Emergency! You’ve just spotted that your competitor uses the same WordPress theme as you. That’s embarrassing at best and confusing for your repeat customers at worst. You were so happy with how well Barnsbury went with your Organic Farm delivery service as well. Don’t worry, changing your WordPress theme isn’t going to be as work-intensive as it was to set up your brand new website. WordPress makes it simple to change up and manage new themes. Just keep reading. We’ve got you.

1. Back It Up

We mean it. This isn’t like when your mom told you to back up your book report in high school. (Mom, if you’re reading this, I definitely did that and did NOT have to retype the whole thing in the library the morning before hand-in.) WordPress has its own offering of back-up plugins, which makes this process a breeze. If anything goes wrong, you can make yourself a hot beverage, take a deep breath, and go back to where you started without (too much) frustrated screaming. 

2. Take Notes on the Old

Grab the nearest piece of paper, your favourite pen, and make notes on every change you made to your current theme. Even with pre-created themes, you want to be able to customize your website to your brand’s unique needs. You’re not a cookie-cutter business, and you deserve better than cookie-cutter solutions. When you’re working on your new theme, keep some notes on what changes you’re making and how you made them. It’ll save you oodles of time when you next wish to change the wall colour. While you’re at it, test each page’s loading speed, website speed is all-important, and this way, you can compare. 

3. Will the New Theme Support your Needs?

This isn’t quite like finding a supportive spouse, but you want to make sure your new theme can support the widgets you need. Widgets are what WordPress calls their customizable software add-ons. Anything with sidebars tends to work especially well with these applications. Ensure your analytics of choice are also supported. 

4. Use Maintenance Mode

Out in the real world, we see, “Sorry, we’re not looking our best right now, we’re updating our shop,” signs all the time. They make us smile and keep expectations in check. Thankfully, the online sphere has its own version of that sign. WordPress has a ‘Maintenance Mode.’ A stellar way to look professional to your customers, practice good website planning, and communicate with visitors. Significant changes or broken links can make users assume a website is broken and seek out your competitor instead (yes, the one with a similar old theme, she’s not getting a birthday card next year). 

5. Install and Go

With thousands of free and paid-for themes on offer, it really is as easy as navigating to Appearance and browsing the WordPress theme offering. Your current theme will be highlighted. To install a premium theme, click on the Add New button and install by navigating to Upload Theme and choosing a ZIP file.

Alternative Option

You’re in luck because you landed on jdp’s blog. If you want to upgrade from DIY to professional league, get in touch for a free 15-minute consultation. We’re here to analyze and diagnose the disconnect between your company, and how it is portrayed online.

At jdp we’re switching up outdated marketing practices. Too often, when businesses outsource to marketing companies, they make superficial changes that don’t align with your sales team or highlight your business’s most profitable assets. It’s like fixing up the paintwork of your car when the gearbox is a mess. We’re here to offer an alternative. Our first stage is to offer a full audit, analysis, and diagnosis of your virtual environments to identify what changes will most positively impact your business. Quit the guesswork and let us handle it.  We can’t wait to hear all about your project.