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WordPress Theme Migration with Local: Going Live with GeneratePress

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WordPress Theme Migration – going live with your new theme

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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WordPress Theme Migration with Local: Styling & Testing Your New Theme

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WordPress Theme Migration – Styling & Testing Your New Theme in Local with GeneratePress

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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WordPress Theme Migration with Local: Creating Your Test Site

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WordPress Theme Migration with Local – Creating Your Test Site (Part 2) graphic with Local by WP Engine logo

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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WordPress Theme Migration with Local: Setup & Testing Environment

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WordPress theme migration series Part 1 featuring Local by WP Engine for setup and testing environment

Thinking about WordPress theme migration but terrified of breaking your site? I get it. I spent three years with a $39 theme that worked fine until it started fighting every customization attempt. Bullet text displayed larger than paragraph text, and CSS fixes failed repeatedly. The theme’s stubborn specificity overrode everything.

But here’s the thing: WordPress theme migration doesn’t have to be risky. You can test everything safely on your own computer before touching your live site. No expensive staging servers, no $5,000 web developers, just free software called Local and a methodical approach.

This is Part 1 of a complete guide showing you how to migrate WordPress themes safely. I’m a 79-year-old hermit who just migrated from Multipurpose Blog Pro to GeneratePress using Local. If I can do this, you can do it too.

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Jetpack Stats & Independent Analytics

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I’ve been blogging since before Google bought Blogger, but am not even close to knowing all the ‘inside’ workings involved in a ‘web content management system’. 🤔

Right now, I’m starting the second year of a 4-year Hostinger WordPress plan – intro price was onetime price of $107.56, and the 4-year renewal price will be a onetime price of $335.52 (works out to about $83.88 a year). New subscriptions may be a tad higher. There is also a 1-year Domain renewal cost of $16.17 each year.

Not a big follower of my blog’s stats, but do check out some of them daily. Also, am not even close to being an expert on what stats are important to other basic bloggers like me. Most of my previous blogs just showed some kind of a chart, with maybe a dropdown type of menu, and as I recall it was usually provided by Jetpack.

Never purchased any kind of a Stat app or Analytical app until a couple of weeks ago. I had been using the free Independent Analytics plugin for about a year, and liked it so well that I purchased the Independent Analytics Pro Lifetime version.

Jetpack Stats and Independent Analytics both have advantages, but over the year of using the free Independent Analytics plugin I found their stats to be more concise & accurate.

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