How to Setup a WordPress Theme

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Unlike most new processes, step one is actually the most difficult piece of setting up a business website on WordPress. But you are here on step two.

Take a deep breath. It is time to make your WordPress install look like the business website of your dreams.

Picking the right WordPress business theme

As this is the Slocum Themes ultimate resource to creating a WordPress business website, we will be referencing our Modern Business theme throughout the conversation of creating a WordPress business website.

Modern Business Pro can be found on our website. We have provided more details about the pro version below. In the meantime, we also have the free version of the theme in the WordPress repository. You can start with the basic theme, follow this tutorial, and upgrade when you are ready.

Try Modern Business

How to install

Once your WordPress website has been downloaded, you will need to install it to get it to begin functioning. This is done by navigating to the Themes tab on the left of WordPress and selecting the Add New option at the top of the themes page. From there, you can select the Upload option and choose the .zip file that you had downloaded (either free or pro).

Once finished, you can activate the theme and move to the next step of creating a child theme.

Creating a Child Theme

A child theme is an important piece of the puzzle as it allows the savvy coder to make changes to the website’s PHP or CSS without affecting the original theme. In normal people talk, you can modify just about anything on our themes, but we only recommend doing so on a child theme. Changes made to the “Parent Theme” or Modern Business Pro in this case will be overwritten whenever the theme is updated.

Hiding your website before launch

Not everybody has the budget to hire someone to create a website on a staging server and then move to a production environment. If you are going to be making edits to your live site, here are a few tips and a free plugin to help hide your content so the public does not have access to your “under construction” website.

Ultimate Coming Soon Plugin

The Ultimate Coming Soon Page plugin is a free WordPress plugin found in the WordPress repository that allows a user to “hide” the website in plain site.

Simply install the plugin and then go to the settings page for Ultimate Coming Soon Page. All you have to do is check the box that enables Ultimate Coming Soon Page, and you are set.

By default, the website will display a white screen with Coming Soon mode activated, but you can tweak this to show an image or relay a message to your customers!

Hide your Site from Google

Additionally, while adding content and hiding it from public view, you can navigate to your WordPress Settings and go to the Reading tab. Check the box titled “Discourage search engines from indexing” to prevent your optimized posts from ranking.

Just make sure to uncheck this box when you want to be seen!

Benefits of switching to Modern Business Pro

More colors and fonts
Ability to hide and show content and make footer your own
Access to Documentation
Theme Support from our team

Now that we have installed the theme, the next step will be to set it up the styling to mimic YOUR BRAND!