WordPress Tutorial: How to Customize WordPress Themes to Rank Higher on Google

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Want to stand out in the vast ocean of the web? Have you decided your website needs to stand out from the crowd? There’s only one solution! Customize your theme. With a few tweaks and some clever coding, you can transform your site into something truly unique.

But what exactly does WordPress theme customization involve? It’s about customizing the look and functionality of your WordPress site, keeping in mind your specific needs and adding that touch of personality that will make it stand out from a myriad of identical templates. Forget the generic templates everyone else uses; add your own personal touch and make your site truly one-of-a-kind.

Anyone can do it—WordPress was created for this very purpose, after all—but to be more successful in this endeavor, it would be best to know a little HTML and CSS, know how MySQL databases work, and perhaps have a smattering of PHP.

But don’t be afraid; let’s delve deeper into the nitty-gritty. Let’s try to understand, step by step, how to approach the process with some practical code examples. First, let’s focus on two key terms: “WordPress themes” and “WordPress customization,” which are the two guiding concepts.

Understanding WordPress Theme Customization

WordPress themes, also or more commonly called templates, determine the overall look and functionality of your website. Customizing them allows you to add your own personal touch and create a unique online presence. It’s essential to first fully understand the theme’s structure, including theme files, templates, and design elements.

WordPress was designed to clearly distinguish between layout, functionality, and content, and each of these features can be used or customized separately.

The layout is obviously the graphic aspect of your WordPress website, and the theme is the foundation of the entire design. It therefore defines the overall layout, color scheme, and style. You can install as many as you like, but only one must be active, and activating another changes the entire look of the site. There are thousands of free and paid themes available, so finding the perfect one can be a real challenge.

Choosing the right WordPress theme

Choosing the most suitable theme for your idea or business is the foundation of a successful customization process. The first, vast, and most importantly, free selection of themes can be found through the official WordPress repository, but there are third-party marketplaces that offer thousands of paid WordPress themes, which can actually cost just a few euros. It can be a bit confusing to choose from, but keep in mind that any WordPress theme can be customized, so it’s best to focus on themes that more or less perfectly align with your website’s niche.

You should try to identify those that load the fastest and offer responsive design for an optimal user experience. Then, once you’ve found the theme you think is best, it’s time to unleash your creativity and proceed with the customization phases.

WordPress Theme Customization

You start by going to the WordPress dashboard and then to the “Appearance” section, but before diving completely into customization it is very important to understand and do a few things:

  • First: make a backup. That’s the best advice I can give you!
  • Second: create a child theme.

These two things that you shouldn’t forget ensure that your changes won’t be lost in the event of problems or when updating the theme. They should be done immediately at the start of your work because, for example, in the case of a child theme, once it’s created it must be activated, and any changes made, if deactivated, could be lost. So, once activated, you work on that rather than the parent theme, and now we’ll see why.

Understanding How WordPress Themes Are Set Up

Let’s understand the basics of a WordPress theme. The first thing to understand is where the folder containing the installed theme files is located, and to do so, we need to connect using FTP management software.

Once connected, we go to the /wp-content/themes folder that contains all the installed WordPress themes, whether main or child, and we locate the folder containing our theme and see which files it contains.

In the folder, you’ll almost certainly find some files 98% of the time. I said 98% of the time because there are also very complex themes that are organized differently. We’ll leave those aside for now, as these WordPress themes require a high level of expertise to make changes, but these are very specific cases. Let’s see which files you’ll almost always find:

  • style.css : This is the main file containing the CSS code used to customize the theme’s graphic style, including colors, fonts, and layout.
  • functions.php : the “backbone” of the WordPress theme where you can add custom functions using PHP code to extend the theme’s functionality.
  • index.php : basically the theme’s home page.
  • header.php and footer.php – These are the files that contain the customizations for the header and footer sections.
  • single.php and archive.php : you may sometimes miss these files, because they can be managed in different ways, but their use is aimed at containing the layout of individual posts and archive pages.
  • page.php : same thing for this file which, if it exists, contains the layout of the individual pages.

By working with these files and knowing a little CSS, HTML, or PHP, you can customize your site to suit your unique style and requirements. Let’s say you want to change the font size of your blog post titles. Simply open the style.css file and insert the relevant code, or locate the PHP Functions.php file and insert a code snippet with a function to adjust the font size to your liking.

