Uploading the Theme

An FTP program is software that enables you to upload files from your computer to your website. There are many places where you can download a free FTP program but I would recommend Core FTP, primarily because it is extremely easy to use and of course, it is completely free.
With this FTP software installed on your computer, open the program so that you can upload the new theme to your site.
The first time you open the program, you should see one window that shows you the folders and files on your 'local' computer (i.e. your desktop or laptop that you are currently using).
What you therefore need to do is add information about your server (your site on your web hosts computer) so that the FTP program is able to create a connection between your computer and the remote server to which you want to upload the theme file.
Click the 'File' link at the top of the Core FTP window and then 'Connect' when it appears directly beneath the file link:

Clicking the 'Connect' link pulls up a window where you need to input the appropriate information that enables you to establish a connection between your local computer and the remote server:

The first thing to do is give this particular connection a name that will help you to remember which site this is (1).
This is important because an aide memoir to help you remember which site is which a little further down the line could be important. Because you can use one FTP program with as many sites as you like, meaning that it might eventually become difficult to remember which site is which if you do not use an easily distinguishable name.
Next, you need to add the domain name or IP address of your site (2) followed by the user name and password that you use to log into the cPanel for that site (3 and 4).

Finally, click the 'Connect' button at the bottom of the screen (5). All being well, the connection will be made between your computer and your server. Assuming that this is the case, you should now see two windows in the Core FTP client, one of which shows the files and folders on your desktop whilst the other shows the folders on your remote server:

Next, you need to find the unzipped theme file on your local machine. The easiest way of doing this is to leave the unzipped theme file on your desktop which you can then locate by clicking on the 'Documents and Settings' link on the 'local' side of your FTP program:

After this, you should be shown a list of users, so click on your own user name (I am PC User on my machine):

And then finally click on 'Desktop':

You should now be able to see the folder which contains the new theme that you want to upload on your desktop:

Generally speaking, you will need to open this folder to make sure that you upload only the theme and not any other files or information that might be contained in this main folder:

Okay, you have now located the appropriate theme information on your desktop. All you need to do now is upload it to your site.
In order to do so, open the 'public_html' folder on your remote server:

Next, look for and open the 'wp-content' folder:

Doing so should indicate that there are three folders in the 'wp-content' folder:

Perhaps not too surprisingly, you need to upload the new theme to the 'themes' folder. To do so is simply a question of clicking and dragging the new theme folder from your local computer across to the themes folder on your remote server.

Whilst the transfer is taking place, you should be able to see the individual files that are contained in the new theme folder 'stacked' at the bottom of the page. The list of files will gradually decrease as each one is transferred from your local machine to your web hosting account:

Of course, once there are no more files to be transferred across, the theme should be uploaded.
The next job is therefore to check that the transfer took place successfully and to activate the new theme assuming that the transfer has gone through.
To do this, you need to log into the Administration of your WordPress site by calling up the wp-admin login page. This can be found by typing your domain name plus wp-admin into your browser, which in my case would mean typing in boxerdogtrainingexpert.com/wp-admin.
Remember that when you were initially installing WordPress, you created a username and password as part of the installation process? This is the username and password that you need to gain access to the administration area of your WordPress site:

Once you have gained access to the administration area, click on the 'Design' tab at the top left-hand corner of your 'Dashboard' page to start the process of activating your new theme:

You should be able to see the current theme that your site is using featured at the top of page, together with the new theme that you have just uploaded further down:

If there is a screenshot of how the new theme looks included in the folder that you just uploaded, you will see this screenshot featured on the 'Design' page. In this particular case, because there is no screenshot included, the theme appears to be blank.
However, by clicking the theme name link underneath what would otherwise be the image, you can see an example of how the site will look before deciding whether to activate this particular theme or not:

If you are happy with the theme and want to activate it, click on the link at the top right hand corner of this page (as indicated) in order to complete the installation:

Here's the site as it now appears, which looks considerably more like how a site that focuses on training dogs should appear.
There are a few final admin tasks that you should complete before starting to populate the site with content.
Firstly, remove the 'Links' that appear on the right hand of the page by default. They are not links to your sites and the only people who will benefit from them are the people to whom you are linking, so get rid of them.
You do this by clicking 'Manage', then 'Links'. Check the box next to 'Name' (so that they are all removed at once) and finally, hit the 'Delete' button:

I would also recommend that in order to improve the functionality of your site and to make it more attractive to the search engines, you should download and install various plugins onto your site.
Plugins are small programs that add additional functionality to WordPress - based sites, and as the majority of them are free, there is no reason not to add them to your site.
You will find a list of all the plug-ins that I would recommend in 'Appendix A' at the end of this book, although as you can see from the WordPress plug-ins directory page, there are currently over 4200 plugins available:

Consequently, no matter what you want to do with your WordPress site, there is probably a plugin available that will help you to do it.
Once you have downloaded the plugins that you want to install on your site, uploading them to your site is pretty much the same as uploading the theme that you installed earlier.
Find the unzipped plugin folders on your local machine before clicking and dragging them to the 'plugins' folder on your remote server. You locate this from the 'public_html' and then the 'wp-content' folder:

To activate these plugins after you have uploaded them, click the 'Plugins' link at the top right hand corner of the 'Dashboard' page:

Then 'Activate' the plug-ins shown in the list on that page:

The next step is to change the 'Permalinks' structure of your site. Permalinks is the name given to the unique URL that is attached to every page or post you add to your site, which by default looks something like http://example.com/?p=N.
Not only is this a pretty ugly URL, it is also pretty useless as well because it gives no indication to either your human visitors or to the search engines what this particular post or page is all about. Most importantly, it does not include the all-important keyword phrase for which you want to achieve search engine rankings. Thus, using the standard, default URL serves very little purpose.
You should therefore follow these guidance notes for changing the Permalinks to change the Permalink structure of your site. In this way you ensure that the URL which is attached to every content piece you publish is keyword relevant and indicative of what that content is all about.
Okay, you are now good to go. The next step is to start adding content to your site, information of the kind that people who interested in training boxer dogs would find to be of interest. You also of course need to add information about the affiliate product that you are promoting as well