How to Install, Activate & Customize a WordPress Theme

This post is a part of our Blogging series.

Creating an awesome WordPress blog starts with picking the right WordPress theme that fulfills all your blogging needs. Fortunately, WordPress offers about 9,456 FREE themes for anyone to use.

But, with so many options; confusion on what to pick is obvious.

Therefore, let’s find out how to pick a great WordPress theme? How to install and activate a WordPress theme, and finally how to customize it?

Note: Changing the theme later isn’t healthy for your website, therefore pick a theme carefully in the beginning so that you don’t require to change it later.

Where to Explore all WordPress Themes?

As a beginner, you would be curious to explore all popular WordPress themes to figure out the best theme for your website.

You have two ways to explore WordPress themes:

On wordpress.org official website
Directly on your WordPress blog backend

Let’s learn both the ways.

1. WordPress.org Official Website

WordPress has thousands of themes. These themes are built and maintained by certain companies (or individuals).

To check all these themes visit: WordPress.org themes.

List of all the themes will show up under the Theme menu.

Click on “More Info” to know more about the theme you hover upon.

(We will take the example of OceanWP in this article)

Note: Themes like Twenty twenty two (2022), Twenty twenty one (2021), etc. are WordPress default themes for that specific year. Hence, these themes aren’t built for long term objective. They are made to keep WordPress look updated. Avoid using them.

Once you are on the detail page; you get the option to preview the theme as in real. This preview may not be so engaging but it gives general visuals of the options and layout.

Now, how to know if a theme is good to use or not?

Here is a list of things you need to check in order to use it for your blog or website:

Last Updated:
A theme that is regularly updated is a sign that the creator of the theme is working on it. And, it’s not an abandoned theme.
Active Installation:
A theme used for a good number of websites gives a hint that people are liking it.
Rating:
Higher the rating, the better the theme is.
The company behind the theme:
Sometimes themes are made as a college project and submitted to WordPress. Such themes are not good to go with. It’s advised to use a theme that is built and managed by a company seriously into theme-development business.
Speed & Compatibility:
The speed factor is critical for a website’s performance and traffic. A slow speed could harm your blogging vision. (Read the para)
Mobile-Friendly and responsive:
A theme is good to go if it works on mobile devices as well desktops in an effective manner.
Customization options:
A good theme is one that allows you to customize every aspect of the theme as per your requirements. (We will explore this in the next section for OceanWP)

2. Your WordPress Blog Backend

In the above section, you have learned to explore WordPress themes on the WordPress official website. However, all these themes are directly accessible to your WordPress website as well.

Let’s explore these themes in real action.

To do so, you need to log in to your WordPress website dashboard.

Go to Appearance > Themes.

A panel with a list of installed themes will show up. You can upload new themes or pick any themes of your choice by clicking on “Add new” (Check the video below)

How to install & activate a WordPress Theme?

From the vertical menu of the WordPress dashboard, click on “Appearance“
Click on “Themes“.
Scroll down and click on “Add New Theme“
Hover over the theme that you like to use and click on “Detail & Preview“.
If you like any theme, click on “Install” and then “Activate” to use it for your website.

Once a theme is installed, you will get a customized option to set the theme setting.

Who can help you start your blog?

The answer is; a blogging Mentor.

Someone who has helped a bunch of people to start and make money from blogging. Someone, who can take you step-by-step into all technical as well as non-technical aspects of blogging.

Meet Satya Prakash Mourya. your blogging mentor.

How to Customize Your WordPress Theme?

The theme that you just installed and activated comes with default settings. You will need to customize it to make it look as per your requirements.

Go to the Appearance menu from the vertical menu bar.

Click on Customize.

A whole new screen will show up with all the customization options shown in the left menu panel. Each of the menu allows you to edit different aspects of your theme.

1. Site Identity

In this option, you can set your website title, which is basically your website name.

Also, add your tagline.

In some cases, when a website owner doesn’t want to display the site title and name, they can untick and hide both from the available option.

Below that, you get the option to set the site icon. This will appear on the top of browsers as shown in the preview (check screenshot)

2. Menus

The menus of your website are important for navigational purposes. OceanWP (and other themes) allows multiple menus at different locations.

