Non-tech founder here — can I safely change my WordPress blog theme?
I recently took over the blog operations for our SaaS product. The blog was originally built with WordPress by a former tech team member. I’m not a developer, so I’m trying to figure things out as I go.
Now I’d really like to update the look and feel by switching to a new theme. But I’m worried — will changing the theme mess up our existing blog SEO or page structure?
Has anyone here done a theme change on WordPress and kept their traffic/results intact?
Would love to hear any tips or “watch out for this” advice from folks who’ve been through it!
Thanks so much 🙏
It’s currently using the Kratos theme.
Replies
If your concern only related to SEO and page structure, take a look to the plugins first. Is there any SEO plugin installed? If yes, then I believe it's safe since the SEO functionality handled by the plugin. But if it's not, then it's kinda tricky. Probably the prev dev embed for example GA code to the theme or any custom code. Unles he using child theme to achieve this which is make it easier to take a look for custom changes.
But for sure to make it safe since it's a live site, make a copy of your current site and deploy to the staging with private mode (so it's not indexed by google). And mess around there.
Hi
You can change the theme in wordpress and will not give any technical issues. You can always revert back to original theme. Also you can preview the themes without applying.
Kratos is pretty minimal, so moving to something more modern might help your SEO with better speed and mobile design. Just make sure heading structure and URLs stay the same.
Yes, you can safely change your WordPress theme without losing SEO or breaking your site structure. Your content and URLs stay intact since they're stored separately from the theme.
You can back up your site first to make sure you can restore everything back. (There are plugins for backups)
When changing a theme your layout might break, but you can always get back to Kratos or try to fix it if possible. Some themes have unique component, so its unpredictable how your layout will change.
It depends if the theme is custom built or has special structure or not. It may not work as intended after switching theme. You can a to switch to a new theme and quickly switch it back if thing goes wrong.
Usually if you were not using theme specific shortcodes and you are changing from mobile-responsive theme to mobile-responsive theme you should be safe.
Some themes have a lot of functionality build in, so just save/export all the setting from Kratos, so that it would be easy to cross-check what you need to update in then new one.
Yes you can change your WordPress theme, usually it won’t hurt your SEO if you’re not changing URLs, meta tags, or deleting content and just make sure the new theme is mobile-friendly and loads fast. um, test it on a staging site first if you can that way you won’t break anything live.