Updating 2013 Site Built with Custom Theme, Modify Existing Theme, Create New Custom Theme, Or Use Child Theme?

[Kingalan1]

Our website was designed in 2013 using a custom theme. Some of the plugins are built from scratch.

Ranking in our industry is hyper competitive. We are seeking a better interface and also to improve ranking.

I have read that custom themes use lighter code and can rank better. Does this apply to a custom theme from 2013? Will we have an SEO advantage using a custom theme? If so, will that advantage be significant?

We are using a discontinued plugin called "Firestorm" to display real estate listings. That plugin has been customized. Can we use that plugin on a new "custom" theme? How about on a "child" theme? In terms of the cost of future maintenance, will a "custom" theme require much more intervention (manual installation of updates) moving forward?

Which of the following options is best:

1. Adapt our existing custom theme
2. Create a new custom theme
3. Create a child theme

Thanks, 
Alan

[Kingalan1]

The 3rd paragraph of your answer, which refers to "lighter code", are your referring to a custom theme or can a child them have light code as well?

[Kingalan1]

Hi Redsweater:

Thanks for this informative and detailed response!!

In fact, I am not a WP developer, I am a client, and not too technical, unfortunately. From what you are saying it is absolutely clear that I start from scratch. That my choice is between a child theme and a custom theme. But I apologize but I don't quite understand the difference between the two.

How does child them differ form say a real estate theme that I purchase and customize? Something like this for example: http://main.wpestatetheme.org/homepage?

I understand that the child theme receives Wordpress updates and requires less maintenance with a the trade being that the code is less efficient?

But if I understand correctly, a child theme would be an improvement over our current 2013 site but a custom site would be the  best but most costly option. If I understand this correctly, how much more labor (cost) is the development of a child site (2x,3x)? Also, how much maintenance would it require every 18 months?

Also, my existing developer has customized several plugins. So this is a no, no and increases maintenance costs in the long run?

Thanks,
Alan

[Mobilio]

Well... i have two news for you. First - good one... theme is good looks fantastic.

Now bad news - i look it on mobile phone and you can see result in attached file. Yes - i have iPhone SE because i love it's form-factor.

I'm so sorry but it's year of 2018 and everyone today works with smartphone. Probably something custom should works perfect for you. Because it's 2018 and there is also AMP that you should check that too:
https://moz.com/blog/amp-digital-marketing-2018

NlC9VVk

[Mobilio]

I totally agree on everything you said.

[WebElaine]

Optimizing the current custom theme is likely to cost you more time and money than having someone develop a brand new theme for you, and it is also likely that you'll end up with a better end result starting from scratch than you would trying to retrofit an old theme. The reason is simple - trying to identify all the moving parts and adapt little pieces takes longer than just identifying clearly what functionality is needed and coding it with current standards. I've been through this process several times myself (like Alan, I'm a longtime WP developer) and every time significant changes were needed, starting from scratch was easier, faster, and less expensive for the client.

If money is not an issue, coding a custom theme and maintaining it over time is the best way to ensure that your overall, sitewide HTML, JS, CSS are as SEO-friendly as possible - for the reason Alan mentioned, which is that you can output only the code that your particular site needs. Standards change over time, as does browser support. HTML generally stays pretty backwards-compatible, but JS in particular is notorious for eventually not working. With a 2013 theme I'd suspect you may not be using HTML5, which in itself is a big improvement to making your data more structured.

Lighterweight code is good for human visitors as well as spiders. Humans have limited patience, so if your site is loading slowly, they'll tend to get frustrated and leave. It's good for spiders, too, because with much less code there's much less to have to analyze on the page - they can mostly go straight to your content and interpret it, rather than loading this and that JS file, divs nested 5 layers deep, that sort of thing. You can also build in a competitive edge if you use a custom theme because you know exactly what type of Schema.org markup would apply best to your content. For real estate listings in particular, I'd expect many in your industry to be using prebuilt themes. If you can show the same type of data but in a structured way - to make it super easy for Google to determine "Oh, this is a realty listing; here's the list price, here's the square footage, here's the address" - you have an edge over your competition.

