Before you Start:

  • Your have your own hosting platform running up to date stable versions of Apache/nginx, PHP, MySQL. If you need hosting we recommend Siteground.
  • You have installed the latest version of self hosted WordPress.
  • You have logged in to WordPress and are looking at the WordPress dashboard.



1. Install the Theme

When you are ready to install a theme, you must first upload the theme to your WordPress directory. There are two ways you can install the theme:


Using WordPress: Navigate to Appearance > Themes > Install Themes. Go to upload and select the zipped theme folder (motivatorguru.zip) and hit install now and theme will be uploaded and installed. Once you have uploaded the theme, you need to activate it. To activate your new theme, go to Appearance > Themes and activate your chosen theme.


Using FTP: By using any FTP program of your choice you can upload the non-zipped folder to the /wp-content/themes/ folder on your server.




2. Install the Required Plugins

Once you've activated MotivatorGuru, you'll be prompted to install a set of plugins which are required to get the most out of MotivatorGuru. The message will look like this:




Click the "Begin Installing plugins" option.

Tick the checkbox just under Bulk actions and from the Bulk options dropdown select "Install" and click "Apply". Give it a few minutes to install all of them.

For simplicity, tick the checkbox just under Bulk actions and from the Bulk options dropdown select "Activate" and click "Apply". This will activate all plugins that you'll need for the theme.



You'll know you've done everything correctly when you see this confirmation.




 
3. Add the Demo Content

We highly recommend you add the demo content so you can get setup quickly. Just go to Appearance > Import Demo Data




It can take up to 2 minutes to import the demo pages so don't touch it!

Once correctly imported you'll get an "All done - Have fun!" message.

This adds the demo content as well as the widgets.



Have issues with the import?
  1. Try increasing the memory required by WordPress and then run the import again. Instructions
  2. On some hosts (we're looking at you GoDaddy) the timeout limits are set very low which doesn't allow it to complete. Solution




4. Set the Menu


Go to Appearance > Menus and click on 'Screen Options' at the top. Ensure that CSS Classes is ticked.




Installing the demo data automatically assigned the menu for you so this is just a review step.

Go to Appearance > Menus - there are 2 menus - one to the left and one to the right.

You can change the one to edit in the dropdown:


It will be set below like this:


The same applies for the Main Menu Right - just change the dropdown and click Select to edit that.



5. Reading Settings

Go to Settings > Reading and set the Front Page to be 'Home'

Set the Posts page to be Blog.

Set the 'Blog pages show at most' to be 8.




6. Turn on the Newsletter Feature above the Footer


To do this, let's dip into the Customizer. Go to Appearance > Customize > Layout > Newsletter


 

Set it to 'Show' and edit the text and colors if you wish.


This also loads a widget - Appearance > Widgets > Newsletter. Within this, you can drop in a shortcode which displays a Mailchimp form. In order for this to display - you must set up the Mailchimp for WordPress plugin correctly - which means having a Mailchimp account (it's free) - and connecting the plugin to it.


If you need more information on setting up this plugin - see the 'Mailchimp for WordPress' documentation section.




7. Import the LayerSlider Demo Slides



Go to LayerSlider and import the included demo slides via the Import Sliders link and browse to the correct folder in the zip file. They're in DemoData > layerslider - LayerSlider.zip




Attach that zip file and click import - you should see the demo slides imported afterwards.







8. Set up Youtube and Instagram (optional)


The homepage includes sections with a Youtube channel displayed, as well as an Instagram row of images along the bottom. These are both optional but let's go through how to set them up.



Instagram Feed Plugin


It's best follow the developer's own instructions to get this set up.


Under the 'Layout' tab for the plugin - you can untick the 'Header', 'Load More Button' and 'Follow' checkboxes if you wish.



Youtube Plugin


See here for a guide on the basics.



9. All done!



Next Steps:


Full list of theme documentation articles