Tutorials Archives | PIXEL BOUTIQUE

How to install a WordPress theme

Posted on January 9, 2021January 9, 2021 by Leanne

So you have ventured into the wonderful world of WordPress (welcome) and you have found your ideal theme to use for your website, but now you’re asking yourself “How do I install this?” “What do I do with these zipped files I just purchased”? Well, I have the answer to all of those head-scratching questions right here. I’ll show you how to upload your theme in a few simple clicks.

How to install a WordPress theme

Unzip!

Once you have your theme files, you can go ahead and unzip the folder.
Inside you will find the following items:

readme.pdf (this contains the link to the theme guide, to help you get started)
theme-files.zip (this is your theme files and contains all the templates and styles – do not unzip this file)

Upload

Next, you need to login into your WordPress account, and from your dashboard, navigate to Appearance > Themes.
This page is where all your uploaded themes are and where you can swap and change, activate themes, or simply admire your collection. You may already have the WordPress default themes here, that’s ok, you can leave them there.

At the top of this page, click the Add New button, and then click the Upload Theme.

On, the next page, you should see an upload form.
Browse to where you saved your theme-files.zip file.
Highlight your file and click Open and then click the Install Now button.

Once your theme has finished installing, you will be presented with a screen where you need to click Activate Now.

And that’s it!

Head on over to your website URL (you may need to refresh) and you should see your new theme installed.
If you don’t have any content on your site yet, it may look a little different from the demo you just purchased, so you need to either install the demo content or get to work on your own pages and posts.

You can find plenty more tutorials and helpful tips over on the blog, and if you need any further help, please get in touch.

Happy blogging!

Installing WordPress | Ionos Click and Build Guide

Posted on March 17, 2017November 11, 2020 by Leanne

So you want to use WordPress.org as your website platform?
The first thing you need to do is install it onto your host, and I’m going to talk you through that step by step — you’ll be blogging in no time.

For my host, I use www.ionos.co.uk, previously known as 1and1.
This guide will be based on that website and features. If you wish to use another host, this guide may still apply depending on how much your control panel differs. If you need help with another website, please ask and I’ll try my best to talk you through it.

If you haven’t yet registered a domain name and host, you need to tick that off before continuing to install WordPress. You can read our handy guide on how to do this here: Register a domain name and host with Ionos

Log into your Ionos (host) account

Upon logging into your account, you will be taken to your main dashboard:

From here, click on ‘Websites & Shops’.

On the next page, click ‘Create New Website‘.

You will then be taken to another page where you can select the type of website you wish to create.

Scroll down and find the WordPress box:

Click the blue button labeled ‘Get started‘.

Next, you need to give your new WP site a title. You can change this later, don’t worry.

Click ‘Create Website‘.

You now need to give your WP some login details. A username, and a password. Make sure you keep a record of these for when you login to your WP, which you need to do, every time you want to update content.

Click ‘Continue‘.

Now on the next page, we need to select which installation we require. We don’t want a managed WordPress, so go ahead and click the right box – ‘Continue with WordPress‘.

We now need to select which domain name we wish to assign this WP installation to. I’m going to assign mine to a subdomain for now.

Go ahead and select your domain name from the dropdown list:

Click ‘Assign Domain‘. This will now link your new WP site to that domain name, so that when you visit that site, you will see your WordPress site.

That’s it. Your WP is installed.

Login to your new WordPress site

To access your WordPress dashboard, enter the domain name you assigned your WordPress database to, followed by /wp-admin into your internet browser address bar and hit enter.

For example, mine will be fern.pixelboiutique.co.uk/wp-admin

You will then be presented with the Ionos WordPress login screen:

This is where you enter the account details you registered with earlier in this guide. Go ahead and do that, and click ‘Log in’.

You should now be in your WordPress, and the page in front of you is your dashboard.

Welcome to WordPress

If you’re familiar with WordPress, go ahead and do your thing.

If not, I have more WordPress guides you can check out here.

Happy blogging!

Add your Instagram Feed to your WordPress site

Posted on April 28, 2020November 11, 2020 by Leanne

This is a quick and easy tutorial, so it wont take up too much of your time. You will learn how to add your Instagram feed straight onto your WordPress site using a fun and user-friendly plugin, in just a few clicks.

Step 1:

First you need install the ‘Instagram Feed‘ plugin made by ‘Smash Balloon‘. If you’re new to WordPress and don’t know how to install plugins, you can refer to my other tutorial here: How to install a WordPress plugin

Step 2:

Once you have installed and activated your plugin, you will see a new menu item to the left called ‘Instagram Feed‘.
Go ahead and click this link. You will be taken straight the the settings page:

There are a few options here that are only available in the pro version, so feel free to upgrade to pro if those features are something you are interested in, however, I feel that the free version is sufficient enough for my needs.

