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.



Video Install Tutorial





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 (themeInstall/broker.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 Broker, you'll be prompted to install a set of plugins which are required to get the most out of Broker. 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.




Click the 'Return to Required Plugins Installer' link at the bottom when it's complete.

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

The Broker Demo Data import will include everything - all of the homepages and inside content pages.




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 ensure the menu is set correctly. In Menu Settings at the bottom 'Primary Menu' should be ticked.




Tip: Click Screen Options at the top and ensure Description and CSS Classes are ticked also.




5. Enable the Breadcrumbs

Go to SEO > Search Appearance Tab.
Enable the Breadcrumbs and remove the arrow within the Separator field so that it is empty and save.




6. Set the Homepage and News Page


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

Set the 'Blog pages to show at most' to be 5 if you wish.





7. Import the LayerSlider Demo Slides


Go to LayerSlider and import the included demo slides via the Import/Export Tab 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.

Important!
To make the slider images go full width you may have to adjust a setting within the Layerslider options. See here.








8. Disable Redux Panel Demo


Go to: Settings > Redux and click on Disable Panel Demo.





9. All done!

Would you like to set up a WooCommerce shop also? Check out our Shop Setup tutorial.