I have a custom WordPress design, do I dare change the theme? -

I just clicked the button to purchase your wonderful course on creativeLIVE. Wow… i love that place and learn so much. I missed getting to ask a question in the chat room and thought you might answer me by email.

I have a WordPress website (blog) that was “created” by a person who did design at one time. Long before it was something I could do myself. She told me though that I could never change my look unless I went through her… she is no longer working, or at least I can’t find her. So, my question is… do I dare do a new look / template on my own, via your help. I am so afraid of losing all my old blog — not that it would be the end of the world, but more historical for me.

Thank you for your wisdom and help!

Claudia

Hi Claudia,

You can install a new theme in WordPress, by choosing Appearance > Themes, and then choosing the Install Themes tab.

That’s a great question, and I’m happy to answer it for you.

The simple answer is that even if you change the theme, you should never lose your blog posts or any of the content saved in the WordPress database.

What you may lose are custom content areas. For example, if your designer created a completely custom front page for your site, you may have to recreate that as a new page.

My best advice is to make a backup of your site, ideally on your local computer (If you watched my course, you probably saw me use ServerPress.com, which makes it easy to backup WordPress sites and work on it on your local computer).

In the safety of a ‘sandbox’ with your site backed up, you should feel 100% confident changing the theme. When you do, your site may look very different, and you may lose the custom content areas, as I mentioned, but you should still find all of your blog posts are there.

And don’t worry, if you switch the theme back to the one your designer created for you, everything she did should go right back into place.

Hope that helps you have the confidence to take control of your own site.

Wishing you all good things,

Janine

customize blog appearance, themes, wordpress