Biz + Websites | Updated Oct19
how to make your website
look professional
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission, at no additional cost to you.
Welcome!
Today I'll be discussing how you can make your website look amazing by using a theme.
What we're going over today is:
1. Choosing a theme to design your website
2. Installing your theme
3. Customizing your website
Let's dive right in!
What is a theme?
A theme is basically a pre-built design for your website that helps take a lot of the building work off your hands. You just install it and it automatically styles and formats your site for you.
1. Choosing your theme:
When you're choosing a theme for your website, keep in mind that you have some options. You can choose from: 1. Basic free themes, 2. Paid themes, 3. DIY custom themes, and 4. Paid custom themes.
Basic free themes are obviously free, but as you may guess, they are pretty basic. It can be a little hard to make your website look perfect with a basic theme, but it's definitely good enough to start with if you're on a budget.
Paid themes are way less basic and you can find tons of different beautiful options to give your website a boost of your personalization without you having to become a web-designer, or pay one. They're just "plug & play". These can cost anywhere from $19-$1,000.
As I said above, you don't really need a paid theme. You can learn to use a basic free one, but just won't have the same perks that come with a paid theme.
DIY custom themes are where you take a basic theme and then you learn the nitty-gritty skills on how to design and customize it exactly how you want it. You can do this for free or cheap, but it does take some time and effort to learn. It's also not a fool-proof method, because certain things you can only really do by coding.
Finally, paid custom themes would be where you get a pro web designer to build one specifically for you. These are more expensive, usually costing at least $500-$5,000.
Today, I will show you start off with a free theme, and then I'll show you how to install a paid theme in case you decided to go that route.
2. Installing a free theme:
1. First, log in to your Bluehost account. Now you can "Log into WordPress" from your Bluehost account by clicking the button shown below:
2. Now that you're in WordPress, scroll down the left side, look for "Appearance" and hover over it.
--> Then you should see "Themes" pop up in a menu to the right; click that. Here's what everything should look like so far:
3. Once you've clicked on themes, this is where you will see themes that are already installed. You can preview the themes that are already installed, and then select which one you want to use by first clicking Install, and then clicking Activate.
4. If you don't have any installed themes, or want to look around for more, scroll to the bottom and click the "+ Add New Theme" box, which looks like this:
5. Here you can scroll through free themes and choose the one you like, or you can search for the ones I suggested yesterday, by typing the name in the search bar (see image below).
6. You can hover over a theme and click Preview to see what it would look like on your website.
7. Once you choose a theme, hover over it, and click Install.
9. After it finishes installing, be sure to click the Activate button, in order for it to take effect on your site.
Whenever you want to preview your site, all you have to do is click on your site's name in the very top-left corner of your WordPress dashboard.
Choosing a Paid theme:
If you're interested in a beautiful and easy paid theme, here are my top recommendations.
Photographers
Coaches
E-Commerce & Shops
Blogs
Installing a Paid theme:
If you bought a paid theme, it's pretty easy to install it into your website. Here's how.
First, you need to go back to Appearance -> Themes, in WordPress.
Now this time you will click on Upload, shown at the top of the screen.
Don't forget to Activate it once it's installed, and that's it!
3. how to customize your website
When you're on the main Themes page of your dashboard, you will see a Customize button on your installed theme. Click that button to start customizing your theme and website.
I'll be explaining how to customize your website using the theme I chose, but if you don't see something that looks identical to mine, it's probably because you're using a different theme than me. Your theme customization menu is just unique to your theme.
Regardless of which theme you chose, you can still click through each of the options that you have in your menu, and you'll still be able to adjust most of the same settings I'm going over. Here's what my theme menu looks like:
Customizing your website:
First, click on "Site identity". Here's what I recommend you customize in this section:
Logo: You can click to upload your logo here.
Site Title: Here you can update the name of your business. This is your normal business name, not your domain name.
Tagline: Add a catchy phrase, short motto, or a mission that represents your business. Keep it short and sweet.
Site Icon: You can upload another photo for your site icon, or reuse your normal logo. This is the little icon that shows in the browser tab when someone visits your website.
Next, go back and click on "Menus" in the list. Here you can create and customize as many menus as you'd like.
-> Click on a menu that you see in the list to customize it, or click "Create New Menu" to start a new one.
-> At the bottom, you can see where your theme will allow you to put a menu, such as in the header and footer.
Next in the list you can customize your "Homepage Settings".
-> The homepage options you see here will vary based on the theme you chose.
Header & Footer
-> Here you can usually adjust what and how things show up in your header and footer, such as menus, logos, site title, and even copyright.
Additional CSS
-> This section is used to add extra code to your your theme. I recommend leaving this alone unless you know what you're doing; you can risk accidentally breaking your whole website by messing with this section!
As I said earlier, your theme might have different options that show up here, so just take the time to click through your menu and get used to it. Have patience with yourself, and have fun learning how to customize your site!
Some of the options Website Success Coaching has to offer are:
+ Designing a stunning website.
+ More ways to monetize your website.
+ Setting up payments on your website.
+ Using forms to capture leads on your website.
+ Setting up a drop-shipping business from scratch.
+ Setting up a coaching or subscription business from scratch.
+ Step-by-step instructions for any part of your website.
Conclusion
Thanks so much for joining me in this detailed post! I hope it helps a ton and your website is looking fabulous.
Grab more help with my FREE 5-day course here: