Introduction
Custom css is the way of writing your own css on the website to get the desired looks. WordPress is simply a fantastic tool for creating and managing a website.
It comes with a pre-built set of themes, plugins, and widgets that allow you to create an excellent website without understanding a single line of code. It also offers the opportunity to customize any section of the website. This is a fantastic feature because pre-built themes are not unique, so more than one website likely uses a single theme. That is why you should learn how to customize the one you choose.
One of the best ways to do it is to add custom CSS to your WordPress site. If you are starting with WordPress, you will find yourself in an unfamiliar situation. There are more ways to add custom CSS and customize your theme, but this optimization level also comes with some challenges. Let us explore everything in this article and give you more understanding of how to customize your website to create a unique customer experience.
What is CSS?
Before we dive into adding custom CSS to your WordPress site, let’s briefly talk about CSS. CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets, and it is a programing language. If we look at how websites are built, two processes happen:
- HTML – code that creates the structure of the website;
- CSS – code that adds style to the website.
You can change your website’s appearance, rearrange elements, swap colors, add various visual and functional effects, and many other things through CSS.
CSS is the best way to change your WordPress theme and make it unique.
Ways to add custom CSS to your WordPress site
As we have mentioned before, there are multiple ways to add CSS to your WordPress site:
- use a code block editor;
- add CSS via plugins;
- set a child theme;
- use theme customizer.
Let’s see how each of these options works.
Code block editor
To access the code block editor, navigate to Tools -> Theme File Editor. This is where you will find active stylesheets that contain CSS code. Open the one you need, and add a CSS class to the file.
Understanding CSS classes and CSS is a long process, and we highly advise that you research CSS to figure out how it works. As a simple explanation, a class is a keyword that contains CSS settings that you can call from the website code to execute. For example, you could set a class to change the text font size. Once you call this class, the text font size will change based on the parameters defined within that class.
Once you finish adding a class, you need to click on the Update File, and you are done. Here is where you need to navigate to Appearance -> Site Editor. Select a block, open its settings, and you will find your new class in the Advanced section. Once you assign this class to the chosen block, it will automatically apply all the parameters defined inside.
Using plugins
One of the best benefits of WordPress is that it provides a vast set of plugins for anything you want to achieve. There are even plugins that add CSS in a very simple way. You can install them via the Plugins -> Add New section in your dashboard.
The best plugins to consider are:
- Simple Custom CSS;
- WP Add Custom CSS;
- SiteOrigin CSS;
- Simple Custom CSS and JS.
These plugins have extensive tutorials on how to add CSS to your website successfully. Again, it is good advice to research CSS first to understand the logic behind it. Once you familiarize yourself with it, you can use any method.
Setting up a child theme
If you are not familiar with how CSS works and you want to experiment without the fear of breaking your website, you can always create a child theme. That is a copy of your website’s theme that will remain intact. You can then work on the parent team and experiment as much as you want.
Setting up a child theme will require some coding. If you are unfamiliar with this and are afraid of breaking the website, you can either research how to do it on your own or consider hiring a web designer or a web developer.
They can set up a child theme for you and explain the basics of CSS so you can continue to make updates on your own in the future.
Use theme customizer
One of the easiest ways to add CSS to your WordPress site is with the help of the theme customizer. Any theme you use has a built-in customizer under Appearance -> Customize.
You can view different versions of your website (for mobile and tablet) from this panel and use a built-in tool to add CSS code.
Troubleshooting common issues with CSS
Learning the basics of CSS is not difficult. However, it does require a specific mindset. Programming is challenging and tedious because a single wrong character makes a difference between a working code and a coding error.
Based on the experience of MoversTech CRM, here are some of the most common CSS issues you might encounter:
- Changes not appearing due to cache memory: cache memory creates a copy of your website to improve the loading speed. It loads already saved sections of your website. If you made a change to one section, it might not appear. The solution is to clear your cache memory and then load the website.
- Syntax errors: check your spelling and make sure that all lines of code are spelled correctly and written with the CSS standards in mind;
- Selector conflict: we mentioned that you use selectors to trigger blocks of code containing styling parameters. The system might get confused if you add multiple references to one selector. For example, if you have two blocks of code that change the text size in different ways, you might get unexpected results.
Ways to add custom CSS to your WordPress site simplified
Hopefully, you now know how to add custom CSS to your WordPress site. Again, research CSS and make sure that you understand the basics. It might take some time to get the gist of it, but it will pay off to learn how to do it. Customize your website and make it unique for your clients. Best of luck!
META DESCRIPTION: Let us show you how to add custom CSS to your WordPress site. Make it unique, and help your business by creating the best experience.