Changing your WordPress theme can revitalize your website’s appearance and enhance its functionality. However, this process requires careful planning, as improper changes can result in broken layouts, lost content, or SEO problems that negatively impact your site’s performance.
With years of experience managing numerous WordPress websites, we have successfully changed themes without encountering issues. From these experiences, we’ve identified best practices for ensuring smooth theme transitions and learned the essential steps to prevent common mistakes.
In this comprehensive WordPress checklist, we will outline the crucial actions you need to take before switching your WordPress theme.
Editor’s Note:If you need detailed guidance on how to change themes, please refer to our beginner’s guide for properly switching your WordPress theme.
Why Is a Checklist Important When Switching a WordPress Theme?
Changing your theme is a significant decision that every website owner typically makes every few years. It’s essential to understand your reasons for switching and to select a theme that meets all your requirements.
We have compiled a list of the best multi-purpose WordPress themes and top WordPress blog themes for you to explore if you are seeking recommendations.
Without adequate preparation, changing your WordPress theme can result in unforeseen problems such as broken links, missing content, or a decline in search engine rankings.
Using a checklist keeps you organized and guarantees that every necessary step is completed, reducing the likelihood of issues during the transition.
It also helps you remember crucial tasks, like backing up your website or testing the new theme on a staging site. By adhering to a clear, step-by-step guide, you can make sure that all your content, settings, and SEO efforts remain intact.
With that in mind, let’s review our checklist below to ensure that you retain all your content and data throughout the process.
1. Document Any Customizations Made to Your WordPress Theme
Many WordPress site owners customize their themes by adding code snippets directly into their theme files. These snippets can enhance your website with features not included in the default theme.
However, adding these snippets directly to your theme files can make it easy to lose track of them.
If you or a web developer have implemented these changes, be sure to review your current theme files and document all the additional code that has been added.
To add code snippets in the future, we recommend using a code snippets plugin like WPCode. This allows you to retain your snippets even if you change themes later.
For more information, refer to our beginner’s guide on how to paste snippets from the web into WordPress.
2. Assess the Performance Metrics of Your Current WordPress Theme
Before switching your theme, it’s essential to evaluate your current website’s loading speed and performance. This will help you compare any changes in page load time after the theme switch.
Since the speed and performance of your WordPress site significantly impact user experience and SEO, ensure that the new theme performs better than your current one.
You can easily assess your current website’s speed metrics using a WordPress speed testing tool, such as IsItWP’s free website speed test.
For further details, check out our guide on conducting a website speed test.
3. Take Note of Your Current Theme’s Sidebars and Widget Areas
Sidebars are utilized for adding various widgets to your website, including email newsletter sign-up forms, social media buttons, popular posts, and more.
Since each theme has different widget areas, your widgets may unexpectedly shift or disappear from your site if you change themes.
It’s crucial to document the widgets currently in use within your WordPress sidebars and other widget areas before changing your theme. This way, you can easily recreate them after the switch.
If you’ve implemented any custom code or shortcodes, ensure you copy and securely store this code for use with your new theme.
4. Save Your Current WordPress Tracking Codes
Many users integrate analytics tracking codes directly into their theme files. Some WordPress themes also provide an options panel for adding tracking codes.
It’s a frequent oversight to neglect these vital tracking codes.
Ensure you copy all tracking codes used for analytics, advertising, and other purposes, so you can integrate them into your new theme.
To simplify the process, we suggest using a plugin like MonsterInsights for seamless Google Analytics installation in WordPress.
Using MonsterInsights guarantees that your analytics will remain uninterrupted and that no data will be lost. Additionally, it offers enhanced tracking features such as link clicks, button click tracking, category and tag analytics, author tracking, and more.
Utilize the free WPCode plugin for all additional tracking codes. For further information, refer to our guide on adding header and footer code in WordPress.
5. Create a Backup of Your Current WordPress Website
Regularly backing up your website is essential. Before switching your theme, ensure you have a complete backup of your posts, pages, plugins, media, and databases.
The simplest method to achieve this is by using a WordPress backup plugin to create a full backup of your site.
We recommend the Duplicator plugin, which allows you to easily set up automated, scheduled backups and store them on cloud services like Dropbox, Google Drive, and others.
We have thoroughly tested this tool in real-time and can confidently affirm its reliability. For more information, check out our review of Duplicator.
There is also a free version of Duplicator available to help you get started. For additional information, see our guide on how to back up a WordPress site.
This will ensure that you can quickly restore your website if any issues arise during the theme switch.
6. Activate Maintenance Mode on Your WordPress Site
When making updates to your site, it’s advisable to enable maintenance mode. This feature allows you to show a friendly notice to your visitors.
