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This post aims to demystify the process of quickly installing WordPress and Avada. Once set up, you can customize the website as much or as little as you need to match your marketing goals and branding. Website design can be an enjoyable and satisfying activity if you have the right tools in place.

WordPress is powerful but not complicated; however, there is a small learning curve for anyone new to this platform. If you want to build a website for your business, it can be challenging to get over that initial ‘hump’ of familiarity with the world’s favored Content Management System (CMS).

The best way to harness WordPress’s power and expand its functionality is to use a tool that brings everything together in one place. Avada is not just a WordPress theme; it is more than that. It is a Website Builder and the go-to solution for more than 990k beginners, marketers, and professionals when it comes to designing and maintaining world-class websites. In this post, we’ll show you how.

Overview

It Is Important to Be Prepared

Being prepared before starting a new website is paramount because it ensures a clear direction and purpose, which guides all subsequent decisions. Additionally, preparation streamlines the entire design process, making it more efficient and minimizing the likelihood of errors or delays.

Here is a basic preparation checklist:

  • Do some preliminary online research on your competitors.
  • Clearly define the website’s purpose and goals.
  • Create a mood board using your logo, color schemes, and typography to form a cohesive look and feel that aligns with your brand’s identity.
  • Preparing your SEO strategy in advance helps integrate keywords naturally into your content, improving search engine rankings from the start.
  • A domain name and hosting service with WordPress installed (most hosting providers offer one-click WordPress installations).
  • Purchase Avada on ThemeForest and download the installation files.

From a technical perspective, preparation ensures that all necessary elements, such as hosting and domain setup, security measures, and backup solutions, are in place from the start. Furthermore, integrating a clear Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and marketing strategy into the plan from the beginning helps achieve better results.

Step 1: Download Avada From Themeforest

The first step assumes you have already purchased Avada on the Themeforest marketplace. If you still need to, please see this detailed help file on how to purchase Avada.

To start the installation process, you must download the correct installation files and, while at it, the purchase code to register Avada, as explained in Step 3.

Download Avada from Themeforest

Log into your Themeforest marketplace account and navigate to the downloads page. At this stage, you are presented with these options:

Avada Download Files

Download the “Installable WordPress file only” and a copy of the license certificate. For more information on what is included with your Avada purchase, please see this help file.

Step 2: Upload Avada

The next step is to log in to your website’s Dashboard. By default, you can find your login page by adding /wp-admin/ to the end of the domain where you installed WordPress (e.g., http://yoursite.com/wp-admin/).

With each vanilla WordPress installation, a default theme is set as the active theme and will change once you upload Avada.

Default WordPress Theme

Once logged in, navigate to Themes > Upload Theme and upload the ‘Avada.zip‘ file you downloaded from your ThemeForest marketplace account.

WordPress Install a Theme

WordPress will notify you as soon as the Avada upload is completed, giving you three choices. Choose > Activate.

WordPress Activate Theme

Once activated, you will be redirected to the main Avada Dashboard page.

Avada Dashboard Page

At this point, you will be ready to proceed to the next step: installing the required plugins (Avada Builder, Avada Core), registering Avada, and getting started with customizing.

Step 3: Register Avada

Registering Avada involves verifying your purchase. This process allows you to receive free automatic updates for life, import prebuilt websites directly from within your WordPress dashboard, and access Avada Studio prebuilt content.

Log into the Themeforest marketplace account used to purchase Avada to locate your purchase code. For detailed instructions, please see this help file (Locating the purchase code is also explained in Step 1).

Register Avada With a Purchase Code

Step 4: Install the Required Plugins

The Avada Builder and Avada Core plugins are required and must be installed for Avada to work as intended. To install them, navigate to the Avada > Plugins screen.

Installation is straightforward and completed in a matter of seconds.

Install the Avada Required Plugins

On the Plugins page, you will see a range of plugins divided into REQUIRED, PREMIUM, and RECOMMENDED.

REQUIRED

  • Avada Core—This is a companion plugin for the Avada Builder. It must be active for Avada Sliders, portfolio items, and FAQs to import.
  • Avada Builder—The Avada Builder is foundational in site creation and a vital part of the Avada ecosystem. It incorporates an intuitive Avada Live drag ‘n’ drop visual content builder, allowing for quick and intuitive customization.

