How Often Should I Change Themes? | EP 831

How Often Should I Change Themes?

Read the full episode transcript below:

00:28 David Blackmon: Welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast, my name is David Blackmon.

00:35 Tim Strifler: And i’m Tim Strifler

00:38 David Blackmon: This is day, i can’t remember which for Airpod audio,  so let’s go uh episode 831, how often should you change your WordPress theme. Seems like lately we’ve been kind of going through some beginner topics and that’s because we have so how often should you change your WordPress theme, or should i change it at all. And i’m going to give you the quick and dirty answer right out of the gates before Tim says anything. It’s 9.2 months. I’m just messing with you, i have no no um my personal opinion on on theme changes is or let’s just go with my experience. I changed the themes one time 10 years ago, and that was from Genesis to Divi and pretty much have not changed my theme since. So without diving into why and stuff i’m going to let Tim talk some because you know this is not a a super in-depth topic to be pretty quick.

01:53 Tim Strifler: So I mean, i’m the same way with what David’s saying. I don’t really change themes and part of that is because when you use a theme like divi you can build anything you want and so you don’t really need to change themes. Plus when you learn a theme like DIVI the page builder, you get really familiar with it and so there’s no reason to just abandon it and you know shiny object syndrome it’s easier to stick with it because it’s what you know and it’s super powerful. But also I guess, the a good way to answer this question is kind of explain the history of themes. Themes started out or first of all WordPress started out as a blogging platform. Right, and so themes were existed almost more like skins. Right, where the theme was just the basic styling to your WordPress blog. Right, you know what the headers look like what the colors were you know what the spacing looked like. But WordPress blogs in the beginning they all kind of look the same and you change the theme just to kind of like change up the overall look and feel. However themes have evolved as WordPress has evolved and becoming a full-blown content management system to where it’s not just for blogs it’s for business sites it’s for e-commerce it’s for everything, and now themes isn’t just about the basic styling. It’s about how you design the website and how you even how you build the website too. And so um and to answer that question how often should i change themes i guess it is you have to answer the question how often do you want to have to redesign your website. The reason i say that is because WordPress and themes have evolved so much, and it’s not just like a skin just to change the basic styling. If you just go and change your theme it’s everything’s going to be all out of sorts because different themes have different ways of doing things and different ways of adding the content and templates and everything. And so it’s like you can’t just change a theme and expect the website to look the way it should. You’re going to have to do a lot of rebuilding and that’s just if you change from one basic theme to another theme if you change from a page builder to another page builder. Well again, you’re going to have to start over so and that’s typically what we recommend. If you’re going to go from like Elementor to Divi, okay well you can’t just go and just change the theme you’re gonna have to rebuild the site or DIVI to another theme or another page builder. And that’s really also just the case from any theme to anything or really like an elementor powered theme to another elementor powered theme like you’re gonna have to rebuild the site that’s just the way it goes because WordPress themes are not like apples to apples in the way. The templates are laid out and and the structure and everything. If you’re using all the same Elementor Addons, and the “theme” isn’t adding any functionality or styling, then sure you can change the Theme without breaking anything. So did that make sense David?

04:51  David Blackmon: it did totally made sense. I think even back in the day, yes it is a little bit more complicated and technical today with page builders because they are so robust. But even back 10 years ago when i shifted from Genesis to Divi it was same process now you got to redesign your whole website, and it’s a total rebuild. So I think, i think the answer is 100 right. Depends on whether or not you want to rebuild your website. So there you go, and how often you do that my my main thing to you would be you know as your business evolves you may need to change your website. So it’s just going to be it’s going to determine what your needs are so yeah.

05:37 Tim Strifler: And one more thing to add like my i have multiple websites i have Divi Life which is my main business um that’s been redesigned in the last couple of years and i’m overdue to redesign my other website TimStrifer.com which is was my client services i don’t really do client services anymore. Um but i’m still overdue to redesign that site. However i’m not going to be changing themes i’m going to be redesigning and rebuilding it with the same thing which is Divi, and so that’s kind of more the way WordPress is, is once you choose kind of like your theme you know, oh we’re in the divi camp oh we’re in the whatever camp over here, you might redesign when you’re it’s you know your website comes out dated. But usually unless you have a reason to abandon ship uh typically stick with the same theme or same page builder.

06:28  David Blackmon: Awesome. Well tomorrow we’ve got another great topic, and let me see what that topic is? How many plugins are too many for your WordPress website. Until tomorrow we’ll see you then

06:44 Tim Strifler: Take care, bye.