How To Change a WordPress Theme the Right Way

You have a WordPress website with a theme you’ve used for a while. It’s served you well, but it’s time to make a change. Maybe you want a fresh design or to add new functionality and features to your site.

Whatever the reason, you want to change WordPress themes with care. If you just hit “Activate,” you could potentially have problems because your old theme is so integrated into your current site’s functionality, some changes could cause problems in how the new one works and appears.

Fortunately, you can avoid these pitfalls by taking the right precautions with your theme in WordPress. Here are some things to know to make the transition smooth and successful:

• What is a theme?
• What to do before changing your theme
• How to change your WordPress theme
• What to do after changing your WordPress theme

What is a theme?

A WordPress theme is a visual template used to create a new look for your WordPress website. It can also add new functionality. A template in WordPress customizes the layout of your website and how it looks—everything from how many columns you have to what kinds of color schemes and fonts you use.

So, not only are there a variety of Wordpress themes to choose from, available through Wordpress.org, but there are also different ways you can customize each one, whether it’s choosing a specific color and background, adding widgets, or creating a special header image.‍

What to do before changing your theme

When looking at how to change your current theme in WordPress, consider taking the approach of an experienced carpenter who “measures twice and cuts once.” Similarly, take a lot of care at the front end of your WordPress project to avoid problems down the road where you may need to make changes when they might be harder to do.

Doing the following prep work can help reduce the chances of losing data or web traffic.

Also, keep in mind some of your existing theme-specific content might not make the journey when changing WordPress themes. Potential no-shows include:

• Custom widgets: Sometimes, themes come with custom widgets, which may stop working when you change themes.
• Theme-specific shortcodes: A shortcode that comes packaged with a theme (as opposed to a standalone plugin) may stop working when you adopt a new theme.
• Homepages with special themes: Some themes come with special homepage sections that do their stuff outside the normal WordPress system, and so your customized homepage may disappear when making a theme switch.

Look for a theme with features that make sense for your industry/niche

When looking for an appropriate theme, it’s good to be strategic and mindful of your brand. How well does the theme work with your existing visual identity? The colors and messaging of a theme are much different for a cheeky, upstart tech company than an established law firm embracing safe, solid colors like purple or gray.

Besides complementing the content and visuals of your site, is the WordPress theme easy to navigate and customize? Is it technically responsive to different viewing modes, including mobile devices and laptop or desktop computers?

Every industry and niche has different requirements, so it’s difficult to come up with a list that covers everything, but common deliverables to consider include:

Compatibility with all browsers

Not only will customers and potential customers experience your WordPress site on different devices, but they’ll also do so on different web browsers, which may change how your site looks and performs. So, test your site on different browsers, including Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.

Plugin support

Some themes are designed to work well with certain plugins, which may mean that other plugins won’t work as well, if at all. So, it’s essential to find out whether the plugins you rely on are supported by a certain WordPress theme. Plugins can cover everything from social sharing and e-commerce functionality to contact forms and advanced SEO, so it’s important to get this right.

Page builder integration

Different page builders make it easy to fine-tune and perfect your WordPress layout, so having one that’s compatible with your selected theme is important. WordPress page builders enable you to create, edit, and customize your site layout without knowing any code.

Back up your site

While taking the correct steps in changing your WordPress theme can help safeguard you from problems, accidents sometimes happen. So, it’s wise to either back up essential information—such as posts, images, plugins, and databases—or back up your whole site with a WordPress tool like UpdraftPlus.

Copy all necessary codes

In some cases, WordPress users put analytic tracking codes directly into their theme files. (Some WordPress themes also have settings panels that enable you to add AdSense or Analytics code.)

So, be sure to copy all your old tracking codes so you can add them to the new theme. There are also plugins you can add to install Google Analytics; other codes can be used in installed themes with different header and footer plugins.

Copy all snippets

Some web developers will customize themes by adding code snippets directly to the functions.php file. If this has been done with your old WordPress site, copy these snippets so that you can add the functionality to your new theme as needed. Just ensure that you record any custom changes you’ve made, including ones in cascading stylesheets (CSS).

Also, sidebars are used for adding different widgets, such as ones for social links, advertisements, and subscription forms. If you have any custom code in a widget, copy and paste this code on your computer so that you can use it again in your new theme.

Keep your site on maintenance mode

Usually, when you do minor tweaks to your WordPress site—such as publishing new content or updating plugins—you can do so without shutting it down and having downtime. However, if you’re going to perform a larger operation, like changing your WordPress theme, it’s a good idea to put it into maintenance mode.

Rather than coming to a broken site, visitors see a user-friendly notice that certain pages or the site are being updated, perhaps giving a time frame for when the work will be done and maybe giving some alternative links to visit in the meantime.

