Install the theme

Rural Blog is free on the WordPress.org theme directory, so the quickest route is to install it without leaving your dashboard.

Requirements

From the WordPress dashboard

1. Go to Appearance → Themes → Add New.
2. Search for Rural Blog.
3. Hover the theme and click Install, then Activate.

That is the whole process. Your posts, pages, menus and widgets are untouched by a theme change — only the presentation swaps.

By uploading the zip

Use this if you downloaded the theme rather than searching for it.

1. Download rural-blog.zip from the theme page — do not unzip it.
2. Go to Appearance → Themes → Add New → Upload Theme.
3. Choose the zip, click Install Now, then Activate.

If the upload fails with the link you followed has expired, your server’s upload limit is smaller than the file. Install from the directory instead, or ask your host to raise upload_max_filesize.

Over FTP

1. Unzip the download on your computer. You should get a folder named rural-blog containing style.css.
2. Upload that folder to wp-content/themes/ on your server.
3. Activate it under Appearance → Themes.

The folder must be named rural-blog exactly. A folder like rural-blog-1.5, or a nested rural-blog/rural-blog/, will not be detected as a theme — and updates will not reach it.

After activating

Nothing else is mandatory: the theme works with sensible defaults out of the box. When you are ready to make it yours, the fastest path is

1. set up your logo and site title,
2. create your menus,
3. choose a blog layout.

If you plan to edit the theme’s own files rather than use the Customizer, set up a child theme first, so that an update does not erase your work.