When you start a WordPress site, you get access to thousands of beautiful, professionally-designed themes. However, you may still want to put your own spin on these designs.
Fortunately, it is possible to customize a WordPress theme without having to write a single line of code. Even if you have no previous web design or development experience, there are plugins and built-in tools that enable you to personalize your chosen theme.
In this post, we’ll discuss why you may want to tweak your site’s design. We’ll then share three ways to customize your WordPress theme – all without coding skills. Let’s get started!
Why You May Want to Customize Your WordPress Theme
WordPress has a huge library of third-party themes and templates. In fact, in the official WordPress repository alone, you’ll find almost 10,000 free themes.
There are also plenty of premium themes available on third-party marketplaces, such as ThemeForest. These designs make it easy to apply a brand new look to your WordPress website.
Depending on your chosen theme, these designs may also come with unique features. For example, the Storefront theme boasts a deep integration with the WooCommerce platform. This eCommerce theme also makes it easy to promote products on your homepage.
However, sometimes you may struggle to find a theme that fulfills every single item on your wishlist. For example, you might have very specific requirements.
Even if a theme meets all of your needs, you may still want to customize it. This can help your site stand out from the crowd and may strengthen your branding. The good news is that there are various ways to customize your WordPress theme without having to touch a line of code.
What to Do Before Customizing Your Theme
Customizing your theme can be a risky business. There’s a chance that you may make a change that negatively affects how your site looks or functions. After investing time and effort into personalizing your theme, you may even realize that you preferred the original design.
Therefore, we recommend that you back up your website before customizing your theme. This way, you’ll have something to restore in case you encounter any issues.
Jetpack enables you to download and restore a backup of your entire site. You can use this service via Jetpack Backup or the Jetpack plugin.
Additionally, you might want to consider placing your site into maintenance mode while you’re customizing your theme. This can prevent users from visiting your site before it’s ready for the grand relaunch.
You can create a custom maintenance mode page using a plugin such as WP Maintenance Mode.
With this plugin, you can even enhance your maintenance splash screen with extra features. This includes a contact and subscription form, which can help you capture leads. You might also add a countdown timer for your site’s big relaunch.
3 Ways To Customize Your WordPress Theme
The kind of changes you can make may vary between themes. Some themes are more flexible than others, and may even be designed with customization in mind. However, there are various techniques that you can try.
By experimenting with these different tools and methods, you should be able to achieve your desired results. With this in mind, here are three easy ways to customize your WordPress theme.
1. The Future Has Arrived: Try Full Site Editing (FSE)
As of WordPress version 5.9, the new Full Site Editing (FSE) feature aims to give website owners more flexibility to customize their chosen theme. It achieves this by changing the way WordPress users edit both global and page elements.
2. Use the Built-in WordPress Customizer
For classic themes (those that aren’t block themes), WordPress comes with a built-in customizer. This tool enables you to make changes to your theme without delving into the code.
3. Install a Page Builder
If you purchase a plugin-enabled WordPress.com plan, you’ll have the option to use a page-building plugin. Most modern page builders come with an intuitive drag-and-drop interface and ready-made widgets. Popular page builders include Beaver Builder, Elementor, and Divi. Each page builder has its own unique customization procedure, so see their documentation if you choose this path.
Conclusion
Creating a custom WordPress theme may sound like a daunting task. However, there are tools and built-in features that you can use to tweak your site’s design – with zero developer skills required.
