10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes
WordPress makes it very easy to change themes and completely change the design of your blog. That’s a great feature, and it allows non-designers and people with limited CSS/HTML/etc. experience to do some amazing stuff.
But, there’s a number of critical steps you need to go through after changing your blog’s design, in order to make sure it’s going to work perfectly.
- The Sidebar Will Be Overwritten. Most people make a lot of changes to their sidebars, adding text, advertising, links, widgets, etc. If you’re using widget-enabled WordPress themes this isn’t an issue (because widgets stay in place when themes are changed) but if you made changes manually you’re going to have to redo them.
Before you activate the new theme, save all of the code from your sidebar (just copy and paste it somewhere.) When you switch themes, edit the sidebar file(s) and re-apply your changes.
- Re-apply Stat Tracking Code. Most people use a blog stat tracking tool of some kind (i.e. Google Analytics, 103bees, etc.) This is usually done with a snippet of code found in the header or footer. When you change WordPress themes, the header and footer files will be overwritten, so you’ll need to re-apply these code snippets. Otherwise your site will no longer be tracked properly, and you won’t be collecting stats. After re-applying these snippets, make sure the stat tracking tools are working properly.
The same holds true if you’re using Google Webmasters Tools. Google Webmasters Tools require that you verify site ownership. This can be done by uploading a file (in which case changing WordPress themes is irrelevant) or by putting meta tag code in the header file. If you use the latter, make sure to put the code back after you change the WordPress theme or the site won’t be properly verified.
- Check Which Plugins You Need. You may not need every plugin that you were using before. Some may no longer be suitable to the theme you’re using, some might be redundant. For example I was using the Optimal Title plugin (which I highly recommend.) It puts the post title in front of the blog name for the title of any page. This is better for SEO purposes. When I switched to this theme, I noticed that the post titles were already in front; the theme was coded that way. So the plugin was no longer necessary.
There may also be some plugins you don’t want to use anymore. Now is a good time to clean things up.
- Verify That Plugins Work. Any plugin that didn’t require you to edit the template files should be OK, but many do. These plugins won’t work anymore without re-applying the changes to the new template. A good example is the Related Entries plugin which requires a small snippet of code inside the WordPress files.
Some plugins may display strangely due to new CSS code in the stylesheet file(s), and so you may have to change CSS as well.
- Update The Design and Colors of Your Ads. If you’re running Google AdSense, Text-Link-Ads or any other form of advertising, chances are you blended those ads into the design and color scheme of your old blog. With a theme change there’s a good chance that you’ve also changed link colors, which means your advertisements won’t be as well blended and designed as before. For Google AdSense if you’re using AdSense Deluxe it’s easy to change the colors in WordPress. For Text-Link-Ads you can edit the plugin through WordPress as well.
- Make Sure RSS Feed Subscriptions Work. Because RSS feed subscriptions are so important, just test this to make sure it’s OK. Try subscribing to your site. If you use FeedBurner, subscribe with the FeedBurner link and with the blog’s URL by itself. When you subscribe with the blog’s URL, your RSS Reader should auto-discover the available feeds. Make sure it’s pulling the one you want.
- Test All Secondary Features. When picking a WordPress theme you probably won’t see all of its features in action, including pages, searching, categories and archives. As soon as you activate the new theme check all of these things out on your blog. You might be surprised what you find. The biggest issue will be that something isn’t formatted the way you want. For example, I tried searching here after updating the theme and noticed that the results didn’t include an excerpt of the post. So that’s something I had to change.
- Test Using Multiple Browsers. Most people forget to test using multiple browsers, but it’s very important. If you’re using a PC it’s easy to test your blog in Firefox and Internet Explorer. On a Mac you can check it out in Firefox and Safari.
- Make Changes Carefully. You may not have spent a lot of time experimenting with the new WordPress theme. So before you start radically changing things, take a few baby steps. Make a few small adjustments, test in multiple browsers and see how things go. It’s important to really learn the innards of the theme before you make huge changes.