But let’s not start editing yet. Let’s first look in detail at some examples of the contents of these files.

Let’s take a look at the style.css file :

/*
 Theme Name:   My Custom Theme
 Theme URI:    http://example.com/my-custom-theme/
 Description:  Child theme for the parent theme
 Author:       Your Name
 Author URI:   http://example.com
 Template:     parent-theme-folder-name
 Version:      1.0.0
*/

This is an example of a WordPress child theme, and this file contains very specific data enclosed in a general comment that should not be changed or removed because it is interpreted by WordPress. The first contains the theme name, then the URL where a copy of the maintained theme is located so you can download it if necessary, then a brief description of its features, the theme author and their website, and the “Template:” line, which is very important because it contains the reference to the parent theme.

The “Child Theme” is in fact called this precisely because it cannot function unless it is dependent on the main or parent theme and its functionality is precisely to allow modifications without affecting the main theme itself in any way and therefore allowing any periodic updates.

Colons are important in WordPress themes because on the left we have the interpretation for WordPress itself, which is always the same and never changes, and on the right the actual data that is modified by the user.

After the version and the end of the general comment closed with the “*/” tag, you can “go wild” by inserting any CSS code to modify your theme. The main theme won’t be affected, but you’ll see the changes magically appear on your WordPress site. You can unleash your creativity: add a splash of color to your navigation menu, change fonts, change colors, and anything else you can think of to give your WordPress site a unique look that stands out from the crowd.

It’s always a good idea to test your changes as you go without being afraid to experiment, and there’s no need to worry if you’ve made a mistake. You can always revert to a previous version or consult the ever-helpful WordPress community for guidance. By the way, have you made all your backups?

But let’s not change that yet, let’s take a look at an example from the functions.php file :

<?php
function custom_theme_setup() {
    // Add custom logo support
    add_theme_support('custom-logo');

    // Register custom navigation menus
    register_nav_menus(array(
        'primary-menu' => __('Primary Menu', 'my-custom-theme'),
    ));

    // Add custom image sizes
    add_image_size('custom-thumbnail', 300, 200, true);
}

add_action('after_setup_theme', 'custom_theme_setup');

This example is also taken from a Child theme: in fact, we find the main functions, required to connect to the main theme. They absolutely must not be touched, otherwise your WordPress site will not work. However, you can insert your own code snippets and PHP functions below.

In addition to these two files, you can obviously also modify all other theme files using the Child theme. You just need to follow a very specific hierarchy and a few rules to have complete freedom to make any changes you want. I recommend taking a look at the standard WordPress coding for WordPress theme developers here to avoid current and future errors and problems that may arise, for example, with new WordPress updates.

Child Theme

Let’s get to the heart of WordPress theme editing and create the child theme. It’s actually very simple: first install the main theme, then, via FTP, create a folder in /wp-content/themes with any name you want for your child theme. Inside it, create two files: styles.css and functions.php. Finally, activate the child theme from the WordPress admin.

But it still doesn’t work! You need to write something inside these files.

In the styles.css file, things are simple—just copy and paste the example I gave above. However, in the functions.php file, things are a bit more complex: you need to enable the functions required by the parent theme and load its CSS stylesheets. This isn’t easy for those with little PHP knowledge.

But there’s one option you can follow to make this much easier: use a plugin. There are many that do this job, so it’s not a problem to choose. For example, the first one I found from the WordPress repository is Child Theme Wizard . But use whichever you like; the result will definitely be the same.

Use it to create your child theme and the first step towards customization is done.

So at this point, let’s summarize the steps to take:

  • Install the main theme
  • Install the child theme creation plugin
  • Create the child theme using the newly installed plugin
  • Activate the child theme from “Appearance” -> “Themes”

Many WordPress themes even come with a child theme already available, allowing you to skip some steps. Simply copy the child theme into your WordPress themes folder and activate it.

At this point we can really start our customizations (by the way: have you made backup copies?), but there are also many other ways to customize WordPress themes in their layout and/or expand their functionality.

