Advice from a Pro: Finding and Installing WordPress Themes

Editor’s note: Below is an excerpt from Chapter 8 of WordPress For Dummies, 8th Edition by eWebscapes founder and WordPress pioneer, Lisa Sabin-Wilson. This blog post is the eighth in a series that we call “Advice from a Pro.”  In Chapter 8 of this book, the reader learns about WordPress themes and how easy it is to download, install, and activate them. Some WordPress themes are even free! 

WordPress comes packaged with one very useful default theme called Twenty Seventeen (named after the year 2017 and released in version 4.7 of WordPress). Most bloggers who use WordPress usually don’t waste any time at all in finding a theme that they like better than the default theme. The Twenty Seventeen theme is meant to get you started. Although you’re not limited to the default theme, it’s a very functional theme for a basic website. Feel free to use it to get you started.

Free WordPress themes, such as those I discuss in Chapter 16, are popular because of their appealing designs and their ease of installation and use. They’re great tools to use when you launch your new site, and if you dabble a bit in graphic design and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), you can customize one of the free WordPress themes to fit your own needs. (See Chapter 9 for some resources and tools for templates and template tags, as well as a few great CSS references.)

With thousands of free WordPress themes available and new ones appearing all the time, your challenge is to find the right one for your site.

Key takeaways:

• WordPress comes with a free default theme that is fully functional and ready to be used immediately.
• There are thousands of free WordPress themes available.
• Free WordPress themes are not only appealing because they’re free, but they also feature attractive designs and are easy to install and use.
• While the default theme that comes with WordPress provides enough function and style for any basic website, you’re not limited to it.

Purchase WordPress for Dummies, 8th Edition at a bookstore near you or online at Amazon.