- Post About The Change On Your Blog. Make sure you tell people that you’ve changed the design of your blog. Ask people for feedback. People have all kinds of different setups; resolutions, browsers, screen sizes, etc. so they’ll be able to tell you how it looks. Remind RSS readers to come check it out too.
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“Test Using Multiple Browsers. Most people forget to test using multiple browsers, but it’s very important. If you’re using a PC it’s easy to test your blog in Firefox and Internet Explorer. On a Mac you can check it out in Firefox and Safari.”
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Using Linux you can check Firefox, Opera, Epiphany, Konqueror, Netscape and a few more whose names I have forgotten.
Guess I was guilty of not employing number 10 recently
Thanks for bringing that point up Talented Chimp. Most users aren’t on Linux though - but if they know someone who is they could easily ask for help in testing.
Paul — great looking design! When you post about the new design (there’s still time!) I’ll post some thoughts there…
Thanks Ben, I too did not announce my design change. Great tips.
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You can use this service to check you site in 30 different browsers.
Jon Symons, the website you gave sometimes cant work.
Great article, it also applies to many other user content scripts that are out there. I’ll try and remember these tips when it comes to updating things myself :).
Great post! Now I gotta figure out where to post it!
Ben,
Another great article. My wife was wondering why she lost her adsense, and now she knows why. I like the new design. Keep up the great work!
Hey there! A nice checklist!
If using meta tags is the option on your site if you can’t upload (Blogger for instance), then having a meta plugin always helps.
Here are a few:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugins/Meta
thanks for the good time of your post (i\\\’ve been wanting to change themes).
one thing i added to your header.php modification is this:
meta name=\\\”description\\\” content=\\\”< ?php optimal_title(); ?> < ?php
bloginfo(\\\'name\\\'); ?>\\\”
meta name=\\\”keywords\\\” content=\\\”< ?php optimal_title(); ?> < ?php
bloginfo(\\\'name\\\'); ?>\\\”
that way, you have different meta tags for each post, so google doesn\\\’t consider them duplicate content. (better for seo)
Excellent tips, I’m in the process of designing a more “final” theme for my site this week and this definitely reminded me to go back and check some things out.
-Nick
Nice work! Thanks
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Good article
thank you
Thanks for restating the obvious.
Good ideas. Changing a theme takes a lot more time than one would imagine.
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Great tips … congratulations on getting dugg
Cheers
t
Some of these things I’ve covered in plugins I made. One adds all external Javascript (i.e. Mint tracking), and another updates the sidebar. The ad colors for Google AdSense are extracted from a colorscheme.txt file in the theme (which holds all the main colors used in the theme).
I should release that plugin sometime.
One of the other things you need to do is setup wordpress blog in your local machine
Whenever I shift to a new theme, i backup my blog, restore the contents on my local blog and start working on the new theme. Once everything is in place, all you need to do is upload and activate the theme
Regarding point 1, I am not sure why you ask to copy the sidebar contents, it will anyway be there in the sidebar.php of the old theme !
Agree on all the other points
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Thank you to everyone who commented, very much appreciated!
For people confused by ptfrance’s comment, he was trying to recommend using the Optimal Plugin, which I also recommended in the post. Here’s the link:
http://elasticdog.com/2004/09/optimal-title/
Steven — if you’ve got plugins that solve some of these issues email me when they’re ready so I can take a look.
Venu — Setting up a local install is a very good idea, but I think that’s for more advanced users. Some of the points I mention above are for less technically experienced WordPress users. It’s the same reason I recommend copying your sidebar contents into a text file, some people may not even be sure how to get to the old sidebar.php file, or might be scared off by seeing php, etc.
When I launched this site I used a blog I have online that I don’t really use; made a great deal of tweaks there before going live. But lots of newer people to WordPress just upload a theme and turn it on…
Great advice though.
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Great tips. I’ll have to make a note of these suggestions for whenever I get around to a redesign of my new site.
