Change is what every person looks for when they seek out a thing. They want change and uniqueness to it. This argument can be said the same for your WordPress website.
Many things come to mind when you go to change a WordPress Theme such as will there be any site data lost? What are the steps to customize a new theme? And so on.
Below are the steps that perfectly rid you of the hassle of designing and customizing a new theme for your WordPress website.
1. Backup is the first step
Backing up your site before changing your theme is a must and should be a priority. This is done for the insurance purpose of your site, i.e., if something goes wrong and the site is not what you imagined, the backup will restore everything to normal.
This can be done through Jetpack that has one-click backups that can restore with any paid Jetpack plan.
These backup plans are equipped with real-time backups. This is a very beneficial feature for sites such as e-commerce that see high traffic regularly and want to ensure that they do not lose their data while customization.
2. Maintenance Mode must be added
The Maintenance mode feature in WordPress helps you to encrypt your theme conversion to the world about how you are doing it because it can then easily be plagiarized by anyone out there and as a result, your dashboard will remain hidden.
As soon as you complete your process of theme conversion you can turn off the maintenance mode so that the new theme you have been working on can be once again visible to the world.
3. Update Everything
Next on your to-do list must be updating WordPress, plugins, and any third-party themes.
There are two merits of doing so. First, this highly optimizes your site security and new WordPress features can also be added to their newer versions. Second, the widget area and common menu naming conventions can also be included in them which simplifies the conversion of the theme of your site.
4. Find your theme
When you are working on WordPress you may stumble upon tens of thousands of themes that may fit your site. So how to choose the right one?
The ones that can integrate more and more with the kind of content you post on your site can be a good choice. Many themes lie under the same menu there might also arise a problem that will not display your menu correctly because the particular menu that you selected might not be intact.
This flaw can be fixed by changing the setting present in the bottom of the page by clicking on Menu Settings >Display Area. There needs to be only a box checked to get your menu back.
5. Test your new theme across different browsers
Another thing to add to your to-do list is to make sure the testing is done proficiently across many different browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. There may be some bugs and fixes during the testing phase where the theme might not be fitting to different browsers. It is set of high importance that the theme needs to be active and function smoothly across all the browsers through which the site can be accessed.
6. Widget transfers must be set
Widgets are termed as the elements that can change between themes. Widgets might not be always available in the sidebar. Widget areas can be found in headers, footers, and also in the “featured” home page section. For exploring widget areas go to the Appearance >Widgets menu.
7. Unnecessary plugins must be cast away
There are many themes nowadays that come with efficient plugins and additional features. Hence multi-functional plugins are now the trend and likewise, we need to get rid of those plugins that are outdated. Only those plugins should be kept that are useful to only your theme and functionality in different browsers. Ignore the rest and delete.
8. Change your theme
After picking all the right accessories for your site, you can finally choose the theme that suits your site and product the best. The theme that can attract high-velocity traffic as it did before. Make sure the theme looks engaging to even the newcomers to attract even more customers.
Synopsis
If you are planning for a new WordPress theme development and not sure how to do it is great to Hire WordPress Developers. Most of the businesses are not aware of how to change WordPress Theme and it is suggested to engage a WordPress Development Company to make it done properly.