In our Install a WordPress Theme Tutorial we are going to be using two different Commercial Themes.
It is completely up to you which Theme you would like to work with as part of this Tutorial.
For this tutorial, you will need to purchase one of the Commercial Themes above to follow along.
We will show you how to set up both Themes separately. Each one is great for a multi-purpose website. They can be used for any type of business or personal website.
We will also show you how to configure a Child Theme & set up a few pages to get you started.
If you haven’t done so already head on over to Elegant Themes, sign up for a free account then get yourself a copy of the Divi Theme.
Divi Theme from Elegant Themes
After you create an account at Elegant Themes and have purchased Divi, you will need to login to your Elegant Themes Dashboard and download a copy of your Theme.
When you have your Divi.zip file downloaded to your hard drive, you need to open your WordPress Dashboard.
Login as we showed you already in our previous Tutorial “cPanel & WordPress Setup Tutorial“.
Installing Divi
When you are logged into WordPress, on the left side you will see a link for “Appearance”. Hover your cursor over this and when the sub-menu appears, click on “Themes” as shown below.
After you click “Themes” you will have the option of adding a new Theme as shown below.
Click on Add New Theme & then Upload Theme like so
Find the file you downloaded (Divi.zip) on your hard drive. Usually, it’s in your (Downloads Folder) select it then click “Install Now” as shown below.
This process can take a few minutes.
Once it is completed you will get a confirmation box giving you 3 options. Live Preview, Activate & Return to Themes page. We want to select “Activate” as shown below.
After this WordPress now has Divi Theme installed and activated.
The next part is to set up a Child Theme.
Divi Child Theme
Introduction to a Child Theme
A child theme is a theme that inherits the functionality and styling of another theme, called the parent theme.
So our base theme is Divi but what we want to do is create a Divi Child Theme.
Elegant Themes release updates to the Base Theme regularly.
To best explain if we made some code changes or custom changes and then we updated the Base Theme we could lose that work.
But by using a Child Theme on top of the Base Theme we are making all our changes on the Child Theme so you don’t have to worry about the Base Theme updating because our changes will remain.
Creating a Child Theme for Divi
What you will need to do is head on over to Divi.space
When you get there you will be presented with a form to fill out the details to create your child theme. The Fields are self-explanatory so should be easy for you to fill out.
Just make sure you select the parent theme as “Divi” in the form options.
Once you have this done click on Generate. You will then be sent an email to the address you specified in the form. Goto your email account and click on the link to download your Divi Child Theme.
Once downloaded go back to “Appearance/Themes” in your WordPress Dashboard as we showed you earlier.
Click on Add New Theme again and upload the file you downloaded. When the file uploads it will check to make sure you have Divi Base Theme installed.
Once it is found it will again give you the option to activate. Go ahead and activate your New Child Theme.
Now you are all set and have Divi Installed + Divi Child Theme. The Next step is to configure a few options and to add some pages as an example.
Configuring Settings & Adding Pages
Adding Pages
We will start by adding some pages. For this example, we will add 3. Home, About, Contact.
So again login to the WordPress Dashboard. Then on the left side, you will want to look for “Pages” Hover over this and Click All Pages. As shown below.
We want to delete any sample pages that were set up when we installed WordPress. So if you see “Sample Page” just tick the box beside it and then click “Move to Trash” You can Delete it later from Trash.
Now that you are under the “All Pages” section we are going to create our 3 pages. At the top, you will see a button Add New as shown below.
Click on this then you will be brought to your page settings, like so.
Enter your Title as, Home & then click Publish as shown above.
Congratulations you have just created your first page in WordPress! Repeat the process by clicking Add New again at the top and add your other 2 pages. About & Contact.
After you have done that, we now have 3 Blank Pages set up ready for content to be added to them. This is something you can do yourself.
To get the Front End of your website looking properly we will need to adjust a few settings.
Configuring Settings
On the left-hand side in the WordPress Dashboard, you will see an option for “Settings”
When you hover over this there is an option for Permalinks. Select Permalinks as shown Below.
When the Permalinks page loads, select “Post Name”
Make sure to scroll down and Save Changes.
This will change your link structure to a proper format instead of having numbers or characters in your links you will have the actual name. Example: https://www.yourname.com/about/
Under the Settings Option on the left select “Reading” this time.
Under Reading Settings select a Static Page, then select from the drop-down “Home” as seen below.
Remember we created the “Home” page previously, this is the first page people will see when they come to your site. The Posts page we will leave blank for now and cover that in another Tutorial.
Remember to scroll down and click Save Changes.
The next thing we will want to do is create a menu for our website.
Creating our Menu
Go ahead and hover over Appearance once again, this time select Menus.
We will create a menu in this section and add our pages to the new menu. Go ahead and name your menu and click Create Menu as highlighted below.
Select your pages next and add them to the menu.
Click on Primary Menu under Display Location & Click Save Menu, as illustrated above.
Summary of Install a WordPress Theme Tutorial
So far you have learned how to Install Divi Theme, Install Divi Child Theme, Add Pages, Change your Permalinks, Set your FrontPage & Created your own Menu!
Why not have a look at the website now from the front end you should see something like this.
I know it is early days but you have learned a lot so far in this Tutorial.
Our Next Part covers the Avada Theme.
If you haven’t done so already head on over to Envato Marketplace, sign up for a free account then get yourself a copy of the Avada Theme. (You can find Avada by using the search facility)
Avada Theme from Theme Fusion
Earlier in this Tutorial, we showed you how to install a Theme & Child Theme.
The difference this time is when you purchase the Avada Theme from Envato/Theme Forest both your Base Theme & Child Theme will be in the one zip file.
So head on over to Theme Forest and login to your account, as shown below.
After entering your details you need to go back to the same button and select Downloads as shown below.
When you click on Downloads you will be brought to a new page listing your Theme. Beside your Theme, you will have a green Download button. Click on this and select (All files & Documentation)
Once the .ZIP file is finished downloading, locate it on your computer, and extract it. You will then have a folder called Avada_Full_Package.
Navigate to Avada_Full_Package > Avada Theme and you will see an Avada.zip file and an Avada-Child-Theme.zip file.
You must first install the Avada.zip file because that is the parent theme.
Once that’s done, you can then install the child theme Avada-Child-Theme.zip which follows the exact process of installing the parent theme.
We covered this earlier in the Tutorial “Configuring Settings & Adding Pages”
Once you have Both the Base Theme & the Child Theme installed & activated, all the WordPress settings we covered in the first section of the Tutorial are the same.
Summary of Install a WordPress Theme Tutorial
Download & Install Avada Theme, Install Avada Child Theme, Add Pages, Change your Permalinks, Set your FrontPage & Created your own Menu!
You do not have to click on any of the links provided, I give them as a recommendation because these are Themes I have either used or reviewed and would feel comfortable recommending them.
Also, it won’t cost you any more than the price on the Affiliate Websites, you are just helping me out by linking to them from my pages. I hope you enjoyed our Install a WordPress Theme Tutorial and found it useful in some way. Please leave a comment in the comments section below if you have time and why not Subscribe to our mailing list for more Tutorials and Articles, They are Free!
John follows everything happening in the tech industry, from the latest gadget launches to some of the big-name moves in the industry. He covers opinionated pieces and writes on some of the biggest names in the industry. John is also a freelance writer, so he shares articles on freelancing every now and then. email: [email protected]