Personalization techniques

More advanced modifications to WordPress themes can be made by working with the code, but there are other options. The simplest and most usable by users with less programming experience is the one offered by the theme itself and is a WordPress feature: the Customizer. It can be accessed from the WordPress Admin menu via ” Appearance ” -> ” Customize, ” and here you can find all the features made available by WordPress theme developers. These range from changing colors and fonts to inserting CSS code without needing to go through the style.css file. The great thing is that the Customizer works the same way with the installed child theme, so you can use both options.

Then, in the new WordPress themes that use Block features we also find other new templating possibilities that I will discuss in depth in other articles, but this is a prerogative of very recent versions of WordPress and WordPress themes suitable for this.

Extensions and custom feature additions

We’re just beginning to explore the possibilities WordPress offers, but it’s obviously impossible to cover topics requiring ongoing exploration in this post. Let’s see how WordPress themes and WordPress itself offer further possibilities for expanding and/or adding different features.

The Widgets

They aren’t immediately considered because they’re perhaps a little more difficult to understand, but WordPress widgets are small building blocks that perform specific functions and can be added to various areas of your website, either through WordPress themes or on their own, such as sidebars, footers, and other areas within or outside the theme layout.

Let’s see an example of registering a custom WordPress widget with some code to be inserted directly into the child theme’s functions.php file:

function custom_widget_init() {
    register_sidebar(array(
        'name' => __('Custom Widget Area', 'my-custom-theme'),
        'id' => 'custom-widget-area',
        'description' => __('Add widgets here to appear in the custom widget area.', 'my-custom-theme'),
        'before_widget' => '<div class="widget">',
        'after_widget' => '</div>',
        'before_title' => '<h2 class="widget-title">',
        'after_title' => '</h2>',
    ));
}

add_action('widgets_init', 'custom_widget_init');

WordPress widgets are essential tools for customizing and enhancing your website. They allow you to effortlessly add dynamic content and functionality to your websites, significantly contributing to the overall functionality and user experience of a WordPress site.

Custom page templates

WordPress custom page templates are predefined layouts for specific pages on a WordPress website. They allow developers and site owners to customize the look of individual pages or groups of pages.

For example, you might want to have pages with a different type of graphics and layout from the main pages of WordPress themes, and this can be done using specific page templates or custom page templates.

WordPress custom page templates are powerful tools that allow developers and designers to create tailored user experiences for different sections of a website. They are essential for maintaining a consistent design while accommodating different types of content, ultimately improving the overall aesthetics and usability of a WordPress website.

Custom post types and taxonomies

Using advanced scheduling, you can create custom post types and taxonomies to be used only with installed WordPress themes or installed child themes.

Custom post types (CPT) in WordPress allow you to define your own content types. WordPress has predefined posts and pages, which is the foundation of the CMS. Custom post types, on the other hand, allow you to create new content types, such as portfolios, testimonials, events, products, etc., tailored to your website’s specific needs.

Custom post types and taxonomies are powerful WordPress features that allow website administrators to effectively structure their content and provide a better experience for both users and content creators. Custom post types define new content structures, while taxonomies categorize and tag this content, making it more accessible and organized.

These are complex topics to develop with the help of a professional WordPress developer, but they can also be done independently with the willingness to learn. For those who want to delve deeper, these topics will be covered in more depth in other tutorials, as the topic requires.

WordPress Theme Customization and Google Ranking

Changing your WordPress theme undoubtedly has a significant impact on SEO, and can be significant, provided you know what you’re doing. Themes impact your site’s appearance and performance, content formatting, and the structured data used. There are strategies to ensure your rankings remain stable or even increase when you change themes.

The actual content of your website is not affected by the WordPress theme or themes you choose, but the article dictates how the material is presented.

It’s extremely important that your theme uses the appropriate heading structure, following the rules for HTML h1, h2, h3, etc. tags. There’s nothing better than being able to customize your WordPress site’s structure via code to fully comply with SEO requirements. SEO optimization techniques vary, and everyone uses what best suits their product or service. Therefore, knowing how to customize WordPress themes effectively helps you adapt to SEO techniques aimed at achieving greater relevance on Google and other search engines. Check out my tutorial on SEO basics.

Conclusion

These few basic concepts will allow you to successfully customize your website and create a unique online presence, both in terms of presentation and SEO. However, remember that a website is a constant work in progress. Stay up-to-date with theme and plugin updates, add new features as needed, and consistently create engaging content to improve your Google rankings.

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