Freshening up my website

use a tool like instawp.com or localwp.com to create a private site to test your new design – some webhosting plans offer a built in staging site which makes it even easier to test your new design. make a complete backup of your website files and database before making significant changes to your site.

if your content is saved in the database, then it would not matter which theme is used — it would be available. the design and layout would be impacted by a change in theme and page builder. blog posts are a great example of content that is saved in the database. you can find your database in your webhosting account and view the posts table to check around.

ask your webhost about limits to uploading media files (i.e. audio files)

• This reply was modified 1 year ago by lisa.
• This reply was modified 1 year ago by lisa.

Thanks lisa. I have installed localwp, and now I just have to get a zip of my database SQL file, and also my WP Content folder from Ionos. Then I can import my existing site. Once I do that, do I click onto the WP Admin button within localwp, and go about the steps below….

So, are these the correct steps?

01: Import my current site into localwp (it currently has the Astra theme).

02: Click the WP Admin button to go to the WordPress dashboard.

03: Install my new theme over the top of the Astra theme.

04: Then go through and add my content back, with the new theme.

I got confused on that last part, as a friend said I should be able to pull the content from my site, and it show up within the new theme, but when I installed the new theme over the top of my last one, it wiped all my content, and the theme came with whatever content it had. Basically just placeholder tabs, with info about music artists etc. So, I could see what my content would look like within that theme, but does that mean I would have to go page by page, inputting my content back in? That’s not an issue of course, I’m just checking before I do it.

And I think I have 200GB limit to uploading media, that should suffice (it’s mainly mp3 files, so shouldn’t take up a lot of space, even with about 16 albums worth give or take.

Thanks for your time, it’s much appreciated. I was getting to grips with Visual Composer, and was starting to get used to the workflow, and regularly updated the site myself, but I badly needed a refresh and update it, and don’t want to have to wait for my friend (who originally done the site), to be available when I need something added/updated, so, here I am haha.

for guidance about localwp.com – best to contact the support team most familiar. https://localwp.com/help-docs/ (you might find a plugin like All in One Migration to be helpful to make a copy of your files and database to put into localwp.com)

for guidance about limits to file upload total size available/allowed, it’s best to contact the hosting support for your website

if the theme you are planning to use adds placeholder stuff that you find interferes with you testing your own content in the theme — ask the theme’s support team about disabling / removing the placeholder stuff.

you might find that there’s stuff leftover from the old page builder (visual composer) that might need to be removed / cleaned up as you start with a new page builder (elementor). I am not sure if there is an quick process available to clean up (I use native WordPress blocks instead of page builders) – ask Elementor’s support team for ideas about your plan to start using Elementor plugin after using another page builder.