As soon as you install WordPress, your blog will have a default design: we saw that above in the screenshot after setting up Bluehost.
Each year, WordPress releases a new default design. These are named after the year (“Twenty Twenty-Three”, for instance). You can stick with the default if you like, but you’ll probably find that there’s a different design—called a “WordPress theme”—which suits you and your blog a bit better.
The great news is that it’s really easy to change your blog’s theme. You don’t need any design skills and you definitely don’t need to be able to write computer code.
All you need to do is log in to your blog’s admin area. To find this, simply add /wp-admin to the end of your blog’s domain (e.g. ryrob.com/wp-admin). Then, in the left-hand sidebar, go to Appearance→Themes.
Here, you’ll see a list of all the pre-installed themes on your blog. This will include your current theme, on the top right.
To change to a different theme, simply run your mouse cursor over it, then click the ‘Activate’ button. Here’s how that looks:
The WordPress Themes page, showing the Active theme (Twenty Twenty-Three) and the Astra theme with Activate button indicated in red
So how do you choose the best theme for your blog?
You’ll want to think about your brand and how you’d like your site to look. Some WordPress themes are perfect for personal, journal-style blogs, others are great for professional business, and some are designed with mexico phone number search features in mind, like an online shop.
I’ve handpicked my favorite WordPress themes, so take a look through that list to see if there’s a theme that you love the look of.
Tip: You can change your WordPress theme as often as you like. (I wouldn’t recommend doing so too frequently once your blog is well established, as it might confuse your readers.) When you change your theme, all your content stays the same. The text and images you’ve added to your posts, pages, and sidebar will all still be there. It’s just the layout and design that changes.
Adding More Themes to Your Blog
What if you want more options than the pre-installed themes on your blog? Perhaps a friend or fellow blogger has recommended a theme that you’d love to use. If so, just go to Appearance→Themes, click ‘Add New’ and type in the name of a theme to search for it.
My top theme recommendations are Kadence WP, Hello Elementor, and Astra. They’re all free to get started with, but they all offer a paid plan that you can upgrade to in the future to get extra features.
After installing and activating your theme, you can check out how your blog looks simply by going to your blog’s URL. Your changes will be made live straight away.
Tip: You can usually make some edits to your blog’s design under Appearance → Customize. The exact options you have here will depend on your theme, but you can normally expect to be able to change your fonts, font sizes, colors, header image (the image that appears at the very top of each page), and more.