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Quick Guide on how to Change Your WordPress Theme.

It is Guaranteed that there will be a point in time in the future when you are going to want to switch the theme on your WordPress site. This article is going to be your guide whenever you consider switching themes.

Advice

Use a general-purpose theme without style lock. I would suggest Astra or Ocean WP.you can then go ahead and pair your theme with a website builder like elementor. These general-purpose themes will enable you to create what I call a timeless website, a website that has none of its integral features tied down to a single theme.

What Should I know before I change Themes?

  • Features tied to your theme
    Avoid themes that have any of your integral website features tied to them because immediately you switch themes, you will lose these features. Always seek a theme that you can find an alternative to when you want to change it.

  • How is the content built?
    You need to know the technology used to build your theme. Let's say a specific page builder was used to style certain pages. See how the content is created to know what you will lose or gain when you switch.

  • Styled widgets

You need to be conscious of the widgets used to style your website.

What will I have to Redo after I change my theme?

  • All customizer settings
    You are going to have to re-customize the new theme

  • Header and footer
    The menus on either of the two and maybe the footer content.

  • Widget locations
    You will readjust the widgets according to your preferences

  • Maybe your Content(Sad)
    Unfortunately, some of your content might look out of place after. Make sure to change it.

How do I go about this?

You can go about doing this in two ways :

  • Staging Area
    Your web hosting service provides a staging area.WordPress-centered hosting companies have staging areas inbuilt in the Cpanel. You want to do this in a staging area because it doesn't affect your live website. Clients will continue visiting the site while you simultaneously work on it without affecting the functionalities.

  • Migrate to a Local Host

Moving the website from the server to your computer, making the changes locally, then moving it back to the server. I have an article on this if you want to learn how to create a local development environment using WordPress and XAMPP.

In Conclusion

Changing WordPress themes can be a tricky affair, but following the proper procedures will have you done in no time at all.

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