Let’s take a look at the main WordPress child theme benefits:
- Retaining Parent Theme Updates. When you make changes directly to the parent theme, you risk losing those changes when you update the theme to a new version. By using a child theme, you retain the ability to update the parent theme without losing your own changes.
- Save changes when switching themes. If you want to change your site look using a different theme, you can safely switch to the new theme, leaving your changes intact in the child theme.
- Organization and structure. By using a child theme, you can logically separate your changes and additional code into a separate theme. This makes your site code easier to understand and manage.
When you create a new theme, you need to think through all possible scenarios and its code. However, when you are working on a child theme and you forgot to write certain code, then the parent theme functionality will always be available to you as a backup. This makes the child theme more convenient and practical on the development side. So, next, we want to tell you how our WordPress theme development agency approaches child theme creation:
- Folder creation. First, we create a folder in the «themes» directory of your WordPress site. It will store the child theme.
- Style.css file creation. Next, we create the Style.css file. In it, we set information about the theme – title, description, and author. It is also important to specify the path to the parent theme using the “Template” directive.
You can see an example of how the specialists of our WordPress theme development company write the Style.css file with comments that initialize the theme:
In the comments, we specify all the necessary metadata about the child theme, such as a title, a link to the theme or your site, a description, the author’s name, and a link to the author’s site or profile. It is also important to specify the path to the parent theme using the “Template” directive to link the child theme to the corresponding parent theme.
After commenting, we can start defining styles and making changes to your child theme appearance.
- Activating a child theme. Next, we go to your WordPress dashboard and activate a child theme by selecting it from the available themes list.
After our WordPress theme development specialists create a child theme, they make changes to its files. Use HTML and CSS to change the page’s appearance and elements on the site. We can also add or modify PHP files to implement new functionality in the child theme.
The following process allows us to create and customize your child theme while keeping your parent theme updated and conveniently managing changes to the look and your site functionality. So, a child theme is a simple way to create a website. However, this method has its drawbacks, let’s consider them in more detail:
- Time to study. It is necessary to study the parent theme code in detail in order to create a correct child theme. To do this, you need to understand programming. If you do not have special skills and abilities, it is better to hire a WordPress developer.
- Function change. Since a child theme is related to the parent theme, the developers of the latter can rewrite or completely change the features. In view of this, it is necessary to track changes and monitor the theme’s performance. Our company provides not only WordPress theme development services but also site support. Entrust monitoring the health and web page performance to specialists with experience in this field.
Despite these shortcomings, creating child themes is one of the most popular options for website development.
Why is it important to customize paid themes with a child theme?
The catalog of paid WordPress themes presents layouts with different features. Consider why you should customize a paid theme with a child theme:
- Existing functionality extension. Sometimes it happens that the parent theme lacks a couple of features to fully meet the needs of the business. Agree that it is easier to expand the functionality of a ready-made theme than to create a new one from scratch. It’s faster and not as expensive.
- Quality base. Paid WordPress themes are a great base for building a website. Customization with a child theme is an opportunity to make a web page unique. You get a site with a stable, secure theme, but with features and designs that fully reflect your business.
- Professional setting. If the admin panel does not provide some convenient features, it is easy to add them. For example, the specialists of our WordPress development company can implement custom functions that allow you to work with taxes, price policy changes and clear the site of irrelevant information in a few clicks. The setup will help you manage your online store.
Customizing an existing paid WordPress theme with a child theme is the easiest way to get a website with the features you need.
It is not enough to develop a site, after that we test it to make sure there are no bugs, errors, excellent performance, and loading speed. Our QA engineers use the following tools:
- Lambdatest. This is a handy simulator on which compatibility is tested. The program allows you to see how the site looks, functions, and behaves on different devices and operating systems. For example, how it is adapted for mobile gadgets or tablets.
- SEO META in 1 CLICK. This is a plugin that makes it easy to check page metadata.
- Perfect pixel. The tool allows you to compare how the finished site matches the layout, and whether there are any slightest discrepancies with it.
In addition, testers use tools such as Toggle rulers, and Tag Assistant Legacy. Thanks to an integrated approach, you can get a WP theme development with testing and not worry that it will work with errors.
If you want to discuss your project and calculate it, get professional advice, fill out the form below, or write to us.
The main advantages of cooperation with us:
- experienced developers;
- we follow the WordPress theme development codex;
- more than 60 created custom plugins;
- 15+ completed complex integrations;
- complex approach to WordPress theme development.
If you don’t know how expensive development will be, get a development cost calculated according to your project. Entrust the theme development for your site to professionals and get a cool design with clean code!
