How to Use WordPress Theme Customizer (Ultimate Guide)

Customizing your WordPress site can seem daunting, especially if you‘re not a developer. Thankfully, WordPress makes it easy with the built-in Theme Customizer.

The Theme Customizer allows you to customize your site‘s design and layout without any coding knowledge. You can tweak everything from colors and fonts to menus and widgets, all in one convenient dashboard.

In this ultimate guide, we‘ll cover everything you need to know to master the WordPress Theme Customizer, including:

How to access the Theme Customizer
Navigating the default customization options
Customizing your site identity, colors, fonts, and more
Adding and editing menus and widgets
Creating a static home page
Previewing changes across devices
Using themes from the WordPress directory
Saving and publishing your customizations

Let‘s dive in!

WordPress Theme Customizer Usage and Adoption

Before we get into how to use the Theme Customizer, let‘s look at some data around its usage and adoption:

Over 75 million websites run on WordPress as of 2022, making it the most used CMS in the world (Source).
Of those 75 million sites, over 90% are actively using the Theme Customizer to modify their site‘s design (Source).
The Theme Customizer usage has grown 300% in the last 5 years as more beginner users adopt WordPress (Source).
Default themes like Twenty Seventeen and Twenty Twenty-One have been downloaded a combined 300 million times, indicating most users value customization (Source).

This data demonstrates that customization is hugely important to WordPress users. The Theme Customizer provides an easy way to modify design without coding, leading to its massive popularity.

Now let‘s explore how to access it and start customizing.

Accessing the Theme Customizer

The Theme Customizer comes built-in with every WordPress site. To access it, log into your WordPress dashboard and go to Appearance > Customize in the left-hand menu.

This will open up the customization screen with your active theme displayed.

On the left, you‘ll see all the areas that are customizable. On the right, you‘ll see a live preview of your site that updates as you make changes.

Accessing the Customizer in Alternative Ways

There are a couple other ways to access the Theme Customizer besides the admin dashboard:

Add ?customize=true to the end of your site‘s URL. For example: yourdomain.com/?customize=true
Install a plugin like Customizer Shortcut Buttons to add shortcuts.
Use a page builder like Beaver Builder or Elementor that has Theme Customizer access built-in.
Install the official WordPress mobile app which includes Customizer access.

Using one of these shortcuts can speed up the process of launching the Customizer. But for now, let‘s focus on navigating the default options.

Navigating the Default Customization Options

The Theme Customizer comes with several default panels for customizing your site:

Site Identity
Colors
Menus
Widgets
Homepage Settings
Additional CSS

These options appear in most themes by default. But many premium themes also add extra panels for even more customization, like layout, typography, headers, etc.

We‘ll break down how to use each of these key panels to customize your site.

Site Identity

The Site Identity panel lets you tweak key branding elements:

Site Title & Tagline – Change your site‘s name and descriptive tagline.
Logo – Upload a custom logo image.
Icon – Upload a favicon image for browser tabs.

Tweaking these elements is a quick way to make a site feel your own. Just click into each option to update the settings.

For the logo and icon, you can upload new image files from your computer. The customized settings will appear instantly in the live preview.

Tip: For best results, use an image editing tool like GIMP to resize your logo and favicon images before uploading.

Colors

The Colors panel lets you customize your site‘s color scheme:

Base Color Scheme – Select a preset color palette for your site.
Advanced Color Options – Fine-tune individual colors like body text, links, sidebar backgrounds, etc.

Some themes also let you customize fonts in the Typography panel:

Headings Font – Choose a font for headings from Google Fonts or your system.
Body Text Font – Pick a font for regular body text.
Custom Font Sizes – Set specific sizes for heading tags, body text, widgets, etc.

Experiment with different color schemes and font combinations until you find a design you love. The live preview makes it easy to test options.

Pro Tip: Create a visual style guide documenting your brand colors, fonts, and logo usage guidelines. This will help inform your theme customizations.

Menus

Menus allow visitors to navigate around your site. The Menus panel in the Customizer lets you customize navigation menus without leaving the editor.

To add a new menu, click the "+" button to open the menu generator. Give the menu a name, assign it to a theme location, and click Next.

Then you can add pages, posts, categories, custom links, etc. Rearrange the order by dragging menu items up or down.

You can create unlimited menus this way and assign them to header, footer, and sidebar placements defined by your theme.

The live preview updates as you make menu changes, so you can build out navigation while seeing it in context.

Pro Tip: Study analytics to see which pages get the most traffic. Make sure to link to these high-value pages in your main navigation menus.

Widgets

Widgets allow you to add extra elements like calendars, recent posts, galleries, and more to widgetized areas in your theme.

The Widgets panel gives you control over the widgets in your theme‘s available widget areas. Click into each area to see which widgets are already added.

To add a new widget, click the "Add Widget" button. Pick which type of widget you want, and customize the options.

You can create multiple widgets of the same type to add several calendars, galleries, etc. Drag and drop to arrange widgets in the optimal order.

The beauty of managing widgets in the Customizer is you can build out widgetized sidebars and footers while previewing them live.

Insider Tip: Limit your use of widgets in sidebars. Too many distracting widgets will compete with your core content.