Step 3:

We now need to connect your Instagram account to the plugin:

Click the big blue button labelled ‘Connect an Instagram Account‘
Select ‘Personal‘ on the pop up box and click ‘Connect‘
(You may be asked to sign in to your Instagram Account somewhere along the way)
Click ‘Continue’
Click ‘Connect This Account‘

And that’s it.
Your account should now be connected:

Shortcode:

If the WordPress theme you are using as an Instagram feed integrated, you should see this on your site now. If not, or you want to add it elsewhere, you can do so using the plugin shortcode – instagram-feed – you can place this in any text content editor, text widget or post.

Simply add the instagram-feed shortcode and it will appear right where you placed it: [*instagram-feed*]
(Please note: * are to show shortcode in text format – please remove both * for the shortcode to work).

Styles:

We can now customise the display and change up the look of our feed.

Near the top of the Instagram Feed settings page, click the ‘Customise‘ tab.
Here you have various options to change the look of your feed.

Background colours, the width of your feed, number of photos to display, number of columns, etc etc.

For example, my feed (located in the sites footer) uses the following settings:

Width: 100%
Photos display: 6
Columns: 6
Padding: 0

And that’s it really.

Have a play around with your display settings and see what layout and style you can come up with.
Any questions, please comment to ask and I’ll help where I can!

Happy feeding fellow IGers.

Setup a child theme for your WordPress site

Posted on October 24, 2019November 9, 2020 by Leanne

If you are planning on making any template changes (eg: changing code in files such as the header.php and other templates), then you should consider doing so using WordPress Child Themes.

A child theme is basically a copy of the parent theme file, so instead of changing the theme files of the parent (foundation) theme, you make changes to the child theme. This prevents any theme update from overriding any changes you made, and it’s also good practice to leave the parent theme file intact, that way, if anything goes wrong with your code, you have only messed with the child theme and the parent remains in its original state.

Any changes made to the parent template files will be overwritten when you update your theme and unless you have a backup, you wont be able to get those changes back.

If you need help creating a child theme, you can use this handy plugin and guide.

How to install a WordPress plugin

Posted on April 28, 2020November 9, 2020 by Leanne

WordPress plugins are add-ons/extensions, that you can install and use to add extra functionality and jazz to your WordPress website. In this step-by-step guide, I’ll walk you through how to install a WordPress plugin in minutes.

There is a gigantic catalog of plugins, both premium and free, but I guarantee, there is pretty much a plugin for every one of your needs and requirements.

So, how to find and install one….

The WordPress plugin catalog

To explore and browse through the plugins, you can check out the WordPress’ official catalog of plugins: https://en-gb.wordpress.org/plugins/
You can browse at your own leisure and even find something you didn’t even know you needed for your website.

From here, you can download any plugin to your desktop, them simply upload it to your WordPress site, HOWEVER, there is a much simpler way…

The easy way

On the plugins page, you will be presented with a table of all the plugins you have installed. You may have some that are deactivated (installed but not in use), and you may have some notifications about plugin updates (it’s always a good idea to keep your plugins updated, but make sure you have a recent backup of your site before you go ahead with any WP updates).

But we are here to install plugins, so let’s do that for now.

At the top of the page, you should see a button labeled ‘Add New‘.
Click this, and you will be taken to the Plugin directory page:

The default list is of featured plugins that are commonly used on WP sites.

To find a plugin of your own, or to see if one exists with the functionality you require, just enter the name of the plugin, or a specific keyword in the ‘Search plugins…’ form and it will bring up a list of related plugins.

For example, here I searched for ‘appointments’, and it brought up heaps of plugins that I can try out:

You can go through the list of results, find one that does what you need it to, read the reviews, and then we just need to install it.

Simply click the ‘Install Now‘ button next to your selected plugin, and it will begin to install.
Once it has finished installing, you then need to click the blue ‘Activate‘ button, and that’s it!

Pixel Boutique | WordPress Tutorials | How to Install Pixel Boutique | WordPress Tutorials | How to Install a WordPress Plugina WordPress Plugin

Pixel Boutique | WordPress Tutorials | How to Install a WordPress Plugin

If you go back to your plugins page, you will see this has been added to your list, and you may also see a new menu item:

I advise you to deactivate and uninstall any plugins you are not using, or plan to use ever again.
To do t his, simply find the plugin in the table above, and click ‘Deactivate‘. Then you can click ‘Uninstall‘.

And that’s plugins in a nutshell.
Go and find something fun to play with 🙂