This ensures that your visitors do not encounter your website while it is still being developed or undergoing maintenance.
We recommend using the SeedProd plugin for this purpose. It is the leading drag-and-drop WordPress page builder, trusted by over 1 million websites.
SeedProd allows you to effortlessly create custom maintenance mode pages, landing pages, coming soon pages, 404 error pages, and more. Many of our partner brands have successfully utilized it for their maintenance mode pages. For further insights, check out our SeedProd review.
For additional information, refer to our guide on how to enable maintenance mode on your WordPress site.
7. Verify All Features and Installed WordPress Plugins
After activating your new WordPress theme, it is crucial to confirm that all functionalities are intact and that your previous plugins are compatible with the new theme.
Begin by reintroducing the code snippets you saved from your old WordPress theme files. For more information, consult our beginner’s guide on adding code snippets to WordPress.
Next, take some time to explore the features of your site that rely on WordPress plugins. If you encounter any issues during this process, refer to our beginner’s guide for troubleshooting WordPress errors.
8. Test Your New WordPress Theme on Different Browsers and Devices
Cross-browser testing ensures that your new website appears correctly across various browsers, screen sizes, operating systems, and mobile devices.
While a significant number of visitors will likely access your WordPress blog using Google Chrome, other browsers such as Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Safari are still utilized by millions of users globally.
If your new website doesn’t function properly on any of these browsers, you risk losing visitors and potential traffic.
Fortunately, there are numerous cross-browser testing tools available that allow you to check how your website displays on different browsers and devices.
For more information, refer to our comprehensive guide on testing a WordPress site across various browsers.
9. Remove Unnecessary WordPress Plugins
Some WordPress themes automatically install plugins upon activation. While some may be beneficial, others may not be needed.
Simply navigate to Plugins » Installed Plugins to check if any new plugins have been added by your theme.
Now is an ideal time to review your entire list of plugins and determine if any can be safely removed.
If you’re in search of high-quality plugins to complement your new theme, check out our recommendations for essential WordPress plugins.
10. Inform Your Users About Your New Website Launch
When you’re ready to launch your new WordPress theme, disable maintenance mode.
Reach out to your readers to announce your new website. This will help them adjust to any significant design changes and keep your subscribers engaged, encouraging them to revisit your site to explore the new layout.
Here’s an example of a Facebook post we shared announcing our website redesign.
We suggest informing your audience through your email newsletter, social media channels, and push notifications.
For additional strategies to promote your site, check out our guide on sharing your blog posts with your audience.
11. Evaluate the Loading Speeds of Your New WordPress Theme
After launching your new theme and completing the previous steps, conduct another speed test. Ideally, your new website should load faster and achieve improved scores on your speed test.
To do this, use the same website speed testing tool you utilized earlier and compare the results.
If your new theme is slower than the previous one, ensure you conduct multiple tests, test from various locations, and check for any caching or firewall settings that might be affecting performance.
12. Track the Bounce Rate of Your WordPress Website
The bounce rate represents the percentage of visitors who arrive at your website and leave without navigating to another page. A high bounce rate indicates that your site did not engage visitors long enough to prompt further action.
After changing your theme, it’s crucial to keep an eye on your bounce rate. Some themes are more effective at encouraging visitors to explore your site.
If you notice an increase in your bounce rate after the theme switch, consider taking steps to reduce it. You can enhance user experience by improving navigation menus, adding a popular posts widget, increasing internal links, and more.
For further information, check out our guide on how to boost pageviews and lower bounce rates in WordPress.
13. Gather Reader Feedback to Enhance Your WordPress Website
It’s essential to pay attention to reader feedback after implementing a new theme. Some visitors may have strong opinions about specific aspects of your design.
You don’t need to act on every piece of feedback, but if multiple readers report the same concern, it’s likely worth investigating.
You can gather visitor feedback by incorporating a contact form on your website or conducting a survey to ask for opinions on your new design.
The simplest way to achieve this is by using WPForms, the leading WordPress survey plugin trusted by over 6 million websites.
It allows you to effortlessly design engaging survey forms using a user-friendly drag-and-drop builder.
Additionally, the reporting feature automatically generates visually appealing reports to assist in analyzing your survey results.
For further information, check out our comprehensive guide on creating surveys in WordPress.
We hope this article has provided you with valuable insights on what to consider before changing your WordPress theme. You may also want to explore our curated list of the best WordPress themes for fashion blogs and tips on customizing your WordPress theme.
If you enjoyed this article, please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also connect with us on Twitter and Facebook.
