There are a lot of Thesis tutorials online.
Including some on how to install Thesis.
But many assume you have a basic understanding of web hosting, installing WordPress and using FTP to upload files to your server.
This tutorial is assumes none of that and is aimed at beginners who want to get their first self-hosted WordPress site up and running on the Thesis Theme for WordPress, all in three simple steps.
To get started, watch the video tutorial below.
The Beginners Guide to Installing Thesis
The video below was made with novices in mind and shows you what I think is the easiest way to get a brand new WordPress site up and running on the Thesis Theme.
Resources: Bluehost | Thesis Theme
You can check out the example site we created here.
What if I Already Own My Domain?
If you already bought your domain with a domain registrar like Godaddy, all you need to do is point it at Bluehost’s servers. The video below will show you how.
Bluehost nameservers: ns1.bluehost.com | ns2.bluehost.com
Free Thesis Set up
If you’d like to forget the tech stuff just start blogging, I’ve got a special offer that will allow you to get WordPress and Thesis installed for free. You can find out more about that here.
If you have any questions about the above tutorials or installing Thesis, be sure to leave them in the comments below.
And make sure you don’t miss out on future Thesis tutorials by subscribing for free updates:
Great post Mark! Thanks for putting the video up taking us through the process step by step. I am sharing this with a few people who were told that wordpress is too difficult to use. You make it so easy to understand!
Thanks Susan. That was the goal! And thanks for sharing.
Thanks for this tutorial which was excellent. I got Thesis installed with no trouble at all and have confirmed that it is working properly. You are doing a great service by putting tutorial videos online that show us technically-challenged folks how to getthings like this done.
Here is my next challenge and I’ll search online to see if someone has an answer. WordPress is a platform and Thesis is a framework (which rises to the level of a framework, not just a theme). I have to figure out how to properly use the framework with the WordPress platform. I also bought some Thesis skins which enhance the framework. I need to figure out how to interact with the skins as well. What I really have to figure out is this: when I have a change to make, do I make it at the WordPress layer, the Thesis framework layer, or the skin layer?
Glad you found it helpful Jim.
Most changes you will make will happen in the WordPress dashboard or “WordPress layer” as you called it. This is where you will do things like add content and images. Thesis also adds it’s own set of options to the WordPress dashboard that allow you to control the design of your site. If you want to customize the design of your site beyond what Thesis’ point and click design controls allow for, then you need to customize (with code) the custom.css file and custom_functions.php files that come with Thesis – this would be the “Thesis layer”.
What skins do is give you a customized version of thesis and some even add more custom options to the WordPress dashboard as well – in addition to those that Thesis adds. Hope that helps.