Also, did you bother to check your design for AOL browser compatibility? Was wondering if anyone even bothers with that check. I’m completely out of the loop on how some AOL users browse the web but recently learned that AOL can really butcher a site that looks great in Firefox and IE. Was wondering if there is anyway to check a design for AOL compatibility without signing up for AOL.
Bret - I didn’t test in AOL. I can’t remember what browser AOL uses anymore, but I doubt many people test using it, although there are still plenty of AOL users out there.
Nice article, Ben.
I’d add that you could check different screenshots of your blogs using browsershots.org. AOL isn’t on that list, but a bunch of other browsers are.
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[...] 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes : Instigator Blog (tags: blog blogging cms design themes tips wordpress) [...]
An easy way for finding out how your new design looks like in different browsers is to use BrowserShots.org.
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Good article. Tweaking themes can also make upgrades a little iffy. Nothing worse than a minor WP upgrade causing a plugin (and subsequently a page modification) burst into flames.
BabyGotMac - you’re right. I’m about to look at upgrading some WP installs in the very near future, who knows what’ll happen…but in the past I haven’t had many issues.
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[...] 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes : Instigator Blog “WordPress makes it very easy to change themes and completely change the design of your blog. That’s a great feature, and it allows non-designers and people with limited CSS/HTML/etc. experience to do some amazing stuff. But, there’s a number of criti (tags: blog design howto inspiration tools webdesign webdev wordpress blogs blogging themes cms) [...]
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Ben .. don’t forget the backups of the old template, before you switch. I like to create a directory in my /themes/ for every “version” template that I use, in case I ever wanted to go backwards.
Also .. I use WS_FTP_LE as my FTP .. but, it’s available on many other FTP programs. It’s a good idea to set a “start” directory when you log in , so when you log on you go directly to the theme directory online and on your harddrive backup copy. But - when you change themes .. don’t forget to change this setup, otherwise you might FTP copy the old theme’s sidebar overwriting the new sidebar with all the revisions!
However, in that case - you would have a backup as mentioned in the 1st paragraph to re:copy over the overwritten files
A backup is a great idea, no question about it. Thanks HART!
[...] That’s what we love about Wordpress–the thousands of free themes. Except that installing a new one will often break some of your plugins, code and features. Here’s a handy checklist to refer to before switching designs, to make sure the new theme launches smoothly. read more | digg story Posted by Zie on January 16th, 2007 Filed in Tech [...]
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thank you!
thanx
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A very good tips indeed. Thanks!
p/s: Although for the moment I would like to avoid the hassle of changing themes, I will definitely make a mental note for your tips.
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Very good tips.
What I did was setup a test blog for this purpose, made sure everything worked, got my readers to visit the test blog, made note of their feedback, made necessary changes etc. and only then did I implement the template change on the main blog.
Went off without a hitch
Chris - that’s a great way of tackling these sorts of things. Not everyone can set that up but many people can and definitely should.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
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You have a great website. Keep up the good work.
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Excellent clause, thanks for work.
Very comprehensive info, thank you
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Ben,
When I first started using WordPress I got burned a few times by #2 (forgetting to re-apply stat tracking code). After changing themes a couple of times (and forgetting to add my stat code back in) I decided I had enough…and wrote a plug-in that does it for you.
The plug-in takes the code mods that you typically make to the header, sidebar, and footer and stores them in the WordPress database. Now, when you switch themes you no longer have to reenter your stat code (because it is pulled from the db instead of the theme itself). Check it out if you are interested: http://www.nmediainteractive.com/2007/05/18/transfer-tweaks-released/
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Much of what you’ve said can also apply to “regular” blogs.
Any reason why you targeted Wordpress?
Dave - That’s true, a number of my suggestions aren’t WordPress specific, but others are. For example, WordPress is very plugin-focused, whereas other blogging platforms don’t work the same way.
great post! I always forget the stats code!
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