WordPress newbie here. Just launched a website, anytime I try to install and activate a theme, it never looks like the preview. I’ve made sure to deactivate/delete all old plugins and themes, and only activate the plugins associated with the theme. No matter what I do all the themes look awful and incomplete. I’m sure it’s not a complex fix but I’m not sure why this happens. Thanks for any support!
Depends where you got the theme from – if it’s paid for, the devs would have put a lot of time and effort into making it look lovely.
Your install only includes the default settings so you’ll need to either import their test files or spend a lot of time getting it to look right.
Have you installed the demo data? Once you install the theme, you still have to install the demo files for it to look like their demos. Completely different installation.