Troubleshooting a WordPress Theme You Bought Online

WordPress offers many free themes from their theme marketplace. You can install any of these on your site. However, because they’re free, a lot of websites use them. And this means someone may have a site that looks very similar to yours.

Buying a third-party theme means far fewer users will be running the same theme. Often, third-party themes also provide higher quality designs because larger teams of developers are working on them and being compensated. Likewise, they can often provide support if you’re having trouble launching the theme.

Be mindful of the installation procedure your theme outlines. It may differ from the theme installation process you’ve gone through in the past.

Master themes

Some themes are built from a master theme, and thus you’ll need to install the master before installing the “child” theme.

Addons

Some themes hook into popular plugins and install/activate them for you. This means the initial theme installation process may take longer than expect.

Multiple files

If your theme was delivered with multiple files, don’t worry, just make sure to check the instructions that were emailed to you.

Most third-party theme installations are simple. If you’re having any trouble, be sure to check your support options.

Don’t worry if the theme doesn’t look like what you bought. Usually, a third-party theme will come with demo content you need to install alongside the theme. If you haven’t installed the demo content then your theme is going to look drastically different than what you thought you were buying.

Check the theme options and there will probably be a button you can press to install the demo content. If not, again check the support options you have available from the theme providers.