You can click on “Create New Menu” and add different pages, posts, categories, or simple custom links.

3. Widgets

OceanWP has 4 widgets. A widget is a separate interface area for a specific purpose. For example footer widgets or sidebar widgets.

Each of the footer widget areas is editable using the Gutenberg block editor; allowing you to add text, images, buttons, links, etc.

Basically, you can make your footer look the way you want using these widgets settings.

4. Homepage setting

The homepage is the main page of your website. It’s basically the page that opens up when anyone visits your primary domain.

In the beginning, it’s a good practice to set it to “Your Latest posts“.

Later, when you have more content on your website, it’s more convenient to design a dedicated static page for homepage.

5. Typography

Typography means the style, size, and color of the text and headings.

To customize the typography means, setting the font weight, font color, font style, font size, line spacing, etc. of body text, Heading 1, Heading 2, Heading 3, main menu, etc.

6. General Options

Apart from all the specified setting options, OceanWP has several more customization options that are collectively available in General options.

You get to choose here the color of the hover link, the layout style (boxed, separate or wide), the color of the site background, and content padding.

More options like enabling or disabling page title, scroll to top feature, pagination, 404 error pages, and many more things.

Explore all the options.

7. Blog

In the blog section, you can select the layout of your blog post;

With sidebar
Left sidebar
Right sidebar
No sidebar

Also, you can select the elements as well as their positing (+ many more things)

8. Header

In the header setting, you get options to set the logo, increase or decrease the width of the logo, change the background color, select the menu, change the style of the header, the color of the texts, etc.

Overall, it gives you whole new possibilities to set the header of your page.

9. Footer Widget & Footer Bottom

Footer is the bottom of your website. Footer widget allows you to add pages, images, text and other elements in the footer area of your website.

With Footer bottom, you get option to add additional copyright statement.

List of 5 WordPress Themes for Blogger

1. OceanWP

Perfect for business & blogging websites. It has a good number of customization possible from header, logo & tagline, sidebar widget, footer, blog layout, pages, etc.

Regularly updated
Good reviews on WordPress
700,000 active installation
5 out of 5-star rating
Lightweight & highly extendable
Mobile Responsive
Compatible with major builders like Gutenberg, Elementor, etc.

2. Astra

Highly popular WordPress theme amongst blogs & business sites. It is very lightweight. However, it has fewer customization options in the FREE version as compared to Neve or OceanWP.

More about Astra:

Fast and extendable theme
Updated regularly
1+ Million active installation
5 out of 5-star rating
WooCommerce ready
Mobile-friendly
Compatible with all latest popular plugins

3. Neve

Neve is a popular theme developed by Themeisle. It has a lot of customization setting option that makes it really powerful for business, portfolio, and normal blogs.

More about Neve:

Updated regularly
300,000 active installation
851+ five-star rating
SEO friendly and mobile-friendly theme
Ready for WooCommerce
Works with Elementor, Gutenberg, and another popular plugin.

4. Kadence

It’s another clean, lightweight, and popular WordPress theme among bloggers, freelancers, and business owners. Developed and managed by Kadence WP.

More about Kadence WP theme:

Updated regularly
100,000+ Active installation
145+ users gave 5 star rating
Mobile responsive

5. ChromeNews

A theme in a news format, perfect for news blogs or magazine blogs. Even though it’s still not as popular as above discussed themes, it’s really good to use.

An overview of ChromeNews:

Updated regularly
4000+ active installation
6 reviews on WordPress (4.5 start rating)
Mobile responsive & compatible with Gutenberg, Elementor, and other plugins

Key Takeaways

For WordPress website owners looking to pick a WordPress theme, requires to take the following points.

Explore all popular themes on the WordPress.org website.
Pick one theme for yourself, decide wisely by checking essential features and info.
Customize the theme directly on your WordPress website after installing and activating the theme.

Thank you for reading. I hope this post helped you. Comment if you have any questions in your mind.

How to Pick a Theme for Your WordPress Website & Customize it?