Navigating the world of WordPress can sometimes feel like learning a new language. You might have heard terms like ‘child theme’ floating around, but what do they actually mean? And more importantly, how can they benefit your business website?
In this post, we’ll explain the concept of WordPress parent themes and WordPress child themes, their purposes, and why a child theme is crucial for maintaining a smooth and efficient online presence. Let’s demystify this essential aspect of WordPress development and explain how it can save you time and money.
What is a WordPress child theme?
Every WordPress website must have at least one theme installed. A theme is a fully functional set of files and settings that provide the blueprint for your site’s appearance and functionality. It contains all the necessary files, including templates, stylesheets, and functions, that define how your website looks and behaves.
While you can directly customise themes (such as modifying their files to change your website’s functionality), if/when a theme is updated, any customisations will be lost.
This is where child themes come into play. A child theme allows you to modify the website’s appearance and functionality without altering the parent theme files, ultimately future-proofing your website. It’s essentially a layer on top of the parent theme, inheriting the parent theme’s functionality and settings.
Your parent theme requires regular updates to ensure your website’s security and performance. With a GO Creative website care plan, we proactively update your website BEFORE issues arise.
What are the advantages of using a child theme?
Setting up a WordPress child theme offers numerous advantages for website owners:
- Faster development: A child theme significantly speeds up website development time. By building upon an existing parent theme, you don’t have to start from scratch, allowing quicker customisations and implementations.
- Customisation: Child themes allow website customisation without slowing down your site. They are designed to be efficient, ensuring that your customisations don’t negatively impact your website’s performance.
- Preservation of customisations: When the parent theme receives updates, your changes remain intact within the child theme, preventing you from having to redo your customisations every time the parent theme is updated. Updates are regularly required to keep your website secure and working correctly.
- Simplified maintenance: By keeping customisations separate, you can easily manage and update your website. Child themes offer increased flexibility, allowing you to tailor your website to your needs.
How will using a child theme save you money?
Using a WordPress child theme can result in significant cost savings by reducing the time your in-house developers or digital marketing agency spend on website development, maintenance, and customisation. When changes are required, your agency can quickly implement them within the child theme without risking the loss of those changes during updates.
This efficiency directly reduces your running costs, and allows your agency to focus on more strategic tasks, such as improving your website’s performance and user experience, rather than constantly redoing customisations. This results in a better website, leading to increased conversions and revenue.
In short, using a child theme enables your agency to work smarter, not harder, passing those time and cost savings directly onto you.
Ready to streamline your WordPress website maintenance and save valuable time and money? A GO Creative website care plan ensures your website runs smoothly, allowing you to focus on growing your business. Contact GO Creative today to set up a website care plan and experience the benefits of a well-maintained and efficiently managed WordPress website.
