How to Test a WordPress Theme for a New Website

Getting to test a WordPress theme for a new install is one of the most exciting parts of setting up a fresh WordPress website. But when you install a theme on a fresh copy of WordPress, its hard to know what its actually going to look like when you start building out your site with more than just a single Hello, world! post.Instead of just installing a theme and hoping for the best, its best to fully test your theme before you start building your entire website. You have a couple of methods for doing so, and each will enable you to try out the themes features safely. When youre done testing, you can install that theme and know youve chosen a winner.In this article, were going to talk about why its important to test a WordPress theme before you start using it on a new site. Then well teach you how to do that in two steps, using WordPress Theme Unit Test Data. Lets begin! When youre picking out a new theme, its important to make your choice carefully. Seeing screenshots or even checkin g out a demo is a good start, but these snapshots arent nearly enough to gauge a theme properly. For example, a particular theme might look stunning, but could have problems under the hood.To avoid that scenario, youll want to test any potential theme before you use it. This allows you toTry it out firsthand.  Quite often, a few minutes of playing around with a theme will be enough for you to know if its a good fit.Find out if it plays nicely with the other features you want on your site.  Testing a theme enables you to determine if it works the way you need it to, and if its compatible with the plugins you intend to use.See how it handles different media. Some themes have special formats for videos or galleries, so doing a proper test is important to see how those look.How to test a WordPress theme for a fresh site (in two steps)Even though your site is new, you still might not want to test your theme on your live site because it can muddy things up for when you actually want t o launch. Your best two alternatives are to either  create a staging site or use a local setup (e.g. with Docker or Local by Flywheel).Once you have a safe place to test, youre ready to move on!Step 1: Install WordPress theme unit test data on your staging websiteWordPress Theme Unit Test Data enables you to simulate the look and feel of a site thats been around for a while. Once you import the data, WordPress will automatically generate a bunch of pages, different types of posts, menu items, sidebars, and more. This lets you conduct a much more realistic test of your potential theme.To get started, first  download the latest version of the Theme Unit Test Data, then access your testing sites dashboard. Next, navigate to the  Tools → Import  tab, and look for the  WordPress  option at the bottom. If this is the first time youre using this tool, youll need to click on  Install Now:In a moment, the  Install Now  link will be replaced by one that reads  Run I mporter, which you should click:Youll see an option to upload an  XML  file. Press the  Choose File  button, locate the WordPress Theme Unit Test Data on your computer, then click on  Upload file and import:WordPress will automatically prompt you to import four fictional authors for your dummy content. We recommend leaving these settings untouched, to avoid complications:At the bottom of the page, youll also see an option to import the attachments for your content. Enable this to add images to your posts and pages, then click on Submit. It will take some time for WordPress to set up your new content. When its done, your website will be  full  of dummy content.Now youre ready to test your new WordPress theme!Step 2: Set up and test a WordPress themeAt this point, you can install and activate your new theme as normal, then finally get down to business. The testing process is simple, although it may take some time since you need to be as thorough as possible.Heres how to test your theme:Visit each of the main pages on your website, and check to see if all of its elements are displaying correctly (dont forget to look at menus, sidebars, content, headers, and footers).Check a few of your test posts at random to see if the theme formats them in a way you like. Youll also want to ensure that theyre readable, since some themes can impose odd layouts on your content.Test the widgets you intend to use on your main site, and determine if the theme displays them correctly.Install any plugins you want to set up on your primary website, and test if their functionality works with your new theme.If the theme passes each of these steps with flying colors, youre good to go. Of course, youll need to tweak anything thats off the mark, but once youre ready, you can set up the theme on your new WordPress site, and make further adjustments to the design and layout as appropriate.ConclusionGetting to test a new WordPress theme can be exciting. But if youre just launchin g your site, you dont really have any  data to actually test with.To remedy that, using  WordPress Theme Unit Test Data  offers you an opportunity to use real-world content to determine how well a chosen theme fits your needs, goals, and design.Once youve set up your staging site or local development environment, here are the two steps youll need to follow:Install the  Theme Unit Test Data  on your staging or local site.Run through each of your sites elements, and adjust anything that needs changing.Do you have any questions about how to test a WordPress theme before it goes live on a new site? Lets talk about them in the comments section below!