WordPress Styles
If you decided to install WordPress as your business or personal site, I expect that you will want to jazz it up a bit as the default theme is very boring. You can take this opportunity to make a statement and imprint your own personality onto your site! I think you will enjoy this process very much, as I always do, and it brings a sense of real pleasure when you look at the finished product.
Prior to selecting a theme template, you need to make a decision as to whether you want to put ads on your site and if so, where do you want them to go. Once your site is set up completely, there will also be a certain amount of necessary information about the site, for instance, page titles, categories, a search box, a list of archived posts, etc., which means that you will want all of these utilities listed tidily together in one place (usually down one side).
If you have decided to have ads also, you have the option of putting them above all the necessaries, (a lot of people won't scroll down, so if you want to use ads they need to be in direct line of sight when someone first arrives on your page). In this case you would want a 2-column theme, or if you want to give the ads a space of their own, this will mean, probably, a 3-column theme.
There are different views about whether you should place ads on your site at all. Some people feel they are a distraction to people that can cause your visitor to click away from your site and they may never come back. Other people think they have the potential to be a good way of earning some extra income. With regard to promoting products or services that you personally use and endorse, an option is having a page specially set up for them.
Another thing that needs some thought is the colour of the theme's text box. If you use a theme with a dark-coloured text box it can make reading difficult. I must say, however many of the dark-coloured themes have real pizzazz!
Another thing to realize is that some themes dont allow you to schedule posts so you need to keep this in mind when selecting your theme.
Changing the Theme from inside WordPress
Click on the 'Appearance' tab, then 'Themes', then click on 'Add New Theme'. The next page will give you all sorts of filters using which you can narrow down your search for a theme. I personally like to have a quick look at them all listing down the ones I particularly like (name and page #), then eliminate until I have the one I like best of all. I also like to check out the Details for each one to see how well they have been rated; I figure that the more stars they have probably the less trouble people have had with them, and I will avoid trouble everywhere I can!
After you have selected your new theme, click on 'Install'. After installing your new theme, you must click on the Activatelink.
You can change your theme another way, too, but you must upload the files to do it. Installing your theme from within WordPress is by far the easiest and most simple method of changing how your site looks.
Installing a Theme from Other Sites
You can get WordPress themes, for free or for a price, from various sites, and there are thousands of themes to choose from. Do a quick search on your browser and see the results that you get! Once you have selected the theme you want, you will download it, unzip it and save it to an easy-to-find, easy-to-access location on your hard drive.
You have to have a File Transfer Protocol manager, which is just a program that will upload files to your domain host. Filezilla is available, free, from its website:filezilla-project.org
Logging in to Filezilla is simply a matter of entering your domain name into the Host section, then use your cPanel Username and Password. Hit Quickconnect.
You will need to locate the folder which has your theme in it, on the left-hand side of the screen, then you have to shift the whole folder over onto the right-hand side, which is your hosting account. This is how to do it:
Click on the WWW folder, then double click on the folder for your site (it will have the domain name you chose for your new site.
Now double click on the wp-content folder - once that has opened, double click on the themes folder. You are going to drag your new theme from the left side of the screen to this Themes folder on the right side. The left side of the screen is your hard drive and the right side is your hosting side, so your new theme is being dragged from your hard drive to your hosting so that it is accessible to your WordPress website.
If you have uploaded your theme correctly, when you log in to your WordPress Admin area your new theme should appear when you click on the Appearances tab and choose Themes.
You can see a screenshot of how your new theme will look by clicking on it. Click on Activate Theme and you are finished.
Congratulations, you have installed a new theme on your WordPress site!
There's more handy information on how to set up free websites for personal and business use on my blog, Voiceover.