By now, you should have a domain name and a hosting account. You should also have WordPress installed, as well as the WordPress Theme of your choice installed.
While the process of getting a hosting account and WordPress installed is pretty standard from hosting provider to hosting provider, activating and customizing your Theme is a little trickier, because every Theme is different, and every Theme developer has its own way of leading you through the process.
That said, the basic steps are pretty much the same from Theme to Theme. As I explained on the previous page, they are:
- Activate your Theme (if applicable)
- Install Demo Content – This will install one of the Theme Developer’s demo sites (the one you looked at while you were shopping for a Theme) onto your own domain, complete with navigation and placeholder copy and images.
- Making the Site Your Own – Here’s where you can start modifying the demo site’s navigation and content to make the site your own.
What I’ll do here is walk you through the process using a few specific Themes that I use for my own sites as examples. I’m hoping that my walking through my own steps, you’ll get a good taste of what you’ll need to do with whatever Theme you purchased, even if some of the menu options, terminology, and details are a little different.
For my first example, I’m going to walk you through the process I used to make the very site you’re looking at (seoforsmallbusiness.org). This site uses a theme called Kicker from a Theme developer called Axiom Themes which I purchased from ThemeForest. It’s an example of an excellent Theme where the developer walks you through every one of the steps.
1. Activate your theme (if applicable)
Many theme developers who sell on ThemeForest require you to activate the theme before you can do things like import demo data. Here’s how to do so.
1. Log into your WordPress Admin Page.
If the Developers of your theme did build an activation screen, there should be an menu option called something like Theme Panel, Theme Dashboard, or Theme Options where you can enter your purchase code. If so, it’ll look something like this (if you can’t find something like this, you can move on to the next step).
In order to register your theme you’ll need to download your purchase code from ThemeForest. Go to your ThemeForest dashboard, find the Theme you purchase, click Download, and download the file that says “License certificate & purchase code.
The contents of the text file will look something like this.
Fill out the form and submit. You should get confirmation that your Theme is active. In most cases, this will also unlock the tools you’ll need to complete the next steps.
2. Install Demo Content
Important: you’ll want to complete these next steps BEFORE you start creating content on your site. If for some reason you’ve already put content in WordPress, make sure to have a backup copy, as these next steps will start your site with a clean slate.
Depending on your Theme, you should be able to start the setup process where you’ll install demo content (including navigation and placeholder copy and images), as well as plug-ins that are necessary to build out the framework of your site.
Getting Started: Finding your Theme Developer’s Dashboard
The screen below is what I see when I select Theme Panel > Theme Dashboard on the Kicker Theme. As you can see, the developers did a nice job of making it simple, letting me simply click a Start Setup button to get started, and showing me all the steps needed for setup (selecting their suggested addons, skins, plugins, demo data)
Installing Addons
First, I select Addons, which is extra functionality this particular Theme Developer chose to include (your Theme might not have this option). The interface will tell you if these are mandatory to install and activate or not (in this example, the developer chose to include an addon called “AI Helper”, which I don’t want so I’m going to keep it deactivated).
Choosing the Template Design
Next, the developers of the Kicker Theme are allowing me to choose a “skin”.
While you were shopping for a Theme, you probably noticed that each theme had a demo where you could not just preview what a site would look like, you could click through a fully functional demo.
What’s cool is that most Theme developers provide a way for you to install the fully functional demo on your own host, under your own domain name. This way, instead of starting from scratch you’re actually modifying their fully built site, which saves a TON of time.
In cases like the Kicker Theme, sometimes the developer gives you a ton of options for designs , so the toughest part is deciding which one to use.
In my case, I chose the “Business” theme. To be honest, it’s not the best match in the world for what I had in mind for my site, but it’s “good enough”. What’s cool is that in a few minutes I’ll have a fully functional site (with dummy data) that a few years ago would have cost me anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 to hire a Web designer and a Web programmer to build for me.
After I download a skin I’m given the chance to Activate it.
Adding Plug-ins
On the next screen, the Theme Developers list out the plug-ins I need to download to use the theme. Plug-ins are one of the most powerful features of WordPress.
In the past, if you needed to add a feature or function to your Web site, you’d need to hire a Web developer to custom build it for you. With a plug-in, all you need to do is download it and install it and your site will have that feature or function. For example, there are plug-ins that allow you to put forms on your site for customers to fill out to e-mail you. There are plug-ins for integrating your Instagram feed onto your site. There are forms for compliance with European privacy laws (GDPR). And many thousands more.
In most cases the plug-in is a “lite version that’s completely free to use. The plug-in developer hopes that you’ll upgrade to the full version (as does the theme developer, who likely gets a cut), but in the vast majority of cases you’ll do fine with the “lite” version.
Only install the plug-ins you are planning to use. For example, in the screen below there are options to install WooCommerce (a plug-in that allows me to sell things on my site), but since I don’t plan on selling anything I’m not going to install it. Same thing with the Instagram Feed plug-in—since I don’t use Instagram I don’t need it. While there’s no harm in installing every plug-in having too many plug-in, especially ones you don’t use, can slow down your site.
Importing the Demo Data
Here’s the fun part.
At this point your Web site probably looks a lot like this.
Don’t worry, that’s about to change.
Your Theme Developer should give you the option to import data so that your site will look, feel, and work exactly like their demo. Here’s what the Kicker Theme dashboard looks like:
I’m going to go ahead and click Full Import. The Theme gives me this warning:
Again, if there’s any content you’ve put on your site already, this process will wipe it away, so make sure you have backups.
For this theme I’ll see the progress as the information needed to reconstruct the demo is copied from the Theme Developer’s server to mine, including all the navigation, the media files, and the dummy copy.
If all goes well, this is what your site should look like at this point:
It’s certainly a lot better than it looked before, but it’s still not YOUR site. That’s what we’re going to fix next.
