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A comprehensive guide on developing custom WordPress themes

  • ninegravity1
  • Sep 23, 2024
  • 4 min read

WordPress themes are like the front of your house for website visitors. The more consistent, unique, and easy-to-navigate you make them, the better the audience response and experience.


A straight-up introduction to theme customization: it helps you develop a personalized and clutter-free theme for your WordPress website/ brand. Essentially, the layout will help you stand out from the crowd and optimize site speed and performance.


However, there is another significant benefit that users often overlook.

The Marketing Benefits of Theme Customization

Theme Customization of your website can be the first or last step in establishing your brand identity. Having the same color scheme, taglines, images, fonts, and more across various social media platforms will create an atmosphere of brand consistency.


In simpler terms, when users stumble upon your website, they might not make a purchase or book call, but they will remember your color scheme. It does not matter, even if the memory is vague. Because next time on Instagram, they will recognise the same colours when they see a random social media post for your business. Hence paving the way for brand recognition.


Major business chains like McDonald’s, Nike, Netflix, etc., have been using the same strategy for decades. They maintain a cohesive and consistent brand identity across platforms, making users and non-users remember them by leveraging various website and social media elements.


It helps you position yourself as a trusted brand, sometimes an expert in the field, depending on how you represent yourself. However, having a website that matches the theme across your social media platforms is a great way to start building the brand identity.

Are you convinced? If yes, here is how to customize your WordPress website theme.

Customizing the Header

The header is the first thing your visitor will pay attention to on the website. To customize it, users need to access their theme editor.


  • Appearance > Theme Editor present in the WordPress dashboard.

  • Located the file among the list of different theme files — header.php

Once you find the file, modify the HTML and PHP code to add it to your logo, change the layout, and include additional elements like a search bar.

For example, for customizing the header with a personalized logo, you can try the following code:

PHP<?php if ( function_exists( 'the_custom_logo' ) ) {    the_custom_logo();} ?>

Customizing the Footer

Your copyright information, the sitemap, and sometimes the closing tags are on the footer. Additionally, the footer can take anything else you haven’t defined in the header.

For customizing the footer,

  • Go to the Theme Editor and find the file titled footer.php

Once done, you can personalize the footer by including widgets, copyright information, social media links, etc.

For example, to add social media links to your footer, you can use the following code:

HTML<div class="footer-social">    <a href="https://facebook.com/yourpage">Facebook</a>    <a href="https://twitter.com/yourprofile">Twitter</a></div>

Modifying Theme Styles

By modifying theme styles, you can enhance the visual appearance of your site to a great extent.

To achieve that, the user needs to access the stylesheet.

  • Go to Appearance > Theme Editor.

  • Click the style.css file.

Once done, you can change the CSS and modify fonts, colors, and layout.


For example, you can use the following code to change the background color:

CSSbody {    background-color: #f0f0f0;}

Using the WordPress Customizer

Using the WordPress Customizer, users can modify the theme options in real time. Here is how you can add this interactive feature to enhance user experience:


  • Go to Appearance > Customize

You can adjust the website’s intensity, colors, widgets, menus, and more here.

For example, if you are using the WordPress customizer to change the site title and tagline, then:

  • Navigate to Site Identity.

  • Update the Site title and tagline.

Adding Custom Widgets

To customize the widgets of your WordPress site,

  • Add the code to the file titled functions.php & register the new widget areas.

  • Navigate to Appearance > Widgets.

  • Now, you can start adding custom widgets to the designated areas.

For example, to register a new widget area, you can use the following code:

PHPfunction my_custom_sidebar() {    register_sidebar( array(        'name' => 'Custom Sidebar',        'id' => 'custom-sidebar',        'before_widget' => '<div class="widget">',        'after_widget' => '</div>',    ) );}add_action( 'widgets_init', 'my_custom_sidebar' );

Modifying Theme Template

Consider leveraging a starter theme for the development process to simplify the task. You won’t need to write code from scratch. Instead, you can get busy adding additional features and styling instead of entirely modifying the theme template.


A theme template falls in line with the WP coding standards. So, you have a stronger base to start with.

  • Go to the Theme Editor.

  • Locate the relevant template files like single.php, page.php

Once done, you can start customizing the layout and structure of the page.

For example, to customize the single post template, you can try the following code:

PHP<?php get_header(); ?><div class="post-content">    <?php while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>        <h1><?php the_title(); ?></h1>        <div><?php the_content(); ?></div>    <?php endwhile; ?></div><?php get_footer(); ?>
 
 
 

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