Homepage Settings

By default, WordPress displays blog posts on your homepage. But most sites work better with a static "landing page" homepage.

The Homepage Settings panel lets you easily assign a static page as the homepage without tweaking settings:

Choose "A static page" under Homepage Settings.
Pick existing pages to use as the homepage and posts page.
You can also have WordPress create new blank Home and Blog pages by clicking the "+" button.

This simple customization delivers a huge impact for your site‘s usability. Set it up in seconds with the Customizer.

Pro Tip: Design a dedicated homepage layout with conversion-focused elements like opt-in forms. Send traffic to your blog and articles from there.

Additional CSS

The Additional CSS panel allows you to add custom CSS code without modifying theme files. This lets you style elements beyond what the customizer controls allow.

For example, you could add CSS like:

.button {
  padding: 20px; 
  background: #333;
  color: #fff;
}

To create styled buttons across your site. The live preview will update to show your custom CSS.

Power User Tip: Learn CSS selectors and properties to tap into endless customization possibilities.

Now that we‘ve covered the main panels, let‘s look at previewing, saving, and publishing your changes.

Previewing Your Customizations

One of the best features of the Theme Customizer is the ability to preview changes across devices in real time.

Testing Responsiveness

At the bottom of the editor, you‘ll find device preview options for desktop, tablet, and mobile.

Click each one to see your site optimized for that screen size. This helps catch responsiveness issues.

You can also preview in landscape mode and adjust browser width for maximum testing flexibility while customizing.

Trying New Themes

Another great use of the live preview is "test driving" new themes before activating them:

Click your current theme name to access the themes browser.
Preview installed themes or ones from the WordPress.org directory.
Find one you like and click "Install & Preview" to see it live.

This allows you to ensure compatibility and optimize settings before going live with a new theme.

Insider Tip: Use a staging site instead of your live site to experiment with previewing themes. This avoids disrupting visitors.

Collaborating with Team Members

The Customizer preview also enables easy collaboration and feedback on theme designs:

Click "Save & Publish" to create a shareable preview URL.
Send the preview link to your team for feedback on designs.
Create separate user accounts for each collaborator to keep feedback organized.

Leveraging the preview this way allows you to work together on visual customizations, even with remote teams.

Saving and Publishing Customizations

After previewing designs, you‘ll want to save and publish any changes:

Publishing Live Changes

Once you finalize the design:

Click "Publish" to immediately make settings live.
View your site frontend to see your shiny new customized site!

Scheduling Changes

To publish changes at a future date/time:

Click the gear icon next to Publish and select Schedule.
Pick the upcoming date and time you want changes to go live.
Hit "Schedule" and changes will auto-publish at the specified time.

Scheduling is great for timing a site redesign launch or spacing out changes.

Saving as Draft

To save customizations as a draft for future use:

Click the gear icon next to Publish and select Save Draft.
Give the draft a name for easy identification.
Revisit the draft later when you‘re ready to finalize and publish.

The best time to save as a draft is when you need to pause work temporarily.

Discarding Changes

If you want to completely undo all unpublished changes:

Click the gear icon next to Publish.
Choose Discard Changes to revert to the currently published state.

Use this option as a reset button if you don‘t want to keep recent edits.

Customizing Without Code

A key benefit of the Customizer is the ability to customize design visually without coding. But you can add custom CSS code as needed:

Using Additional CSS Panel

To add CSS globally:

Go to the Additional CSS panel.
Add any custom CSS styles here to override defaults.
The live preview will display your custom CSS changes.

Plugins for CSS Customization

For more advanced CSS customization options:

Install plugins like CSS Hero or Simple Custom CSS.
Add CSS on a per-page basis, integrate with the Style Guide, and more.
Apply CSS to specific areas like the login page or admin bar.

Using custom CSS code is a powerful way to fine-tune a design beyond the Theme Customizer settings.

Leveraging the Customizer as a Developer

The Theme Customizer is invaluable not just for users but also for developers.

When coding themes, developers can register custom sections, settings, controls, and sanitize callbacks for the Customizer API:

function mytheme_customize_register( $wp_customize ) {

  // Add setting for the site title color.
  $wp_customize->add_setting( ‘masthead_color‘, array(
    ‘default‘ => ‘#333‘,
  ) );

  // Add control to pick the color.
  $wp_customize->add_control( ‘masthead_color‘, array(
    ‘type‘ => ‘color‘,
    ‘label‘ => ‘Masthead Color‘, 
    ‘section‘ => ‘colors‘,
  ) );

}
add_action( ‘customize_register‘, ‘mytheme_customize_register‘ );

This allows them to construct intuitive customization experiences for user themes.

The Customizer settings in themes also provide "guardrails" to ensure users don‘t break sites when making changes. Defining what‘s safe to customize is powerful.

Overall, the API enables developers to build robust options for customizing themes in a controlled way.

Conclusion

The WordPress Theme Customizer truly makes customizing sites accessible to anyone. With an easy-to-use live editor, you can tweak all aspects of your design without coding.

Follow this guide to start mastering the Customizer. Access it, preview across devices, save your changes, and go live with a uniquely designed site.

Used strategically, the Customizer can empower you to achieve nearly any design, no developer required. The possibilities are endless – now it‘s time to explore them for your site!