Template not showing up?

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  silkandsorghum · Member · Feb 23, 2026 at 3:15 pm

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  I am completely new to WordPress. I heard it was perfect for beginners and building a website for recipe blogs. I looked at the “courses” and it said to pick a theme/template, then you can edit it. Well, when I pick any template I like, it doesn’t show up. It’s just a bunch of text and random stuff. I have no idea how to fix this or build a website, and I thought it would be simple by using a template and editing it like this suggested. Any idea on what I’m doing wrong?? I don’t have my page published yet because I can’t get it to look how I want. I provided pictures on what’s going on whenever I try to customize the template I picked.

  

  

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

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  dhruvikmalaviya · Staff · Feb 28, 2026 at 9:14 am

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  Hi there! I understand how confusing that can feel when you’re just getting started. You’re definitely not doing anything wrong.

  When you activate a theme, what you’re seeing, the text and “random” content, is just demo or placeholder content. It’s there to show you how the layout looks, but it’s not your real content.

  Themes don’t automatically build your full site for you. Instead, they provide:

  • The design (layout, fonts, spacing, colors)
  • Sample/demo content to preview how it might look
  • Pre-built page structures that you can edit

  To make it look the way you want, you’ll need to:

  1. Go to Pages or Posts in your dashboard
  2. Open the page (like Home, About, etc.)
  3. Replace the placeholder text with your own content
  4. Add your own images and recipes

  If you’re seeing “a bunch of text,” that likely means you’re viewing the page inside the Editor, which shows the block structure. That’s normal. You can click on any section and edit it directly.

  You don’t need to publish your site yet, you can keep everything in draft while you build.

  You’re actually right, WordPress is great for recipe blogs. It just takes a little orientation at the start. Once you understand how themes and blocks work, it becomes much easier.