Testing

You’ve tested your new theme safely in Local. Everything works. Your content looks good. The CSS styling matches your vision. Now comes the moment every blogger dreads: switching themes on your live site.

What if something breaks? What if your posts look terrible? What if your traffic disappears?

I get it. I spent weeks avoiding this exact moment during my WordPress theme migration from Multipurpose Blog Pro to GeneratePress. But here’s what I learned: if you’ve tested thoroughly in Local, going live is surprisingly straightforward. The actual theme switch takes about five minutes. Adding your custom styling takes another twenty minutes. Your site stays functional the entire time.

This is Part 4 of my complete WordPress theme migration guide. I’m a 79-year-old hermit who just migrated to GeneratePress using Local. If I can switch themes live without breaking my site, you can too.

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Now that your test site is up and running, it’s time to bring your new design to life. This stage of WordPress theme migration focuses on styling, layout, and final checks before your site ever goes public. Working inside Local keeps everything safe — you can experiment freely, compare results, and make adjustments without touching your live blog.

In this part, we’ll install the new theme GeneratePress, explore its customization tools, and test how your content looks under a fresh layout. The goal is simple: confirm that your posts, pages, and plugins display correctly, and that your site feels consistent across screens before you make any live changes.

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Thinking about changing your WordPress theme but worried about breaking your site? WordPress theme migration doesn’t have to be stressful or risky. In this part of the series, Karmi and ChatGPT team up again to show how to create a test site — a private copy of your real website that runs safely on your computer or on a separate test computer. Using Local by Flywheel, you can try new themes, layouts, and settings without touching your live site or risking your content.

Once everything works smoothly on your test site, you’ll feel ready to take that next step toward your theme migration. Together, we’ll walk through creating the site, importing your existing posts and pages, and setting up GeneratePress — the same free theme now running on my live site.

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