How to change your WordPress theme

The actual process of changing your website theme isn’t that difficult. Here’s the step-by-step process if you want to do it yourself.

Prefer enlisting the help of a Wordpress developer instead? Learn how to write a job description that attracts the best talent on Upwork.

Step 1: Set up a staging copy of your website

By setting up a staging copy of your WordPress site, you can do all your work and testing without anyone else seeing it or without the fear of breaking something on your live site. If you really make a mess of things, you can always start over again without any kind of repercussions.

Many WordPress hosting platforms offer staging site functionality as one of their services. You can see what happens to your content after you change themes, repair any problems, and then go live when you’re all ready. Take Bluehost, for example. They offer a one-click staging page.

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Step 2: Go to the Themes section

You can begin researching themes from the “My Sites” section of WordPress and click select “Appearance” and then “Themes.” There are free themes, while some come at a cost—premium themes can also be bought elsewhere. You can add new themes from an existing WordPress template or upload themes you acquired elsewhere.

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If you’re looking through the WordPress selection of themes, you can search for them by the type of website you’re building or by feature, layout, columns, subject, and style. You can also review the demos to get some insight into how the theme works.

Step 3: Install your new theme

It’s easy to install a WordPress theme. Login to your WordPress admin panel and go to the Themes page under “Appearance.” On top of the Themes page, click on the “Add New” link.

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This link will take you to the “Add New Theme” page, where you can look for themes to install. Or, if you already have a theme downloaded to your computer as a ZIP file, you can choose WordPress to upload the theme from your computer to your website and install it for you. Then, you’ll have the choice to do a live preview or activate the site.‍

Step 4: Preview new theme with WordPress customizer

Once you have a theme selected, you can click “Customize,” loading any existing content into that theme so you can play around with how your website will look and work before it goes live. You can customize theme-specific things like colors, background, fonts, images, and content. You can also add theme options, such as logos, taglines, and footers, as well as widgets, menus, headers, and more.

You can also preview what your new theme with its changes will look like by clicking on the “Change” button next to the Active theme section.‍

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Step 5: Activate your theme

When you’re ready to go, click on the Activate button, making the theme live on your website. Before you go live with an active theme, you have the choice of previewing the site to ensure everything looks and works as it should. For premium themes, you’ll often see an activation link on a confirmation screen after the installation process is complete.

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Step 6: Go live with your staging website

If you’ve created a staging version of your website and made sure the theme changes you’ve made are all right, you can push it live, following the directions of your web host—usually just requiring a few clicks to accomplish this.

Just remember, all the content of your old site will be overwritten, so double-check that everything you need has been transferred or keep a backup copy of the old site—including everything in the wp-content file—in case any mistake has been made.‍

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What to do after changing your WordPress theme

After you’ve made your site go live with its new WordPress theme, you can’t rest on your laurels yet. While you have taken a lot of care to get things right, it’s a good idea to test several things to make sure everything is operating as it should. These include:‍

Test your site in all different browsers

Cross-browser compatibility is a big issue. Ensure your WordPress theme works properly in all the major browsers (Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer), so there are no differences in how it appears or operates. If there are problems, you’ll need to go back in and fix them, perhaps putting the site in maintenance mode again if they’re significant enough.

Add tracking code

At this point, it’s a good idea to add your Google Analytics and AdSense tracking codes to understand the traffic coming to your site and ensure that you’re earning properly for the ads being run through your site pegged to content. There are WordPress plugins that allow you to add Analytics to your site, providing detailed website stats right inside your WordPress dashboard.​​

Monitor loading time

One major reason people ditch a site is because it takes too long to load. Your new WordPress theme site should load faster than the old one. If it doesn’t, it’s back to the drawing board and looking for new ways to optimize things. A good load time would be under two seconds.

Monitor bounce rate

Make sure to monitor your bounce rate after your new site launches. You should aim for a bounce rate of 30% to 40%. If it increases to, say, more than 70%, that may mean your site isn’t user-friendly, and the navigation isn’t working well. You can try to retool how it works, perhaps also adding new content and widgets to capture visitor interest.

Hire a WordPress developer to install the best themes

While you might be able to handle the intricacies involved with changing a WordPress theme yourself, it could make more sense for your small business to hire an experienced WordPress developer through Upwork. They can save you time while providing great technical, SEO, and customization experience (including working with CSS coding).

With Upwork, finding the right talent is an ongoing theme.

Upwork is not affiliated with and does not sponsor or endorse any of the tools or services discussed in this section. These tools and services are provided only as potential options, and each reader and company should take the time needed to adequately analyze and determine the tools or services that would best fit their specific needs and situation.