arthemia) on the left side and drag the same to the right side and place it inside the themes sub-folder. For the plugins, locate the unzipped plugins folder on the left side of the FTP screen and drag the same to the right side of the screen and place it inside the folder named “plugins”
Step 4: Access your wp-admin area to activate your wordpress theme/plugins. Type the following into your browser’s url’s address box: “http://www. yoursitename.com.wp-admin”. You will be asked to enter your Wordpress user name (not the cpanel user name) and password.
To activate the wordpress theme and plugins, go to the left sidebar of your admin area dashboard and click the “Appearance” and “Plugins” links respectively as shown below.
The screen will display screenshots of the themes that are currently in the themes folder (as shown by your FTP program). Select the theme that you want to use on your blog by clicking the relevant screenshot with your mouse. You will then be asked to activate the theme.
Once you have activated your theme, users will be able to view your blog with your new theme via your site’s url address e.g. http://www.yoursitename.com.
To activate the plugins, just click the “Activate” link when you are in the Plugins screen
All the best.
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