How to Customize WordPress Theme for Your Own Demands

At present, in the market spring a large number of premium themes charging different amount of money but making it easy to customize settings according to specific requirements of webmasters. However, if you are a newbie who use a free theme or want to achieve customization of WordPress theme, this process may be a little bit complicated. Hence, we write this clear and concise tutorial with the objective to offer some tips and strategies to get over this difficulty.

Although the manual customization demands a little coding knowledge and takes a small amount of time, it enables you to adapt the WordPress theme to your own demands such as color schemes and the structure of websites. In the following, we mainly introduce 2 methods roughly: change the theme directly and alter the theme with a child theme. Whichever method you go with for theme customization, this post is the essential lesson you must read through.

Scenario A > Change The WordPress Theme Directly.

This way requires a backup at the very beginning for you have to make sure there are copies of the original files in case of unintentional change.

Step 1: Making A Backup Of The Original File.

Step 2: Search The Add-on “Firebug” with Browser Firefox.

Click “tool” and choose “Add-ons” that can be found in the upper-left menu bar. Then type “firebug” in the search bar which is a useful tool that facilitates the editing, debugging and monitoring of any CSS, HTML and DOM, etc..
Then install Firebug. Afterwards, check whether you have successfully installed this tool through check the upper-left menu bar: “tool” > “Web Developer” > “Firebug”. Finally, click the F12 button after which pops a window beneath where you are able to see some codes.

Step 3: Login Your WordPress in This way: “Dashboard” > “Appearance” > “Editor”.

After you have clicked the “Editor”, you are bound to find “Stylesheet(style.css)” in the drop-down list of “Style” in the right side. The stylesheet file determines the design of your website to a great extent, including the theme.

Step 4: Change The Codes of The Element You Want to Change.

Firstly, hit F12 button and activate Firebug. Then click the blue area in the menu bar. Afterwards, hover your mouse on the area you want to change and click the mouse. Finally, Firebug will tells you which part of the Stylesheet you need to edit and change. At last, go back to your dashboard and search codes associated with the part that Firebug refers to before. Then replace these codes with the ones that make sense to your new demands. The final step is to click the button “update the file” in the bottom.

Scenario B > Alter The WordPress Theme with A Child Theme

Instead of modifying the theme directly, there is another way that is to create a child theme which is the easiest and safest way. By making a child theme, you are able to alter the functionality without changing the original theme.

Step 1: Seek The Original Theme in The Dashboard

Find the original theme in this path: “wp-content” > “themes” > “directory”. Then create a new directory named as “-child” alongside the original theme directory.

Step 2: Conduct Customization in The Child Theme.

For those files in the child theme override files with the same name in the original theme, you had better copy the files from the original theme to the child theme at first where you can make valid modifications. Still, modify the codes of the elements you want to change.

With the above guidance, you are capable of customizing WordPress themes with manual modifications. Moreover, no matter how much effort you have applied to the manual modifications, the possibility to better a WordPress theme rests with the theme you select. Thus, we suggest you purchase a high-quality one. If you need to buy a first-class theme, please refer to our articles including: Best WordPress Simple Themes, Best Quality Business Website WordPress Themes and Top WordPress Music Themes, etc..