How to Add Custom CSS to Your WordPress Site: A Step-by-Step Guide

When you get your WordPress site customised, you create a unique online presence that shows your brand’s personality. Themes are used to get the basic styling, but if you use CSS, you can make tiny tweaks in your themes without changing them completely.

You can change the colour, fonts, spacing, and many other things just by using some lines of code while not altering anything in the theme files. In this guide, you’ll learn about the step-by-step procedure that will help you know the easiest way to add custom CSS to your WordPress site.

What is CSS?

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet. It is a type of stylesheet language used to format a site or describe its presentation, which is written in HTML or XML. With CSS, you can change the background colours, text colours, fonts, margin and many other things that affect the appearance of your WordPress theme. Using CSS, you can fine-tune your website’s appearance and make it look as you want.

Steps to Add Custom CSS to Your WordPress Site

Suppose you have a parent theme applied to your website and you want to make slight changes to it without changing the theme, then follow these steps:

Step 1: Use the WordPress Customizer

You can do this by simply logging in to your WordPress dashboard and then clicking on Appearance > Customize. You would get an option called “Additional CSS”, which is usually found at the bottom of the customiser sidebar. Next, you need to paste the custom CSS code into the text box that appears. Preview the changes in the window on the right side of the screen; then, you can click on “Save & Publish” to apply the changes on your website.

Step 2: Add CSS via a Child Theme

You can use a child theme to save your changes to the website without changing the main theme. A child theme is a type of sub-theme that shows all the features, functionality, and elements used to design the parent theme. However, to add CSS, you need to go to the style.css file in that child theme and insert the custom code there.

Following this method is easy because it is flexible and offers developers and advanced users easy control over the themes. It is a good method to use if you are working with niche themes like a personal trainer WordPress theme that would need some personalisation to make your website better.

Step 3: Use a Plugin for CSS Changes

If you are not comfortable with the idea of editing theme files, then you should try using a plugin. These offer a user-friendly interface that helps you to add and manage your custom styles. To do this, you need to install and activate a plugin first (WPCode or Simple Custom CSS). Then, you need to have access to the Plugin by going to the menu and then to settings. Add your custom CSS code into the text area and then save your changes. Your new format will be updated on your website soon.

Step 4: Test and Inspect Your CSS

Remember that after adding your CSS, you need to test how it looks on your devices. Do not rely on the preview you see when saving changes. Use browser developer tools that are helpful in identifying the elements in real-time.

Also, clear your site’s cache so that you can ensure that the latest styles are applied well to your site. Make sure that every device shows the same changes that you want, and it should match across all the different screen sizes without any error.

Conclusion

Now that you know how to create a custom CSS for your WordPress and personalise it even more without changing the core theme files, you can customise your website easily. You have the option to play with it and try out different styles to enrich your skill of customising CSS. If you are trying to build a unique look for your personal trainer WordPress theme, then you can go for custom CSS. Using custom CSS will give you the creative freedom to stand out in your experience and customise your website just as you like.