Step 1: Back up Your Site

Before you do anything else, make sure you have a full site backup in place. This is absolutely vital, mainly because if something goes wrong, you’ll have a clean restore point to work from.

We’d advise you to work through whichever technique is more convenient for you before moving onto the second step.

Step 2: Navigate to Your WordPress Themes Section

Now you’re ready to change your theme. To get started, head to Appearance > Themes within WordPress:

Here, you’ll see a list of all your currently-installed themes. Your active theme will be clearly highlighted:

What you do next depends on whether your new theme can be found in the WordPress Theme Directory, or whether you’ve bought a premium theme elsewhere. Regardless, click the Add New button, and move on to the next phase.

Step 3: Install Your WordPress Theme

To choose from the thousands of free themes that are available, simply search for one using the drop-down menus on the Add Themes page:

If you’ve bought a premium theme, on the other hand, you’ll be provided with a ZIP file. This can be installed by using the Upload Theme link on the same page, and then using the Choose File dialog to locate the file:

Either way, once you’ve found or uploaded your desired theme, you’ll just need to click on the relevant Install button. WordPress will work its magic, and you’re almost done!

Step 4: Activate Your New WordPress Theme

The final step is to activate your theme. For premium themes, you’ll usually see an activation link on a confirmation screen, after the installation process is complete.

If not, you can view all of your currently installed themes by heading back to the Appearance > Themes screen. To apply a new one, simply hover over it and click on the Activate button:

Once that’s finished, you can check out your new theme on the front end of your site. It should be up and running, and looking pretty good.