On the other hand, this is a lot of custom code. If you do not have the money to have a developer continually update - at a minimum, I'd say every 18 months you'll want to have someone dive deep into the code and make updates based on WP Core's updates, along with HTML, CSS, and JS improvements that have become possible over that timeframe - if you can't afford that, then you should go with a child theme.

The child theme gives you the benefit of a code base that will be continually updated, while still allowing your site to look and feel different than all the other sites who are using that same parent theme. So it's basically the low-budget alternative. Do note that since your plugins have been customized, you really need to have a developer set up a new site from scratch, use non-customized plugins, and do the custom work in the child theme. That way you will not be sitting on a time bomb. Customized plugins are a problem because you then no longer receive security updates, and it makes your site much more vulnerable to attack.

I would say that the child theme approach is better than trying to adapt your current custom theme, because your codebase will be more up-to-date than if you just do a huge redesign every 5 years. But as for pure SEO value, nothing will beat a well-coded custom theme. In my experience, updating the codebase does make a tangible ranking difference. This is because spiders reward site updates (even the code behind the content is recognized and seen as an update) as it shows you are continuing to invest effort into your site; they'll be better able to understand the structure of your content as you use more up-to-date coding practices; and usually, updating means a better user experience, faster loading times, and better mobile friendliness, each of which is a ranking factor.

[Kingalan1]

If I understand correctly, you are saying that a Wordpress Child theme is going to have too much extra code due to all the unused features. Implication being to enhance the performance I will need to create a custom theme? Sorry I am non-technical, do I have this right?

Currently I have a custom theme (www.nyc-officespace-leader.com). I am thinking a replacing this with a theme like https://themeforest.net/item/real-homes-wordpress-real-estate-theme/5373914
I like the features in this theme but don't want to shoot myself in the foot by purchasing low quality code that is guaranteed to rank poorly.

The sort of modifications that you suggest, can those be done to the Child theme or can they only be done with a customized theme?

The sort of changes you are suggesting, do they make a tangible difference for ranking?

Thanks, 
Alan

[Mobilio]

I think that you're talking about WordPress, right? So it's tuff situation and i'm in same. So i will explain what i'm doing now, but note that this is because i'm dev and i have experience with WP like 10+ years.

So i have site (link in profile) that it's built using one purchased WP theme and works good. Built in 2012 because previous version was on .html files so maintaining become too time consuming. So i get theme and built site. Still works, but i was seeing in process of building site that something isn't right.

First - theme didn't seeing all items correctly as in demo due some issue with pages and posts. Second we're using "tab" interface with all pros and cons. Thirds - theme uses too much CSS/JS code. After month we was found how to make content for all sections. After another month one of plugins broke all site due JS malfunction code and tab interface didn't works at all for month or two. So site went in optimization process and now works much faster than before in 2014.

But it's 2018 and this isn't enough. That's why i start making brand new theme for that site with few goals:

1. CSS code less than 30k. I found that on site i was use between 5% or 10% of all CSS code. So mine next goal is less than 30k.
2. Optimization with CSS delivery. ATF CSS code will be inlined into , rest of code will be put in bottom of HTML. Just to not count as "render blocker".
3. Minimal JS. I have custom JS code for menu (1k) and will use gallery code as Photoswipe. And CSS slider, yes i'm not kidding. But that's not all - using custom PHP code that extra codes will be included just on pages where they're needed. I.e. there will be not gallery on homepage or 'contact us' so that code will be not included into that pages.
4. Remove most of plugins. Most of them make situation from bad to worse. I wish to live with no more than 5 plugins from reputable authors.
5. Fixing WP to generate small and clean code where is possible. Have you seen your head section? That's what i'm talking about - "Less is more!"
6. Testing "statification" of site. I'm not posting each week, there are no valuable comments. Honestly for 6 years i didn't have not received even single comment in posts that isn't spam. If i can turn page into static one then i can solve hosting issues (i don't have it!) by using one of those serverless hostings.

So as you can see this will solve all mine issues for next 5 years.

For you it will be good if you can start make changes with child themes, but in long term probably custom one will be suitable. I found that many themes comes with 999 features but in real life situation people used just few of them.

I hope that this give you rough idea of situation.