PREMIUM

  • Avada Branding—This plugin allows you to totally rebrand different areas of your website, such as the WordPress Admin area, the WordPress Login Screen, and Avada itself.
  • Slider Revolution—Is a 3rd party plugin that allows you to create fully responsive multi-media sliders for your Avada website. Avada also includes a dedicated Slider Revolution Element to use for placement anywhere within your website layouts.
  • LayerSlider WP—Is a 3rd party plugin that allows you to create fully responsive media sliders for your Avada website. Avada also includes a dedicated Layer Slider Element to use for placement
  • Advanced Custom Fields (ACF)—This is a 3rd party plugin that allows you to add additional custom fields, such as repeatable blocks, WordPress edit screens, and custom field data, enabling you to do more with your website data.
  • Convert Plus—This is a 3rd party popup plugin with three modules, Modal, Info Bar, or Slide In, that you can easily add to your content with custom manual triggering or inline display.
  • FileBird—This 3rd party plugin is a WordPress media library folder and file manager that allows you to create virtual folders and subfolders. It helps you organize your website media content more efficiently.

RECOMMENDED

  • HubSpot—Is an inbound marketing and sales cloud-based software suite designed for small businesses. Their third-party plugin is free to use with Avada. It offers live chat, chatbots, forms, popups, email marketing, analytics, and more to turn your website into a marketing powerhouse.
  • WooCommerce—This 3rd party plugin is design-integrated with Avada. It lets you create a customized experience for your WooCommerce users from start to finish. You can design and build conditional layouts for individual WooCommerce Products and create custom Shop, Cart, Checkout, and Archive pages, all using the design flexibility and power of the Avada WooCommerce Builder.
  • The Events Calendar—This 3rd party plugin is fully design integrated with Avada. You can easily display events anywhere on your Avada website. In addition, a wide array of flexible options gives you total creative control.
  • Yoast SEO—This 3rd party plugin is compatible with Avada. It is a popular tool for WordPress that helps users optimize their websites to enhance their visibility and ranking in search engine results.
  • bbPress—This 3rd party plugin is a streamlined discussion board compatible with Avada. It is easy to use and built to scale and grow your online community.
  • PWA—This 3rd party plugin has performance-based features that provide caching and APP options for Avada, allowing for an enhanced user experience.
Avada Required & Premium Plugins

Step 5: Import a Prebuilt Avada Website

An Avada prebuilt website is a professionally designed website template included with your purchase of Avada. These websites, also known as “demos,” are created by the in-house Avada design team and intended to showcase the versatility and functionality of Avada and WordPress. They provide a quick and easy way for users to set up a professional-looking website without needing to design it from scratch.

There are currently 109 websites to choose from (with new websites being added regularly), arranged into various industry categories. Before the import, you can filter by category and preview each website. You can also view all Avada prebuilt websites online.

Avada Prebuilt Websites

These prebuilt websites include complete layouts, styles, and dummy content that can be imported into a WordPress installation with just a few clicks. Each prebuilt website is tailored for specific industries or purposes, such as business, portfolio, e-commerce, blog, or landing pages, allowing users to choose a design that closely matches their needs.

On the import screen, you will see options. You can import all the content, import specific content types only, or remove previously imported content.

Avada Website Import Screen

Importing an Avada website will give you layouts, pages, posts, forms, icons, global options, widgets, sidebars, sliders, and miscellaneous settings to replicate the original site accurately.

Once imported, you can customize the dummy content, layouts, and other elements to fit your unique requirements, leveraging Avada’s powerful features and flexibility to create your perfect website.

Step 6: Start Customizing

There are several approaches you can take when it comes to creating your new website, and how much and how far you customize the imported website will be entirely up to you and your goals. You may want to do low-level customization and only change the core branding, such as the logo and favicon, dummy wording, and general contact information, essentially leaving all of the imported pages and layout structure intact.

Customizing Avada Website Content

Or, you may want to go the whole hog and customize everything (header, footer, layouts, content, media, images, pages, and posts). Avada gives you the flexibility and creative freedom to design any website layout, add an e-commerce online store, and more.

Resources

In addition to the prebuilt websites, Avada offers a wide range of creative resources that will enhance and inspire your workflow. These include prebuilt Avada Studio content, tutorial videos, an advanced help center, and world-class professional support.

  • There are 109 prebuilt Avada websites designed for beginners, marketers, and professionals alike. They focus on usability and flexibility to improve your workflow and save you time.
  • Avada Studio includes an expansive library of 574 creative content items, professionally designed to speed up your workflow. Get a head start with prebuilt headers to footers, containers to elements, and everything in between.
  • The Avada Setup Wizard is a step-by-step feature that guides users through setting up a new website. It makes it easier for users to get started with Avada, even if they have little to no experience designing and building sites.
  • Access to extensive and detailed documentation via the help center.
  • 200+ video tutorials will guide you through everything Avada-related.
  • Your personal My Avada account to manage your purchase code domain registrations, staging/test/dev subdomains, access support, and more.
  • Access to world-class professional support. We encourage the Avada community to build a relationship with our team.

Summary

Getting a website up and running can seem intimidating, especially when switching to a new framework or using one for the first time. However, starting with Avada is much easier than you may think.

Following the steps in this article, you can set up a basic website in no time. From there on out, customizing and aligning the content to match your business or brand is all that would be needed.

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