Website templates are a great way of getting an expertly designed website at a fraction of the cost of a custom designed site. Have you been thinking about using an Elementor template for your website, but worried that it might be a bit too techy for you? Read on for an easy to follow, step by step guide on how to install Elementor templates on your WordPress website.
Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
What’s Elementor?
Elementor is a really popular drag and drop page builder plugin for WordPress. It allows you to design and build websites in a visual way and without a line of code needing to be written by you. So it’s perfect if you’re a small business owner needing you get your online home built quickly and easily.
When the Elementor plugin is installed, you’ll get an ‘Edit with Elementor’ button appear on each page or blog post on your website. Then when you click it, you’ll be taken to a new screen where you can start adding new sections, columns and page elements.
You’ll be able to drag elements like text editors, headings, images, testimonials and much, much more.
Each section, column and element has it’s own set of options for you to change and update like text colour, font style and size, background colours. Different elements will have different options so, for example, an image will have different options to a heading.
What’s an Elementor template?
Elementor has a feature where you can design a web page and then export that page to be used on other pages or websites.
When you buy an Elementor website template you’ll get a file or series of files to download. It comes in the form of a .json file, which is a code file. But you don’t have to do anything with that file except upload it to your website.
And I’ll show you to do this when I take you through the steps of how to install Elementor templates.
Once you’ve uploaded it to your site you’ll just need to apply it to your page, add your brand colours, fonts and content and you’ll be ready to go.
How to install an Elementor template
Now we’re going to look at how you actually install an Elementor template.
Pre-requisites
I’m going to assume you’ve already downloaded your template files at this point. If you haven’t you’ll need to do that before you import the templates.
You need to have the Elementor plugin installed and activated.
Import the template
You can either import the templates by uploading a zip folder, or individual files. If you have a folder that has more than one template in it, it will obviously be quicker to upload the folder, rather than unzipping it and adding them one by one.
If you do have a single file, or you have several files not in a zip folder
In step 3, rather than uploading a single folder you’ll need to upload one of your individual files. You’ll then need to repeat steps 3-6 for each of your template files.
1. Hover over the Templates option on the main menu and click on Add New
You might be prompted to create a new template by a popup, if this happens just close the popup.
2. Click on the Import Templates button.
3. Click on Choose file and select the .zip file was sent to you when you bought your template.
4. Click on the Import Now button.
5. Click on Enable and Import in the Enable Unfiltered File Uploads popup.
6. Click on the Import Now button.
So now your template(s) have been uploaded to your site, ready for you to add to your page(s).
Add the template to your page(s)
These steps assume that you haven’t yet created the page(s) that you want to add your template(s) to. If you already have a page created and published skip to step 6.
1. Hover over Pages and click on Add New
3. Add your page title
When choosing a title for your new page, if it’s the home (or only page) I recommend naming it your brand name.
This is the name that will be displayed in the browser tab when anyone visits the site.
4. Click on Elementor Full Width from Template
5. Click on the Publish button.
If you’re asked ‘Are you ready to publish?’ click the Publish button again.
6. Click on the Edit with Elementor button
7. Click on the Add Template icon, which is a folder icon, in the main part of the screen.
8. Click on the My Templates tab within the Elementor Template Library popup.
9. Click on Insert next to the name of the template that you want to use on this page.
10. Click on the Update button.
So now you you have added a template to a page. All that’s left to do now is to customise it.
Customise
I’m not going to go through the customisation options for the elements available from Elementor. I’d likely be writing this for weeks, and chances are that it might have changed by the time I was to hit publish.
So I’m going to point you to the official Elementor resources here. This way you’ll know you’ll be looking at the most up to date resources.
How to create, edit and style columns in Elementor
Elementor elements/widgets resources
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How to install Elementor templates: summary
- Elementor is a very popular and easy to use page builder plugin for WordPress.
- You can buy Elementor templates at the fraction of the cost of a bespoke website.
- There are 3 main steps to install an Elementor template on your website.
- Step 1 – upload and import the template(s) to your website.
- Step 2 – add the template to your web page.
- Step 3 – add customise your template using your own brand colours, fonts, images and content.
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