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Download and install your theme

Installing the theme is going to be easy with at least a couple methods, but we will use the most common and probably the easiest of methods.

We will begin with downloading your theme from the wordpress.org website and saving the zip file to your desktop.

Using the Theme Installer in WordPress

To install the theme into WordPress, we will be using the theme installer that is part of WordPress.

  1. In your admin, go to Appearance >> Themes
  2. Click on the Add New button at the top of the page, or click on the big square block in the themes page labeled as Add New Theme.
    themes add new
    themes add new 2
  3. The theme file you will be installing is the one you downloaded…in this case, it should be named as relative.zip
  4. Click on the Install button and once it gets installed, you can activate it.
    r active

Theme Updates

For free themes that are in the theme directory at wordpress.org, whenever an update comes along, you will get an update notice in your admin area and the ability to update it by clicking on the update link. For professional (commercial) paid themes, this is usually going to be different. Some theme sites offer the same method of updating (if they are using a certain purchase/download plugin) while others will require you do do a manual update — uploading the new theme files using an FTP program. However, there is a way around this which I will save for a separate tutorial.