Shitting my Pants Changing WP Theme

Hi guys! I've never changed a theme of an existing blog before. I really want to switch to Generate Press, it is so much better and well optimized. I am scared shitless though since I've heard of horror stories with people changing their themes. I really don't want to shoot myself in the foot and lose my rankings. The new theme is a lot better imo and of course the URL structure remains exactly the same.

What else can I look out for, any recommended checks I should perform to ensure the best possible outcome?

Is there a service / company that specializes in something like this?

Any common pitfalls I should be aware of?

Thanks!

Obviously your html markup will be diferent with the new theme so my suggestion is to create a duplicated live website with genearatepress theme and compare it with your live website. Make sure you keep headings (h2,h3..) structure the same everywhere: homepage, archives (category,author,blog,taxonomies)
Check your image alts and titles.Check your navigation, related articles, sidebar-footer widgets.Basically anything that can be controlled by your old theme and not via plugins should be preferably recreated.Plugins stuff like schema markup, breadcrumbs for example added via Yoast or Rank Math will most likely continue functioning exactly the same with the new theme, or maybe it wont, thats why you want to check all this dynamic parts of the website.

dragonnet said:

Obviously your html markup will be diferent with the new theme so my suggestion is to create a duplicated live website with genearatepress theme and compare it with your live website. Make sure you keep headings (h2,h3) structure the same everywhere: homepage, archives (category,author,blog,taxonomies)
Check your image alts and titles.Check your navigation, related articles, sidebar-footer widgets, anything that can be controlled by your old theme and not via plugins, because plugins stuff will most likelt continue functioning exactly the same.

Click to expand...

I have the new design in a staging area, all headings are the same, as well as image alt tags and titles, navigation is also the same, as well as widgets, related posts and all of the stuff that is visible on page. Other plugin level stuff just carries over. Any other checks you recommend? Have you done this before without running into any major issues? thanks

I have done website redesigns before plenty of times, you shouldnt worry too much about it, i have never experienced some drastic serp changes after changing the theme because i always make sure to keep the most important parts of the website the same.One thing is certain, that if your website with the new theme is now faster and more reliable in terms of layout stability and response time it will benefit the serp position.

You can install Query Monitor plugin to test if there are any theme/database/plugins bottlenecks or errors on the site.

Also you can use something like Sreaming Frog to audit your website internal links and stuff in order to later compare it with the new theme installed.